Monday, November 1, 2010

Bedwetting and Alarms

Ricki is a bed wetter. As I have mentioned before, this has little to do with her Down syndrome, and much more to do with the tendency of everyone in the family (besides me) to sleep VERY DEEPLY.
However, the other kids (those who did bed wet) stopped fairly early (on the whole), as they had a burning desire to get beyond this. That desire seems to have been lacking in Ricki. She simply apparently had little reason to make the extra effort. (Yea, I know, I tried prizes, I make her do all the work of taking off wet sheets, etc.)
I once tried an alarm system (which worked exceptionally well with my other bed wetters), but Ricki was scared to death of the noise, and point blank refused to wear it.
Once she had a problem of wetting in the daytime as well (only when at home, out of the house she felt the need to be OK.). That has decreased to a much lower level due to a consistent withdrawal of privileges whenever she wets at home, the withdrawal giving her enough reason to “get her act together”.
It has actually always amazed me that it seems so hard for her to internalize the idea that life would be a lot easier if she would make the effort needed not to wet, not to throw papers on the floor, and not to throw stuff behind her bed. (Because in all of these cases, she is the one who has to do the cleanup eventually….)
For several years I have been taking Ricki to a doctor, who hearing from me that alarms don’t work with her, tried various medications (often prescribed for bed wetting), usually to no avail.
Finally, at our last visit to the doctor, I suggested that HE tell Ricki to use an alarm.
It worked.
She not only has agreed to use the alarm, but she requests it if I forget.

Maybe she finally got tired of waking up wet.

5 comments:

Batya said...

"lehavdil" I used "the doctor says" with my father to remind him to go to the toilet when he lived with us. I got him on a better routine which eliminated the problem.
It's interesting that you equate the wetting with sloppiness, etc.

rickismom said...

I am noy equating the bedwetting with sloppiness. I AM saying that her refusal (quite often, until a few days ago) to go to the toilet before going to bed, and her long-term refusal to throw her trash into the trash can both stem from laziness, and have NOT been altered even by the inevital fact that she will have to do the clean-up herself.

Anonymous said...

After struggling with this problem with several of my children, my doctor prescribed minirin which they took in low dosage for a short period (months) and the problem was immediately solved forever. So sorry I hadn't know about that sooner.

rickismom said...

We've tried Minirin, and later primonil. They help Ricki, but doesn't do the job completely....

Pink (AKA Lucia) said...

I am glad to hear that the alarm is working for her and that she has taken the doctor's advice to use it.