I found this bedwetting guide. What do you think about it?

[Hannah YMS]

I found this bedwetting guide method on Tumblr. It's called the Brute Force Bedwetting - A Training Guide. I found it very interesting and I've not heard this method discussed on this subforum before. I wouldn't mind your input on what you think about it.

• Does it sound reasonable?
• Have you tried this method before? If so, what were your results?
• Is there anything you disagree with in the guide?
• If you've attempted to become a bedwetter and still want to do so, is there anything in the guide that you incorporate?
• Etc.

You now have the floor, forum.

[oznl]

I totally “get” the underlying model whereby a cycle of repeating sleep/wake/wet/sleep episodes occur across the night is established and over time, the “wake” phase starts to fade.  That is pretty much exactly what my transition to bedwetting looked like.

Two minor differences in my case.

Firstly, because I’m such a crappy sleeper and when I started this 4 years ago, I was strung out on adrenaline with a killer high-stress job that it would be a very rare night where I did NOT wake repeatedly.

Secondly, the wake interval was closer to two hours, not one.

I’m no sleep scientist but that 60 minute enforced wake interval prolonged for a month looks dangerous to me.  As I understand sleep physiology (and I did research this a little, trying to understand my own insomnia), a sleep regime like this is likely to inhibit your REM sleep phase.  REM sleep doesn’t typically occur before 90 minutes or more sleep where you’re in other phases.

Whilst the exact biological imperative of REM sleep is poorly understood (or even sleep in general since it has such a high cost in terms of time and attention), it is believed to be vital for memory consolidation and general brain repair.  Google REM sleep deprivation and see what you think.

I think I prefer a two hour cycle but somebody with relevant education may chime in.

[babykeiff]

6 hours ago, jonbearab said:

I found this bedwetting guide method on Tumblr. It's called the Brute Force Bedwetting - A Training Guide. I found it very interesting and I've not heard this method discussed on this subforum before. I wouldn't mind your input on what you think about it.

• Does it sound reasonable?
• Have you tried this method before? If so, what were your results?
• Is there anything you disagree with in the guide?
• If you've attempted to become a bedwetter and still want to do so, is there anything in the guide that you incorporate?
• Etc.

You now have the floor, forum.

@jonbearab, why not post what you read on Tumblr here, so that people can read it here without having to be a Tumblr member?

[Hannah YMS]

16 minutes ago, babykeiff said:

@jonbearab, why not post what you read on Tumblr here, so that people can read it here without having to be a Tumblr member?

Copyright. I didn't want to copy the text without permission, hence the link.

[Kif]

I'll paraphrase it, then...Not just for copyright reasons, but frankly just for readability / organization alone.

===========================

They describe it in four phases, preceded by one week of preparation.

Preparation (1 week before):

• Acknowledge you will need to behave as if this is a permanent decision (standard untraining mindset)
• Get into the habit of going to bed earlier and drinking water before bedtime. Ideal is 10pm, but 11pm is acceptable; main thing is to get enough sleep (8 hrs).
• Wear the diapers you'll be using throughout, cloth is preferred. Should be comfortable wetting in them. Practice wetting lying down in bed, and experiment finding which positions are most comfortable. 
• Prepare to be brutally honest about self-reporting

Phase 1 (1 month minimum): Establishing the Base Pattern

• Goal of this phase is to awake wet every morning (due to waking up and peeing with the alarm clock); key is to train a sleep - wet - sleep pattern.
• Wake up at random, either at 1am, 2am, or 3am. You should ideally not be aware of when you'll wake up, so you should e.g. cover your alarm clock and any other clocks in the room.
• When wakened, you should pee in whichever position you were in.
• If you go back to sleep without wetting you should be "punished appropriately" (see below)
• You can end this phase when you are in the sleep - wet - sleep pattern every night.

Phase 2 (1 month minimum): Persisting the Pattern With Randomness

• Goal of this phase is to reach the same sleep - wet - sleep pattern despite sleep condition variability
• Randomly introduce variability in your sleep; use disposables instead of cloth, or try underwear, or even go nude. 
• This phase will involve lots of laundry
• You can end this phase when you have the sleep - wet - sleep pattern every night

