Dad here, reporting from the front lines of the anti-bedwetting campaign. Ariane had been doing bunkmate duty with Emma for the first six days, and though I had repeatedly offered to relieve her, she hung in there doggedly until I had to stage an intervention after Emma had her worst night since we started (with three changes of bedclothes). Another urgent factor behind me taking the reins was that I’m off to Colorado for a week before Ariane and the kids join me — and she’ll be flying solo every night while I’m gone.
“Take the help while you can get it,” I told her once again.
No argument this time.
The drill during the night is the same as Ariane wrote about earlier – the alarm is attached to her underwear before she falls asleep, and then at some time during the night she and I are awakened by my prerecorded voice shouting, “Emma, it’s time to go pee!” Then I groggily scramble around to her side of the bed, try to get her up and out of the bed asap to minimize the collateral damage. She gets the top sheet wet about half the time along with the blanket we put under her waterproof (not quite!) bedcover. The worst is when she wets the duvet. Lots of time in the dryer.
After the first two days on pee patrol I could really see why Ariane was so sleep deprived. It’s hard to have a decent snooze with one eye open waiting for the alarm to go off. It made me think of a fireman sleeping in his big rubber boots ready to slide down the pole when the bell starts clanging.
Bottom line, I think Emma is doing great. All three nights she got up once and then didn’t have to go again until the morning. Wake-up time is even earlier than usual – between 4-5:30AM. But she takes off the alarm by herself, goes to the bathroom (with some urging) and then lays around in bed singing until she gets hungry.
She’s a real sport about the alarm and the bathroom scramble during the night too. No complaints, no crying or tantrums, though she does get upset if we can’t get the damn alarm to stop and we both wince from hearing my voice shouting over and over. After we change her bedclothes, nightshirt and underwear, the alarm has to be reattached to her underwear and I must admit I’m still pretty klutzy with it. Sometimes it’s taken me six or seven attempts before getting it on without reactivating the alarm. Interestingly, she took it away from me last night and got it right on her very first try.
Maybe she’s a savant with this stuff. The Princess and the Pee.
