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Bedwetting alarm against bedwetting

The bedwetting alarm method is a scientifically proven solution against bedwetting

The bedwetting alarm method is a scientifically proven solution to address bedwetting, also referred to as enuresis nocturna. With this method your child puts on special sensor pants that are (possibly wirelessly) connected to an alarm. The alarm may be a vibration pad or a normal alarm. As soon as the pants become wet, the alarm goes off, this wakes your child and teaches him/her to recognize the feeling of a full bladder.

How does a bedwetting alarm work against bedwetting?

Once you have purchased and received a bedwetting alarm, you can unpack and install it together with your child. It is especially important that you e xplain to your child how it works and what exactly it is meant to do. If you want to start the training, we recommend that use the first night to practice putting on and taking off the shorts, attaching the transmitter and switching on and off the alarm. In addition, the following aspects are particularly important when using the bedwetting alarm method:

  • When the alarm goes off, go to your child’s bedroom, and turn on the light. It is important that your child is well awake and turns off the alarm and goes to the bathroom. If your child is doing this correctly, you should also encourage him/her at that time and repeat this again the next day. This positive approach provides extra motivation for the child.
  • If it takes more than two minutes for your child to turn the alarm off, gently wake your child. Your child is still supposed to go to the bathroom on their own, making it important that you do not encourage your child. You only reward the right behavior and that is waking up and acting independently.
  • If your child wakes up from the alarm, it is a successful night.
  • If it fails once and succeeds once, it still counts as a successful night. Only later in the training, when your child is almost completely dry, can you assume that he/she always wakes up independently when the alarm goes off.

The advantage of the bedwetting alarm method against bedwetting is that your child can drink as much as he/she wants. When the bladder is full, it works well to practice waking up and going to the bathroom.

Wake-up training

Is your child a bit older and highly motivated by now? Then you can choose to use the wake-up training against bedwetting. The wake-up training uses the bedwetting alarm in combination with a calendar and rewards.

If the alarm goes off and your child goes to the bathroom themselves within two minutes, he/she will receive a reward that you as a parent believes is appropriate. If the alarm does not go off at all and your child does not wet the bed, you reward them with a little extra.

Explaining the bedwetting alarm method is very important!

If you want to use the bedwetting alarm method and you have installed the bedwetting alarm, it is particularly important that you explain to your child exactly what the purpose is. The best way to explain this is as follows:

“This bedwetting alarm is going to help you get dry. When the pants get wet, the alarm will go off to warn you to stop peeing. So when you are sleeping later and the alarm goes off (or the vibrating pad vibrates), you know that you are peeing. Then turn off the alarm, take off your pants and continue peeing on the toilet.

Then go back to bed, put on dry pants, put the alarm back on and go back to sleep. If you do that, you will get a reward. You can also wake me up so I can give the reward to you. If the alarm clock did not go off once during the night, then you woke up by yourself to go to the bathroom or managed to hold it in. In that case you get something extra in the morning.”

How long does the bedwetting alarm method take?

After a few weeks, sometimes even earlier, your child will wake up by him or herself when his or her bladder is full. Your child will wake up less and less often from the alarm, and will wake up more and more naturally. It is important that you reward your child on a dry night without the alarm going off. Eventually, most children stop peeing and sleep all night long. The average turnaround time varies per bedwetting alarm but is between 6 to 16 weeks.

If your child has remained dry for two weeks in a row, you may stop using the bedwetting alarm. Make sure you keep the bedwetting alarm for a while so you can use it again in case of a setback. Don’t be disappointed if your child still wets the bed (or does so again), your child is doing his/her best to become potty-trained, so stay positive.

Where do I buy a bedwetting alarm?

You can buy a bedwetting alarm both online and offline. Several home care institutions or pharmacies offer these, but buying them online is just as easy. There are currently several providers of bedwetting alarms on the market as you can see on this website. The bedwetting alarm is also fully or partially reimbursed by a large part of the supplementary health insurances.

We think it is very important that we keep you up to date as much as possible. For that reason, we are very attentive to what information is shared by hospitals in the Netherlands, but also what is shared by Kenniscentrum (Knowledge Center) Bedwetting for example. In addition, we are also internationally involved in developments taking place in the field of bedwetting.