Phase 3 (3 months / 12 weeks minimum): Remove the Alarm

• Goal of this phase is to remove the alarm and retain the same sleep - wet - sleep pattern
• Phases 1 and 2 created a condition of alarm -> wake -> wet that will have created an urge to wet between 1am and 3am
• Continue the random conditions from Phase 2 through the first 8 weeks
• Start by randomly selecting one night per week to turn off the alarm. Every two weeks, increase that count by one. 
• If four weeks in a row pass and the trainee has not wet one the alarm-off night, "don't progress the weaning" (it's unclear to me if they mean reverting back to Phase 2 or just continuing the random one-night-per-week thing)
• Track wet nights with a bedwetting calendar, spreadsheet, etc. Wet nights count if the trainee either wakes to wet, or wets in their sleep.
• Reward wet nights
• This phase can end when:
  • the trainee can wet without the alarm 50% of attempts, and
  • this continues for at least two weeks, and
  • the alarm is only active one day per week

Phase 4 (last phase, duration unspecified): Remove the Reward

• Goal of this phase is to remove rewards for wetting at night
• Progressively raise the bar on rewards every several weeks:
  • Start by only rewarding when they wet in their sleep (don't reward when they wake to wet)
  • Then, reward only when two nights in a row. Then three, etc.
• This phase can end when the trainee is wetting 75% of the time or more

On punishment / reward:

• Punishment should not cause injury, it should be "harsh as necessary to be effective"
• Rewards can be expensive / unsustainable if they are things; the author recommends sensory rewards "like please or orgasm"
• Ultimately punishment/reward is too dynamic to be specifically prescriptive; it is up to the trainee (and trainer, if there is one)

===========================

So my thoughts then:

This sounds solid, and I think there is a misinterpretation of the first phase being about waking every hour; they mean for the wake condition to be somewhat random.

What the author is doing is a standard training regimen you would e.g. use for clicker training with a pet. At first you reward every desirable behavior (and optionally punish undesired behavior). After that has been established, then you add randomness to the conditions to challenge the trainee a bit further / get closer to real conditions -- the reward is still consistent to encourage adjusting to those conditions. Finally, you start to reduce the reward until there is none.

My only complaints (more-so challenges, not actual problems) with this is:

• the use of alarms with a partner
• the laundry needs of Phases 2/3 when sharing a bed with a partner.

Ideally this could be negotiated with a couple (and if you are wearing at night / untraining...you probably already have) but it may not always be possible. 

That said, I do think simply varying your level of protection (disposable vs cloth, or thick vs thin disposable, or even just different brands of disposable...as long as its different enough to notice) is still a viable path; the point is to challenge yourself and not fall too much into a rut of only wetting when you are comfortable. I think a lot of folks here can especially identify with wetting only when in diapers and not e.g. during a nap. In fact, to that note I would add that spending some nights sleeping in different places might be a good way to introduce variability too.

And for the alarm bit, you can get vibration alarms or use a smart watch if you cannot wake your partner. But, you will still want to key them in because you stirring in the middle of the night (if you don't already do that) would still probably affect their sleep for a while.

Frankly, I wouldn't mind giving all this a solid try myself. I've been struggling to escape phase 1 because I've been trying to brute force myself into disposables (despite knowing I'm 110% comfortable in cloth). Maybe I'll give it a go after I return from CAP.

The only thing I'm not quite sure how to implement is the alarm system. I wish they would explain that a bit better, e.g. how they randomized it. I would guess you could roll a dice to see which you wake to, and then set your alarm to it...miiiight be sufficient knowing when you'll awake, since you'll probably lose track after long enough.

It's also not clear to me if during the alarm phase it should be true-random or pseudo-random. E.g., should I ensure that every night the roll is different (so you wake a different time each night) or is it okay to have several nights in the row where you wake the same time (e.g. you flip a coin and it comes up heads ten times). I would guess pseudo-random is better, but I've no idea...Unfortunately the author's account was deactivated, and the reblogger disabled replies.

[babykeiff]

@Kif thank you for paraphrasing this.

To understand this type of training one should understand Pavlov, and how he trained another (dogs) to act on a signal. This is similar in that you are being trained to wet at a specific time at night based on reward for wanted behaviour and punishment for unwanted behaviour. This will work, but it is destined to failure as the mind will find a way to defeat the training.

Habits, once formed, can be surpressed but will, in the right circumstance, repeat. This training is trying to create a new habit, but the mind will reject this in favour of the habits it knows, and the habits of the mind to stay dry at night. As a result, to wet overnight, one needs to remove the reasons one became dry overnight - i.e. cancel the reason one was toilet trained NOT try and wet by a trigger. The reward to a person that wants to wet overnight is waking up and finding that they are wet, not an act that they have to perform. Wetting by an alarm / trigger and going back to sleep defeats the self reward of waking and finding oneself wet. It also increases ones guilt level and may add to the purge cycle that a few ABDLs go through - as they try and rationalise that they are spending good money on diapers that they are deliberately wetting overnight.

