Bedwetting

[Anonymous]

A friend of mine now has custody of her grandchildren including 3 boys ages 6, 10, 11. The boys still wet the bed some nights. She's not sure what to do. She is taking them to a pediatrician, but in the meantime, anybody have experience with bedwetting more than 2x per month past the age of 5? Any advice, especially for the boy soon to be 12? Thanks in advance!

[Anonymous]

Buy good matress pads and talk to the pediatrician. I don't want to read too much in, but when grandma gets custody, it usually isn't because things with mom were great. Perhaps the two are related?

The advice I can give is that it is most likely worse for the kid than for grandma. Yelling, humiliating, and making a fuss won't change a darn thing; compassion is in order. Teach them to redo the bed and get the sheets into the washer.

[Anonymous]

This is OP, thanks for the response. Yes, I think it's partly (or maybe all) stress related-both parents are out of the picture for a while.

[Anonymous]

I have a 9 year old who still sometimes wets the bed. Also has been through his share of trauma. What happens in our house is this. When he wets it wakes him and he changes his pjs and comes over to get in our bed. In the morning, I have him carry his stuff down to the laundry - no punishment or judgment whatsoever. It's just that in our house, everyone is responsible for their own bedding. We don't really talk about it. But, for a few days after, I try to watch what he drinks after 7 pm and I avoid clear liquids (water, juices) from after school on. If he is thirsty, I remind him of the bedwetting and how he does better with less drinks in the evening. But, I let him choose whether or not to drink. It's hard and this is one of the reasons we don't do sleepovers. But, over time we have really seen improvement.

IMO, FWIW, I think it's important not to make my little boy feel bad. He doesn't want to pee the bed and would do whatever it took not to do it. He is usually really disappointed when it happens and I feel like it's up to me to make him feel ok after a bedwetting night. I have a lot of patience with this issue so I am always the one who deals with the stripping of the bed, the pee laundry and the remake of the bed.

One other thing. FWIW, there is nothing medically wrong with my son - he was checked out by the ped.

[Anonymous]

Oh PP here -

My son wet occasionally until nearly 8. No stress, just deep sleeping.

He would get embarrassed, too. He always called it "got sweaty." I went with that, since there was no point in making this more important than it is.

I'm glad the children are in a less traumatic environment.

[Anonymous]

I have a daughter that still wet the bed until age 6. Her father also had bedwetting until an older age (I'm not sure how old). There is a difference between primary and secondary bedwetting. In primary, the child has never been dry at night; in secondary, the child was dry at night for some consistent period and then began to wet the bed. Secondary is more suggestive of trauma or stress and "regression." Primary often occurs in families and simply seems to be the body "not hearing" the full signal from the bladder due to deep sleep.

After some attempts at letting our daughter sleep in undies, waking her up late at night to pee and then putting her back to bed, etc., it became clear that she just slept to deeply to wake herself when she needed to pee. She wet too late at bed and too often to have any success with waking her at 11 or midnight.

We decided to try the Malem Alarm. It took a couple of months, but it worked GREAT! I would highly recommend it. It vibrates and beeps. It would wake her when she began to wet and she would go to the potty. If the bed got wet, it was only a bit. Instead of remaking the whole bed, I put several waterproof pads tucked into the hip/chest area of the bed and only had to strip the top one off.

I am very glad we tried this and didn't just let her keep wetting the bed. She clearly had such a sense of mastery when she began to wet less and less. She was getting to the age when she wanted to sleep in undies, and even though there was no shaming in our house when she wet the bed or if she continued to wear diapers, she just didn't want to.

It was a long time ago for my husband, but even today, it's still clear that the bedwetting was traumatic for him. He was amazed that the alarm worked so well, and I wonder how he would be different today if he hadn't experienced the bedwetting as a boy for so long.

I would really encourage using an alarm.

[Anonymous]

OP here. 21:40 thanks so much for that information, very useful.

