My child doesn’t wake up to their bedwetting alarm

Children often sleep through their bedwetting alarm, much to their parents’ surprise, given how loud bedwetting alarms can be! It’s important that your child wakes up when they wet the bed, to help them to learn to recognise the signal that their bladder is full (never take them to the toilet to empty their bladder whilst they are still sleeping). But, if they are a deep sleeper, how can you ensure that your child wakes up to their bedwetting alarm?

Voice Alerts

It has been shown that only 20% of children wake up to the sound of a smoke alarm. In contrast, 94% children respond to the sound of a voice telling them to wake up. This is most likely because we have to learn that an alarm sound is there to tell us to wake up, whereas evolutionarily we are programmed to respond to the sound of a familiar voice signal. Recordable alarms can therefore be particularly effective at waking children up - record your own message telling them to wake up, which will sound as soon as the alarm is activated.

Additional Stimuli

As well as sound alerts, it can be helpful to have additionally sensory stimuli to help wake your child up when they wet. All the alarms we sell have a light that flashes on activation. Choose an alarm that, as well as sound alerts, also has a vibration setting. This additional stimulus can be very helpful at waking deep sleepers. Try out the different settings on your alarm to find what combination works best for your child.

Help To Wake Them

Parents should help to wake their child up when their alarm is activated. This is especially true on the first few nights of wearing the alarm, for all children and not just deep sleepers, as it can help to reassure them and to learn what to do when the alarm sounds. If you think that you might not hear the alarm, then why not use an alarm that can sound in multiple rooms - that way, the alarm will sound in your own bedroom when your child wets so that you can go and help them straight away.

Conclusion

Bedwetting alarms have lots of different features available to ensure that even deep sleepers wake up to their bedwetting alarm. An important part of curing bedwetting is that the child wakes up when they wet, so choose the right alarm  and try out the different features to see what works best for your child.