If one wants to wet overnight, they should do the following:-

• Get a pacifier, and use it overnight - clip it to your pajamas etc so you don't loose it. A baby bottle of water is better if one can get one to the same scale as a baby bottle to a baby.
• Get thick cloth diapers & plastic pants, and diaper self everynight.
• Get a plastic undersheet, the more crinkly the better
• Coat the plastic undersheet in baby powder - your room should smell of it.
• Go to bed at a set time everynight in thick cloth diapers where if your diapers leak, your bed will not get ruined.
• Drink 1-2 pints of water before bed after you are diapered
  • if you wet your diaper before you fall asleep no problem.
  • if you wake up in the middle of the night and need to wet, wet the diaper without moving and go back asleep
  • if you wake up in the morning needing to pee, wet the diaper before you get up.
• Have a clean diaper ready for you every night before bed
• Before you go to sleep, tell yourself that you are a good baby and good babies use their diapers 

The idea is the remove the reason you were toilet trained overnight - and you will revert to wetting your diaper as there is no reason not to / to keep your bed dry as the diapers do that for you. The baby powder smell is to replace the baby smell of your crib / room. The plastic sheet is to protect the bed AND to remind you via sound of your crib.

From a personal perspective, I find that the Brute force Bedwetting methodology is not only flawed, in the long term is destined to fail AND can be detrimental to the sanity of those attempting it. It is almost as if the author of this methodology is attempting to drive those who want to wet overnight away from diapers and the ABDL world.

[Kif]

Anyway,

This is working really well for me so far, compared to the more-passive approach I've advocated for before. 

I'm on the second phase so far and have already been waking up pretty often without the alarm, wetting, and going to sleep, and having no memory of it. I've had to adjust the definition of success from strictly having a memory of waking from the alarm, peeing, and going back to sleep, to including simply waking up wet.

What has stood out to me has been two things (and by association, I think are the same things helping with my success):

• I'm guaranteed to wake,
• I'm challenging my fears of leaking directly

And just to be clear, I already have taken a similar approach to keiff for quite a while. I've use self-affirmation (I've written extensively on my work on self-acceptance and changing how I view myself), bulletproof protection for side-sleepers (cloth diapering), chugging water, and environmental cues/reinforcement. I don't use baby powder, but I do use lavender scents and have crib rails installed on my side of the bed. Plus tons of stuffies, my paci, and other Little-y things all within reach and a wonderful hubby that sometimes reads me bedtime stories and littles me in other ways.

But despite those things, I was still waking up in the middle of the night, managing fears of leaking, and feeling frustrated at my lack of progress. And more importantly/urgently, losing sleep.

So what has been different about introducing an alarm and reward/punishment scheme to that?

I'm guaranteed to wake:

I've already noted that e.g. practicing wetting in bed during waking hours helps considerably with learning the mechanics of wetting while laying down. However, guaranteeing I'll be waking no-matter-what has done three things:

1. given me more practice guaranteed
2. extended that practice to include the half-awake mental states
3. forced me to become more efficient at it

The last point has been especially pertinent to me. 

I've practiced wetting in bed while awake, in different positions, while chugging water so that I get lots of practice. And that ofc is important because of the mechanics of laying down / working against gravity. 

But when I'd go to sleep, it'd take lots of focus to make it happen. By the time I thought I was doing it I'd already fallen back to sleep. Couple that with not consistently waking up anyway, and there's always that choice of going right back to sleep. Then if I do, I often wake up again because I still haven't peed...which makes it more daunting to go, because the need feels more urgent and therefore more likely to leak (not always true in cloth diapers, but half-awake brain ain't gonna be rational about feelings).

But since I know I'll always be waking up, at some point something finally clicked in my head and I realized:

I'm up, I'll lose sleep the longer I'm up, and this will keep happening...I might as well make this quick so I lose the least sleep.

So suddenly, I'm getting really quick at getting it over-with. So quick and efficient, in fact, I often don't remember doing it and am getting better sleep again. The rewards in particular help make the success conditions more black/white and focused, and give me that extra boost to give it a try (gosh darnit, if I don't wet tonight I won't get to build the next step in the lego set!)

I'm challenging my fears of leaking directly:

Wearing cloth diapers is great for getting comfortable wetting in any position. And I've done that for a long time, even before this program.

