Bedwetting is common and 1 out of 5 5-years-olds wet the bed and 1 out of 10 ten years olds wet the bed. Using a bedwetting alarm to treat bedwetting is an effective way to treat bedwetting according to clinical data.
Sarah had tried different bedwetting alarms for her son John. The last one she bought at the chemist and it had a sensor that you clipped onto the underwear. It did not work well as it did not always go off when an accident occurred, or had a very delayed response time, which meant John emptied his whole bladder before the alarm went off. Eventually the alarm broke, which ended with both Sarah and her son being frustrated. The problem was still not solved.
Sarah had a meeting with an incontinence nurse, Caroline Walsh, and at this stage John was 7 years old, which Caroline advised is a good age to try a bedwetting alarm. Caroline recommended Sarah to have a look at various bedwetting alarms including Pjama's bedwetting alarm solutions. After the previous experience with bedwetting alarms not working as they should, Sarah wanted a simple and easy to use bedwetting alarm. Especially with 3 kids around. She chose the Pjama Bedwetting Alarm with the boxer underwear.
Sarah found it easy to start using the Pjama bedwetting alarm. She clipped on the sensor to the underwear and chose a loud alarm on the alarm unit and placed the alarm unit close to John. She downloaded the Pjama App on her phone and set the alarm for herself to be able to support John with the treatment. In the beginning of the treatment she slept in the same room as John. She found the alarm to be very loud and when John just started to wee it set off the alarm immediately. In the beginning Sarah had to help John wake up. But after a while, John woke up by himself and was able to go to the toilet to fully empty his bladder. He then changed into a dry pair of boxers. It was very easy to unclip the sensor and move it from the wet pair to the dry pair of boxers.
Sarah found the Pjama App helpful as it helped her keep track of the progress of the treatment. If she turned on Bluetooth the wee incident was automatically entered in the calendar. If she forgot to turn on Bluetooth she could enter the information manually in the morning, i.e. did John have a dry, wet or very wet night. She also logged the time John went to bed. If she did not fill in the information in the calendar she would receive a reminder to do so, and she found the reminders very helpful as it is easy to forget.
In the beginning Sarah felt a bit discouraged as John was wet for 7 nights straight. She didn't make a big deal out of it and kept going using the alarm. John started to have 1-2 dry nights and then went back to 7 consecutive wet nights. But after 2-3 times of this repeated pattern, the number of wet nights started to decrease to 3-4 nights in a row, followed by 2 dry nights. At that stage Sarah started to show John the progress of the treatment logged in the calendar on the Pjama App. The improvement made John feel motivated to have dry nights. At some stage in the treatment John did not have to get up at all to wee. With advice from the continence nurse they increased the liquid intake. John started to recognise that his bladder was full and that he should get up and go to the toilet before completely emptying his bladder in bed, and eventually he was waking up to go to the toilet before the alarm went off. It took about 14-16 weeks in total for John to be dry, and they used the Pjama bedwetting alarm for 20 weeks in total.
In short, Sarah found the Pjama bedwetting alarm with the boxer underwear to be simple to use, sensitive to accidents, and of good quality.
As John was treated successfully with the Pjama bedwetting alarm she attempted treatment using the same alarm for her 5 years old son. However, after showing no improvement after a few weeks they both found it too stressful and decided to stop. After consultation with the continence nurse, Sarah will wait for a year or two before trying again, in case her other son does not stop wetting before then.
