Bed Wetting - Martinez, CA

My daughter did it until she was 9! It runs in my family, so I wasn't worried. My nephew is 8, and still does it. Most importantly, be kind to him. It's not his fault. I tell my daughter cheerfully, "everybody's body is different," and that helped her have a healthy attitude about it.

A chiropractor may help. I have several friends who kids stop wetting the bed after adjustments. Dr. Hansen in Elk Grove is great! He started adjusting my son at 3 weeks.

It is possible that there is a medical problem that is at the root of this, have you consulted his Doctor?

F.,

Have you tried taking him to a urologist? Maybe there is something they could do for him. At least just to rule out a physical reason. Also, what about an alarm clock next to the bed to get him up to go to the bathroom? Just a thought. I hope this helps.

Molly

My son is 8 and still wets the bed. He also doesn't feel it and just sleeps right through it. We have found some bedwetting tablets that disolve under his tongue and they work most of the time. You can find them at healthfood stores they are from a company called Hyland's homeopathic. We also found that giving him any kind of caffeine during the day made him wet the bed. No tea, soda or anything with caffeine. Also we were told that he may wet the bed until he goes through puberty. We have no family history of bedwetting and he is our only child that has wet the bed (we have 3 children 2 boys,1 girl). Good luck!

I would take him to a pediatric urologist and have a full work-up. They will give you the best advice, tailored to his needs. You will find out if there are any other factors involved in his bed-wetting.

Do you take him to see doctor if he has turned to 8 years old of big boy?

If he is not physical problem, then, my suggestion is not to give him to much pressure Emotionally. Take easy to train him and let him know to control his bladder at night will have better life in the future. 8 years old should be 2nd grader of elementry school.

Both of my sons were 10 before nighttime bedwetting stopped. My older son stopped on his own, however, my younger son had a more difficult time, he also is a very deep sleeper. With a sleep away camp approaching, we sought help from our pediatrician. My son was placed on Desmopressin (generic form of DDAVP). This is a replica of the brain chemical that controls the bladder. After 6 months we stopped medication and have been dry since.

My kids had struggled with bed wetting as well. First, talk to your pediatrician to rule out a medical reason. For my daughter, they found out that she had sleep apnea. Bed wetting is a common side effect of sleep disorders. The treatment is to remove the tonsils (which we did) and she is now almost completely dry (about 1 accident a month). There are alarms you can try that will wake up your son as soon as he starts to wet the bed. This is supposed to condition them. But I have also heard that it is genetic and just to be patient and the kids will grow out of it. The important thing is to acknowledge that it is out of their control and not to make them feel bad about themselves. Good luck!

my daughter also constantly wet the bed when she was much younger. I, like you, cut off liquids and also got up every two hours to take her to the bathroom, and still she managed to wet the bed. I discovered that it was an emotional issue and as soon as we were able to work through it, the bed-wetting stopped. You could also talk to your ped. It could be that he has some sort of physical problem that needs to be addressed. If it's nothing physical, I would start looking into emotional things. Are both parents in the house? Is there stress in the home?

Hi, F..
OK, this is what I learned in college many years ago and then tried with my own child. Guess what? It worked!
Hang a calendar up on the wall where you and your boy can both see it. Buy yourself a box of gold stars. Without being too encouraging or judgemental either, tell him that you're going to put up a gold star every time he wakes up dry in the morning. When he wakes wet, you do NOT do anything or say anything. At the end of the week, he gets a small reward if every day has a star. It can be an ice cream cone or he can choose whether to have hamburgers or macoroni and cheese for dinner, or anything that isn't really huge. People are reinforced by the stars, actually, at first.
Little by little, he will become successful at this, and the joy of reward, which is called extrinsic, will be replaced by the self-esteem and satisfaction of success (called intrinsic reward). By the way, you might find this pregram so successful that you will want to try it with other things. To check my information, read about the experiments of BF Skinner.
Oh, you must not wake your son in the night to go to the bathroom. If you do so, you take away his responsibility for his own behavior. And this methodology is not a secret. You may explain every step to your son and it will still work.
I know it's difficult at times to raise a child, but you're lucky to have a boy of your own. They are so much fun. I hope you read together. That really helps a kid do better in school and all of his life.
Good luck! And God bless,
Mrs. Souza