[Anonymous]

Hi How much is the Malem alarm and where did you purchase it? What made you pick this alarm over others? Can you wear it with a pull-up?

thanks

[Anonymous]

We bought the Malem alarm at bedwettingstore.com (I've no financial interest in them). It can be purchased alone or as part of a package of the alarm, a couple of tuck-in bedpads and a book about bedwetting. I went for the package & I think it cost between $100 or $125. I sold the alarm and book on DCUM for $50 or $60 a few months later, after we were done. (Although in retrospect, it would have been good to keep it for about 6 months in case of any "backsliding") At the time, I shopped around online, and I found the bedwettingstore.com price to be either lowest or reasonable considering the bedpads and book.

The alarm is about the size of a half a bar of cream cheese. You safety pin it to the night shirt and snake a coated wire with a clip down the inside of the shirt and clip the wire to the underwear right where you think the first bit of pee would come out. That way, as soon as the child starts to wet, the alarm goes off. You are not supposed to wear pull-ups with it. Honestly, since the alarm goes off very quickly if you pin it in the right spot, we never had any full-on soaking wet accidents. There were a number of nights when we had to strip the pad, and get new undies and pjs, but there was no need for a pull-up.

Pick a time to start when you can spend a few days getting up multiple times in the middle of the night with your child (sucks, but worth it in the end). In the beginning, they sleep so deeply, they can actually sleep thru the alarm! Or, they're half sleep-walking to the potty. A couple of times, my daughter was so deeply asleep, I was afraid she'd head for the closet instead of the toilet :-0

The first few days, the child may wake up multiple times in one night. After the first week, the number of times begins to diminish, after the second week, we started to get some dry nights (or at least, long stretches of time during the night when she was dry, i.e. wetting only in the early AM). It takes several months before one can achieve the recommended stretch of two dry weeks before discontinuing.

I'm sure YMMV as to how quickly it works/ how often they wake. Regardless, it works well, but it's not an overnight thing.

I don't know why I picked the Malem -- I guess it seemed to be the least obtrusive, and I liked that it clipped to regular underwear instead of having to wear special undies.

Anyway, whole thing worked VERY well, and a year later she is still dry & happy.

Hope that helps.

[Anonymous]

Thanks that was really informative. Thanks for taking the time to write back. Did you have any tests done on your child to make sure it wasn't anything else before you attempted the alarm? Also what is the alarm like is it really loud? Should I have the my son's sibling sleep in another room during this training?

Thanks

[Anonymous]

We did check with the pediatrician at her 6 y.o. visit. The pediatrician did not recommend any tests. The doctor's take was that it was "normal" for a certain percentage of kids at age 6 to still be wetting the bed at night and that she would outgrow it by some unknown age.

We didn't really do anything special before trying the alarm except go thru the full range of mitigating behavioral strategies (limiting liquids in the evening, going pull-up free, trying to wake her at various times in the night, etc.)

The alarm is pretty loud, but surprisingly the kid wearing the alarm can sleep thru it. As for the sibiling - don't know, maybe if they are toddler age or older they will sleep thru or wake and go back to sleep and quickly learn to sleep thru. My toddler slept in the next room and never woke. If the sibiling is an infant, I'd be more worried they'd wake and be hard to get back to sleep.

Unfortunately, you will probably have to sleep nearby or with the monitor so you can hear it and help the child with turning off/resetting the alarm, going potty, changing, et.c

[Anonymous]

You can also ask your pediatrician about a drug called Desmopressin. It is apparently very safe; we've had no side effects or problems--and no wet beds.

[Anonymous]

I wet the bed (unfortunately) off and on until I was 8 or 9 and my brother until he was about 11 -- my son wets the bed at almost 7 and his doc. says the problem is very likely inherited.

She didn't recommend using an alarm until about age 8 or earlier if the wetting seemed to really bother my son. We use Good Night pull ups -- very absorbant pull ups that are made for older kids. He wets maybe 2 or 3 nights a week and so I have him wear the pull ups again a second time if he kept them dry -- they are pretty expensive, but really worth it as they let everyone get a good night's sleep.

[Anonymous]

The hypnotherapist I'm seeing helps kids with bedwetting. There is also a clinical trial that shows the efficiency of using hypnosis for bedwetting. Google it and you'll probably find the research.

[Anonymous]

It is usually hereditary. Kids outgrow it. In the meantime, ask the pediatrician about Desmopressin. The alarm is ineffective half the time.