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A PARENT'S EXPERIENCE USING OOPSIE HEROES
After several years of bedwetting, we finally decided it was time to take action with our youngest son’s bedwetting issues. Toilet-training was fairly easy for Oliver, and at 2 ½ he barely had any accidents and no longer needed nappies during the day. Night time however, was a different story. We had read somewhere that up until 6 or 7 years of age, it was fairly normal for children to have accidents at night. We are now 2 months short of Oliver’s 7thBirthday.
When Oliver was 4 he no longer wanted to wear his night time pull-ups, because “they were for babies”. Not only was Oliver ashamed of having to wear nappies at night, they were not doing their job. The nappies would leak through and he often awoke completely drenched. This led Oliver to experience horrible rashes from sleeping in wet pajamas for the majority of the night. Oliver was always a very deep sleeper. No amount of wetness or noise could awake him from his deep sleep. Not even a fire alarm in the middle of the night would wake this kid up! We quickly adapted to the routine of putting Oliver on the toilet around 11pm before we went to bed. This was effective 90% of the time, but certainly no guarantee that his bed would be dry in the morning. We always knew it was not a long-term solution. We attempted a countless number of times to skip the “late night” toilet trip, but without it, his bed was always wet in the morning.
Looking back upon these events over the past 3 years, bedwetting affected many aspects of our family life. Travel and vacations became extremely difficult. One thing that we were really looking forward to before having kids was to share our love of camping with them. When Oliver was a baby this was easy, as the nappy kept him dry at night. However, for the past 3 years we have opted out of any camping trips. The idea of possibly having to do a complete bed change in the middle of the night, in a tent, where the rest of the family was sleeping completely terrified us. How to wash his sleeping bag and have it dry by the following night seemed an almost impossible task. Hotel stays and sleep-overs were also events that required careful planning.
Bedwetting is apparently very common with young children. Two close mum friends of mine also went through the same issue with their children. Hearing their stories of using special underwear with sensors just did not appeal to us. We had held on to the hope that Oliver would just grow out of it, and the bedwetting issue would simply solve itself. Unfortunately, that was not the case and after almost 3 years of sleep disturbance, and endless laundry, we finally decided it was time to get help. This is when we came across Oopsie Heroes. We immediately ordered one and started the same day we received it in the mail!
The package was small and fit easily into our mailbox. When we came home from school it was waiting for Oliver and he was super excited to get a package! He opened it and before I could even turn around he had installed the app on our tablet, with help from his older brother. I am not “tablet” savvy and was already telling Oliver that we would install it when dad came home. That was not necessary. The app is extremely easy to use, with several different alarm options. You can also choose to record your own voice to use as an alarm.
Night 1:
Oliver was very excited about his little Oopsie Heroes that his brother did not have. His older brother also thought it was super cool and helped turn on the app at bedtime. We had fun recording our own little alarms, but at the end we decided the loudest, most annoying alarm, with the hope that that might wake our deep sleeper up. Oliver attached the Oopsie Heroes to his underwear by himself. Older brother Michael asked if he could be the one to wake Oliver up in case he didn’t hear the alarm himself. It was definitely a family event!
1am-the alarm went off. To our disbelief Oliver woke up and ran to the toilet to finish. Big brother Michael also woke up and went in to tell his brother how well he did. I stripped the bed, whilst dad helped Oliver put dry pajamas on. Everyone went back to bed and the rest of the night was dry.
We were surprised the alarm actually woke Oliver up. This was our biggest fear, as usually nothing wakes him up.
Night 2:
Dad’s turn to take Oliver to bed. Again the app is so cool that even big brother Michael wants to help turn on and choose the alarm. This time we decided not to turn up the alarm so loud, with the hope that not everyone in the house could continue sleeping. Dad decided he wanted to attach the Oopsie Heroes to Oliver’s pants, however he attached it too high alongside the elastic. Oliver awoke the next morning wet and the Oopsie Heroes did not go off because it was in the wrong place.
*Tip: make sure the Oopsie Heroes is low enough and will get wet as soon as the child starts to urinate.
Night 3:
Tonight we followed the same routine. This time I made sure the sensor was in the correct place, and that the alarm was not too loud to avoid everyone waking up. I put the tablet next to his bed on the floor.
Tip: The stickers you use to attach the Oopsie Heroes can be used more than once. So no need to re-apply a new adhesive if they are still sticky. Why waste them?
2:30 am the Oopsie Heroes goes off and only Oliver and Dad wake up. Oliver ran to the toilet to finish and Dad quickly changed the bed and then helped Oliver. Mom and his big brother slept through the entire event!! Unbelievable that our deep sleeper is actually waking up from the alarm!!
For the last two weeks Oliver has been dry and woken up to go to the toilet before wetting the bed. It has been such a big relief to see his dry bed in the morning! Oliver is now looking forward to his first sleepover at his friends house. And we are really looking forward going on our first family camping trip! Especially without the worry of having to do a complete bed change in a tent during the middle of the night.
Oopsie Heroes has been a great help to our family and I will definitely recommend to friends or others dealing with night time Oopsie moments.