Hi, I can relate. My son just turned 9 yrs old and it's only the last couple of months that he hasn't wet the bed. (His younger brother stopped wetting the bed years before he did...) Of course we tried all the usual stuff, like you mention. The things to add to that are (1) we were always as patient as possible (sometimes hard to do in the middle of the night) not wanting to cause long term psychological effects as it has been studied that how bed wetting is handled has significant long term impacts on the child. Second, we reminded him not to worry that what is often happening is that there is physically a part of the body that is still developing.

Does your son have trouble falling asleep at night? Ours did. Recently a nutritionist told us that children who have trouble falling asleep are so exhausted by the time they finally do fall asleep that they are too tired to notice they have to go to the bathroom. There are various health reasons that can cause a person to have trouble falling asleep. If you are interested in alternative health care (which helped us isolate why my son was having trouble falling asleep at night - - adrenals were on overdrive) you could google "accupoint nutritional testing" as that is what worked for us. We addressed why he couldn't fall asleep, and now he doesn't wet the bed.

It could be that at 9yrs old his body had finally matured enough, or it could be that addressing the underlying cause of his inability to fall asleep helped. Who knows. In the meantime, keep reminding yourself he isn't going to be wetting the bed when he's in high school. ;)

My daughter, who is now in her 30s, wet the bed until she was about 10 years old. She was also a very sound sleeper & like you, I also tried everything. Restricting liquids did not help. Waking her late before I went to bed did not help. I even bought a device that had a moisture sensor that went in little pockets that you sewed to the crotch of the child's underwear, & a very loud buzzer that velcroed to the shoulder of her PJs. Tyhe idea was`that it would train the child to awaken when they were urinating & eventually they would awakwn before they urinateed. It was so loud that it would awaken me clear down thw hall in my bedroom & I would go into her bedroom & she would still be sound asleep with this device buzzing loudly in her ear. It never did awakwn her, so we finally got tired of the lack of sleep it was casuing us & gave up. She outgrew the bedwetting with age & maturity. It was very embarassing for her & she dreaded slumber parties because of this, but would go anyway & then try to discreetly roll up her sleeping bag in the morning. In those days they did not have the large size pull-ups that they have today. When the lergest size diaper no longer fit she just had to live with a wet bed each night. Poor thing, she would often wake up cold from the wet sheets. Thank goodness for the night time pull-ups they have now. Don't make your son feel embarassed. They already feel bad enough & really wish they didn't have this problem. I think your son will just outgrow this in time, as my daughter did. I have a cousin (male) who wet the bed until he was 12 years old. It does seem to be an issue sleeping extremely deeply.

My daughter had the same problem, she was 7 and had never had a dry night. We found a bed wetting alarm on amazon and decided to try it. Within 2 months she was dry every night and we have not had any accidents since. :)

Just from my own personal experience (I have an 18-year old son and a 7-month old son too), I recommend you take off the pull-ups at night and stop all liquids after 6pm (unless it is two tiny sips of water if extremely thirsty). Some children will just continue wetting the bed as long as they have that "crutch" of diapers or pull-ups, rather than being uncomfortable in wet sheets or clothes. Will it be hard at first on the parent - YES. Buy a waterproof matress protector and the thick waterproof pads for him to sleep on. He might wake up if his pajamas are totally soaked (rather than a pull-up that absorbs everything). He's at a very tender and sensitive age where (if not already), he will soon become extremely embarrassed if any of his friends or classmates learn of the problem. My son slept like a rock - I had to plug his nose to wake him. Once I removed the diapers (back then we used the padded underwear and plastic pants) and he wet the bed, he would wake up uncomfortable on his own shortly after wetting the bed. Never, ever get upset at him for the accident, after all . . . it is not something he is doing intentionally. Don't ever humiliate or berate him for the action, or get upset (no matter how often you are up in the middle of the night doing laundry!)

