Anonymous wrote:Of course, since it worked for your DD, it must work for everyone.
+1000
I am sure OP is smart enough not to listen to those who are blaming her. Just because your child/children did something easily does not mean it is easy for everyone. An 8 year old does not want to wear pullup. An 8 year old wants to sleep at his friends house. An 8 year old knows his younger sister is doing something before him. My ped was not concerned at 8 (no medical issues) but we used an alarm due to cub scout camp. It worked very well for us. My #2 was trained years before #1.
It's not easy for anyone, but everyone goes through this. You're enabler because your are making it comfortable for him to pee and continue sleeping, you're removing the consequences of his behavior that he should learn on his own. I would not go in pull ups to a friend's house - he'll become a laughing stock at school
No, not everyone goes through this. I didn't go through this with my oldest or my middle child. We've been through it with my youngest but after consulting with our pediatrician and a urologist, we learned DS had constipation - much as other PPs have noted. It took a long time for us to discover this because DS had regular bowel movements and there was no mass present on physical examination. It was only discovered through an X-ray. "Constipation" in this case is not an issue with defecation, it's have a fecal mass in the intestines that subsequently pushes on the bladder - much like a baby pushes on the bladder of a pregnant woman. I'm so very glad we didn't give him 'consequences' for something that wasn't his fault and he had no control over. What horrible parenting that would be!
Our urologist recommended the book "It's No Accident"
http://itsnoaccident.net/. Reading it was revelatory. This is not an uncommon issue but not well understood by many medical providers. If I remember correctly, about 90% of the kids referred to the study for bedwetting had a fecal mass in the intestines - undiagnosed constipation. We followed the protocol in the book for the clean out regime and within 5 days, DS was dry. It was stunning. I have no idea why your DC went through this but you should have enough life experience by now to know that other people have different experiences. I'm so very glad we didn't blame him or give him consequences for his medical condition.