However, one thing I noticed was that slowly I started to become afraid of leaking again...waking up in the middle of night...all despite already sleeping on waterproof sheets, on top of an incon pad, in very thick cloth diapers (going thicker gives me back pain). There was zero reason to fear leaking, yet my fears had come back and began to interfere with my sleep because I'd gotten used to very high standards of protection; anything slightly off from that would sound the alarms.

But now, I think I'm finally resolving that problem. 

Randomly jumping between cloth and just thin cloth diapers that often leak (I'd go buck naked as recommended, but I share a bed), has done three things:

1. Forces me to confront leaking head-on, more-often
2. Gotten me used to the sensation of leaking on my side, etc.
3. Normalized managing the consequences of leaking

By pairing the habit of wetting quickly and without hesitation with wearing something that'll leak, and now I'm forcing myself to confront the sensations of leaking much more often. It's a numbers game, and I'm getting more exposure and practice compared to the sheltered approach from before.

Now that I have leaked many times, not only has this made me more grateful for cloth diapers again, but I've also learned one surprising thing: I can feel like I'm leaking and not leak. There's been many times when wearing disposables (and even cloth) I've felt wetness sensations in the wings and thought I was leaking...only to check and find that while there was moisture there it hadn't leaked onto the bed. It has taught me to ignore the sensation of leaking itself, entirely.

Of course, this has led to several actual leaks. So many, in fact, that I've started to adjust my routine to make dealing with them really quickly and easily while groggy. I'm swapping to larger incon pads, for example; it's easy to swap them in the middle of the night, and it removes the need to change the sheets on a heavy mattress the next morning if I leak off the small pad.

Summary and Recommended Changes:

So far it has worked really well compared to my previous approach. But, I would modify one thing during the second phase: make the variability of what protection you wear pseudo-random rather than true random. 

The randomness is really helpful in continuing that habit of comfortably letting loose without hesitation in leak-proof diapering. As already explained, that has the benefit both of better sleep and forcing yourself to confront leaking directly.

But if you suddenly switch to all none of that or just continue with only cloth diapering for a given week (as would be the case for true random) then it's going to either (1) be too much of a change too fast, making you emotionally dread it more, or (2) not challenge you at all. 

My change has been to still keep it random but ensure there is some variability every week. Maybe I have every other night switching up. Maybe I have the same thing a few nights in a row. Whatever the dice says, I do. But if it all comes up tails or heads, I re-roll. 

And ofc I've needed to modify the reward condition to include not just having no memory of waking to the alarm and then wetting, but also having no-memory of doing either but having evidence of that having happened. There's a small chance the wetting happened before the alarm or sometime after it, but I'm trying to keep the overall goal in mind here (plus, wetting without the alarm will be the goal in the next phase!).

Anyway...

I will have to come back to this and report how phases 3 and 4 go. Thanks for taking the time read this long post!

[stevewet]

Make the bed in a way that it remains comfortable when wet. I use a fitted waterproof cover and washable bed pad under a flanellette sheet and the bed stays warm and comfortable when my nappy leaks.

[babykeiff]

What a lot of people here are talking about is making it comfortable when ones diaper leaks.

A few fact :-

• Before you were toilet trained, you didn't care about the state of your diaper.
• Before you were toilet trained, your diaper leaked many times during the day, but rarely overnight
• Before you were toilet trained, unless the leaking diaper made you cold, you didn't care.
• To entice you to use a toilet and not your diaper, you were dressed in training pants etc.
  • that got cold as soon as wet
  • wet your outside clothes
  • wet your toys etc
•  To entice you to use a toilet, it was instilled in you that leaks and a leaking diaper was bad.

This concept of a leaking diaper / cold wet bed etc was what was used to get you to break the habit of using diapers.

What you are trying to do is start the habit again with the same fear of leaks that was instilled to break you of the habit. Nobody can tell you that leaks will not happen - this, you have to learn yourself, and this you can learn by wearing double to treble cloth diapers and plastic pants overnight. Most people only need a single layer cloth, with the few that need the double layer. Having a treble layer diaper means that there is plenty of spare absorbancy which reduces the chance of leaks from slim to none.

Once you gain the confidence that your diaper does not leak overnight, it won't be long before you revert back to the habit of using the diaper for everything.

As a result, focusing on leaks etc. is not only focusing on ones wetting - something you should be leaving to your body to do, but it is also focusing on the reason you were toilet trained and not trying to defeat / reverse your training.