If you believe in Fung Shui then pull your sons bed away from the wall. My friend heard of this and did it with her son and it worked. Allowing the energy to flow freely will help him to stop wetting the bed...hey it's worth a try.

Get a bed wetting alarm. My son had the same problem (he's 16 now) and we used the alarm with great success. The alarm that acts like a pager and just vibrates is useless. It doesn't wake them up. The problem is that the urge to pee is not enough to wake them from a deep sleep. The alarm we used made a VERY loud noise, which woke me up as well. At first, he'll already be wetting his pants when the alarm wakes him up, but eventually just the urge will wake him up first. It only took my son about 2 weeks for it to work. The alarm uses a sensor that snaps into their underwear, and it buzzes when the wetness hits it. My son was almost 9, and it was the best thing ever. My pediatrician gave me a flyer for it, and it cost about $50.

I have a grandson that had the same problem and we tried everything. I finally found a web site, I believe its called www.nobedwetting.com. We have done that program and it works. It tends to be in families and kids sleep too deeply and never get that REM sleep nor dream and they really do not sleep well because they go into a deep sleep immediately and stay there and nothing wakes them up. It is a Enuresis Clinic in Michigan and they send you eqipment and call you or you call them to progress through the program. It is not cheap, but the results are worth it. Good luck!

If it makes you feel any better, my husband was a bed wetter at 8 years old, too. It really worried him and stressed him out at the time, and his mother took him to several doctors to see if anything would help. Nothing did. He grew out of it, eventually.

Two years ago I would have written the exact same description of my son - age 8, deep sleeper, no awareness of his bladder. We tried the Malem bed wetting alarm and he was dry within a week. Not even one accident since! I bought mine on eBay and loved reading the testimonials of all the people who were selling their used alarms. They seem to work for a lot of kids (including mine). You can also find them at the bedwetting store (I think it's bedwettingstore.com). Good luck!

I'm currently going through the same issue with my almost 7yr old daughter. She has never had a dry night. My husband and I were both bedwetters and I know it's hereditary, but we did not have "primary enuresis" which means never having a dry night as in my daughter's case. We had "secondary enuresis" meaning occassional bedwetting. Like your son, my daughter is also a deep sleeper and that's why I know those bw alarms would never work for her. I've tried all the usual steps such as no drinks before bed-time, waking her to go and going to bed early, but none of these have worked. I've thought about giving her Hyland's Bedwetting Tablets, which is a homeopathic medication. I have mixed emotions about the prescription meds that are out there because of the possible side effects. I have two nephews who used prescription meds. It worked for one, but not for the other and neither has suffered from any side effects so far, but who's to say they won't in the future. I have been doing some research and found some helpful information from the Enuresis Treatment ____@____.com discuss the connection between bedwetting and sleeping disorders. You can request and download their brochure and I believe they provide a free consultation. However, before trying anything on my own I am going to seek the advise of my daughter's pediatrician at her checkup this fall to see what they recommend. I'm not sure if the other approach of making the child more responsible for this problem works on all children. I think it could have bad and good results depending on the character of the child so you'll have to be the judge of that one. In my case, it makes my daughter sad when we discuss it but on the otherhand, she does not see the difference between her and kids who don't wet the bed so the whole sleepover thing doesn't bother her a bit. The best of luck to you and your soon.

My nephew had the same problem, and it did turn out to be a medical issue. He had a prescription he took for some time, not sure how long, and worked for him. I believe they saw a urologist.

have you discussed this with your doctor....there may be some ways that they can help...both of myoldestnephew and neice had the same problem.

Hi F.,

My son is 5 and also wets the bed. I was told by the doctor that in some children the production of the hormone that shuts down urine production is delayed. The child will develope the hormone when it is time. The doctor said that if I need to have pills to stop it that she would give them to me. I opted out since he doesn't have sleep overs right now.

Mother of four

Hi F.,
That sounds very hard. Some children wet their beds due to food sensitivities. The food sensivities can overwhelm a child's system so that they are unable to control their bladders. You might consider having him evaluated.

