Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This "Wet-Stop3 Pink Bedwetting Enuresis Alarm with Loud Sound and Strong Vibration for Bedwetters" has been an excellent option for helping my five-year-old daughter stop wetting the bed at night. Although she has been 90% potty trained since she was 3 years old, we have had to keep her in pull-ups because she sleeps so deeply that she cannot wake herself to use the bathroom at night. This alarm has almost entirely alleviated that problem after only one month of nightly use because the loud alarm and substantial vibration has essentially trained her to sleep more lightly and respond to stimuli, including the "urge to pee" at night. Before this product, she was wetting her pull up every night. By the second week of use of this alarm, she went an entire week (6 consecutive nights) without a single accident. Thereafter, she has had an accident every 4-7 nights, but this is a huge improvement and the frequency of accidents has continued to slow. I am fairly confident that with another few weeks of use, she will be able to sleep without the alarm or a pull up and able to wake herself when she needs to pee. There are mixed reviews of this product (and others like it), but after using it, I wanted to share a few secrets that I suspect account for the widely varying comments about whether these alarms are effective. I am almost positive that most negative reviews come from parents who did not follow through with consistent, disciplined use of this alarm. That's because, initially at least, it can be exhausting. Because of hearing safety standards, the audible alarm has to be limited to a permissible decibel level that some people consider too quiet. Frankly, this alarm is plenty loud, but you do need to leave your child's door and your door open at night (hopefully, your bedroom is in close proximity to your child's, as our is) so that you can hear the alarm. When the alarm goes off, the parent MUST go to the child immediately and EVEN IF AN ACCIDENT HAS ALREADY OCCURRED (whether a minor dribble or a full emptying of the child's bladder), MUST IMMEDIATELY MAKE THE CHILD WAKE UP AND WALK TO THE POTTY, AND THEN SIT ON THE POTTY. This is how you "train" the child to wake him/herself and take appropriate action. If you simply change the bedding/clothes and/or carry the child to the potty instead of making your child respond appropriate for his/herself, you will not be reinforcing the proper "lesson." The whole point is that your child needs to learn to wake up. Over time, if you stick with this routine for several nights, your child will actually begin to anticipate the alarm and wake up BEFORE an accident; that is how his/her body learns the "feeling" of the "urge to pee" and habituates itself to wake and use the bathroom. This is critically important, and I'm guessing that many parents are mis-using this product by, instead, silencing the alarm, cleaning up the mess, and never really addressing the child's behavior (or perhaps not even making sure the child wakes fully). Second, you must make a big deal out of each night's successes, whether the child has an accident or not. The unit comes with a star chart that marks the child's success each evening. In the morning, a silver star means there was an accident (but still complement your child for wearing the alarm and waking up to use the potty!), and a gold star means there was no accident. If you engage in the routine of putting up a star each morning, it mentally reinforces the fact that you and your child are working together to develop a skill (waking to pee at night) that he/she can be proud of. Don't shortchange this or it will be easy for your child (and you) to start to see the alarm as an undesirable chore that you occasionally "skip" using because you don't like the hassle. (Believe me, you will lose some sleep at first--kind of like having a new baby in the house--but stick with it!) Third, you must ALWAYS use the alarm when the child sleeps. Do NOT allow "naps" without the alarm if your child is prone to having accidents during a nap. Our rule was that EVERY TIME OUR DAUGHTER SLEEPS, whether for a nap or for the night, she wears the alarm. That way, the body is being trained consistently to respond to the stimulus of the alarm and, eventually, to recognize the bodily feeling that PRECEDES the need to pee (setting off the alarm). Fourth, you must make sure to position the wetness sensor in the deepest, central part of the pull-up/underwear. This is probably easier with girls than boys since the pee comes out in a predictable and consistent place for girls, but can change for boys depending on the position of their, um, "equipment." The sensor only detects moisture within about 1" diameter, and I would guess that careless placement of the sensor is the main reason for reports that this sensor "failed to go off." We found that, if we placed it carefully in the lowest part of the pull-up, it worked very reliably; however, a few times, my wife got up in the night to help our daughter go pee and, when she reattached the sensor, she placed it a little too high up (nearer the belly button). Predictably, in the morning, that often resulted in my daughter having a wet pull up that did not trigger the alarm. Fifth, you must not yell at or otherwise show frustration/anger to your child on the (potentially many) nights when he/she wakes up with an accident and seeks your help. If your child expects you to be angry, it's pretty much a guarantee that he/she will instead learn to silence the alarm his/herself and go back to sleep. Who wants to go face an angry mommy or daddy in the middle of the night while they're sleepy? So keep it positive and THANK your child for waking you for help, or tell him/her it's okay when he/she has an accident because you are PROUD of him/her for wearing the alarm and "being a good sport about it." We told that to our daughter a lot, and she came to see it as a positive experience, even though many nights she has woken up crying because the abruptness of the alarm and vibration scared/startled her. (It is a rude awakening, but that's the point--and that's exactly why your child's body WILL learn to anticipate and correct the problem BEFORE accidents occur.) If you follow those tips and stick to the plan diligently, I suspect your experience will be as positive as ours has been. In retrospect, I'm so glad we didn't spend considerably more on a higher priced bedwetting alarm. I don't think spending more would have gotten us a more reliable unit (this one has been great). My belief is that the efficacy of the alarm really depends on how well the parents manage the experience and follow through on the disciplined habits they're trying to instill. I'll try to report back here after another month to let you know how our experience wraps up, but we're already delighted by how effective this product has been in eliminating over 80% of the nightly accidents our daughter was having. And it has been good for her self-esteem too. [UPDATE 9-19-2017: I'm not sure why my previous update disappeared, but I wanted to note that, after four weeks of increasing success using this product, our daughter started to "back slide" into having accidents again as she grew accustomed (i.e. less responsive) to the alarm. Nevertheless, we stuck with it and just got more proactive about making her stand up and ensuring she was awake before walking her to the potty after an accident. After about 3 weeks of sporadic accidents, she was almost 100% potty trained and no more accidents. The only limitation now seems to be the size of her bladder, but as long as we put her on the potty right before she falls asleep, she now sleeps through the night regularly without accidents. In short, this product was a success. It definitely made a difference, and the only challenge involved in using it, I believe, is sticking with the routine in a disciplined way until you adequately habituate/train your child's body to the feeling of the urge to pee, and to wake themselves before they have an accident.]