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Email a friendQ. My granddaughter is 10 years old and she still wears diapers to bed every night. Can you give me some advice on how we can get her up to go to the bathroom? I remember years ago discussion of an electrical device that sounded an alarm to wake the child. Do they still exist? Is this a good idea?
A. If there is no underlying medical problem, a bedwetting alarm is a good treatment. At first the alarm may wake everyone in the house except the sleeping bed-wetter. Waking the child and getting her to the bathroom to finish urinating should address the problem within a month or two. Devices such as SleepDry or Wet-Stop2 cost $50 to $75.
I wet the bed up until I was 12 years old. My parents didn't seem to think anything of it, and one day, it just stopped happening. I never got an "official" diagnosis; it may just be that she hasn't "out grown" it yet.
My son had this problem. He also snored. One night I noticed an odd pattern to his snoring and wondered if he had sleep apnea. I asked our physician who sent us to an ENT. He had the tonsils and adnoids removed. The ENT said the adnoids were huge!
From that night on, he has NEVER wet the bed.