Best,
E. Bender, NC, CHN
www.nutritionforthewholefamily.com

Have you talked to his dr? Some kids have immature bladders and it takes awhile to grow out of it, but they do. His Dr may have some suggestions, otherwise you may have to wait it out
Good luck

Hey F.,
Since it sounds like you have been trying the usual methods maybe it's time to see the doctor. I have heard that some boys have a small urethra(the tube that urine travels from the kidneys).If this is the problem they have minor surgeries that can correct it.It can lead to kidney disease & other issues if not taken care of. Most kids outgrow it but......
I recently caught an episode of "The George Lopez" show & they were dealing with his son having the same problem. I know it's just a tv show but it was informative in regards to bed wetting.....
Good Luck, I hope it is something that the child just outgrows. Better to find out now, before it causes other problems. I have heard that stress can also be a cause. Has this child been going thru anything recently? Maybe school?
Our prayers are with you.....Lisa

i would definitely look at food allergies. my boyfriend wet the bed until his teens, and the terrible attitude of his stepmom about it only worsened the experience. when he moved out of that house at 16 or so, he stopped drinking milk because his real mom just didnt have it around. guess what -- no wetting. not once. he thinks the sugars or hormones in milk just knock him out -- still true -- and that he just didnt have a clue. you sound patient. what a blessing

We went through this with my son (now almost 14). There are lots of things you can try; none worked with my son, other than the pills which we used for sleep overs etc. We tried an alarm system, where a sensor is attached to his underwear, with a cord going up to a small box that is pinned to his shoulder and the alarm goes off if he wets. My son (also a hard sleeper) slept through this. We did not. It's hard not to let your son see your annoyance, which doesn't help. The best advice we found came from the book that came with the alarm. Give him personal responsibility over it. If he wets, he needs to strip his bed and put sheets and pj's in laund.rm. My son would then tell me, so i would know to wash them, but that's all that was said about it. I think we even did some sort of contract for him. This didn't cure it, but it gave him some power over it, took the stress out for him and us. Another must is waterproof mattress protector. (At some point they get too old for pull ups) We had something that was about 4'x 2' and went between pad and mattress-and (this is key) we had two, so one could be in the wash while other was on bed. Talk to you pediatrician, but know that they do grow out of it. With my son it started tapering off around 3rd grade and was done (other that once in a blue moon) by 5th.

Just know that your son has no control over this. He would fix it if he could. It is stressful and embarrassing for him. It is also much more common that you think among his peers (i found out that my son's best friend was going through the same thing.)
Good luck.

Hi F....

My youngest wet the bed till he was about 14...I went through every idea the Ped Dr. had and nothing worked...I just bought a good quality waterproof mattress pad and extra sheets...and tried to get him to put everything in the washer every morning...making a big deal about it just makes things worse...he already knows he is different...and can't have sleep overs...so just stay calm and ride it out...T.

I had this problem until I was six myself.
I ended up having to have surgery...cannot remember exactly WHAT surgery, but something about the muscles you use to be able to hold it while you sleep.
Good luck---I hope your son's is easier to fix!

F. ~
I know you probably have him go to the bathroom before he goes to bed. He will grow out of it, believe me. Once he starts getting invited to spend the night at a friend or family's house; he'll learn very quickly that he can't join in on the fun because he doesn't wake up at night and still wears a "pull up". That will motivate him enough to start getting up at night when he needs to. Just keep the "pull ups" on and soon he won't be needing them. Good Luck!

Hi F.!

I'm sorry for your son. He's at an age that this must be SO difficult for him to deal with.

I guess that "more love & patience" would be the only other thing to try :o)

I read an article about this a couple years ago in Parents' Magazine. Apparently, some boys bladders take a little longer to grow up with their bodies, which is why they wet their bed.

In the meantime, I would make sure the matress is protected, and try not to make him feel ashamed of it. I'm sure it's hard cleaning sheets all the time......

In the stores, they have these "boxers" for boys for this type of problem. I wonder if you've tried them.

Hang in there, F.. It shouldn't be too much longer before things take care of themselves :o)

You and your son will be in my thoughts.....

Take him to a pediatric urologist right away. There could be a physical reason that he cannot feel or hold his urine at night.

Good Luck!