8 Year Old Bed Wetting... - Carrollton,TX

My daughter wet the bed, less and less frequently, until she was 9. Then she stopped. We didn't limit fluids (it doesn't work), wake her up (leads to tired kid), or remind her to wake up (?). There are still quite a few kids who wet the bed at this age, without any medical issues except they sleep soundly and their bodies aren't ready to wake them up.

The advice I have is to let him wear the pull-ups, or switch to a waterproof cover for his bed if he isn't wetting that frequently. The most important thing is to tell him that this is common, he's not the only one, and help him deal with it and reduce his embarrassment. He WILL grow out of it, but some kids are 12 before this happens, though the frequency should lessen.

There isn't anything you can do. You really just have to wait it out. He's not waking up dry because his body is not ready to. He has absolutely no control over this.

Don't limit his fluids or wake him up ... it won't help anyway.

Just let him be. Remind him to use the restroom before he goes to bed, but that's all.

This is not his fault. This is not something that he has any control over.

He needs to either wear pullups (or goodnights or similar) or have pads on or under his sheets. The problem with the second is that he still wakes up wet and needs to change his pj's and change the sheets. I prefer by pullups, but that's your choice.

If he doesn't like pullups, consider discussing the other option with him. If he's willing to change his sheets and change his pj's and would rather do that than wear pullups, great. If he doesn't want to, maybe he'll reconsider the pullups.

There's really nothing you can do except wait for nature to take its course. Remember, this is totally normal. Give him time. He really will grow out of it.

Did the doctor run any tests to determine if this might be a medical issue? If not, I suggest you see a different doctor. Many doctors would tell you not to use an electronic device. Because of the lack of tests and the advice I would seriously consider finding a different doctor.

I suggest, based on reading, and experience that it's possible that your son's body just isn't mature enough to stay dry. An electronic device will only tell him he's wet. It won't teach him to wake up before he wets.

Recently I read that our body produces a chemical that tells the bladder to remain inactive and that often young children's and old people's bodies do not produce enough of that chemical. The other natural cause for night time wetness is that the sphincter muscle is immature and cannot hold the urine. Maturity will take care of both causes in a child.

It's called nocturnal enuresis and it's a developmental milestone he hasn't met. Extremely common particularly in boys. We did all the stuff you are talking about - waking him up, cutting fluids, and doing the alarms. Nothing worked. See a pediatric urologist- there is a medication that works like a charm. My son used it and we were told there are virtually never any side effects. He had no issues, it let him sleep well and go to sleepovers and overnight camp. I just sent one pill with him if he went to a friend's house - I used a plain pill container from the pharmacist with no info on the type or purpose of the medication, and told the other kid's parents he needed to take something at night. If they asked, I said it was for allergies. No issues.

Our son wanted to try going off the medication at around age 9 (I think we started him at 6 or 7) and it was too soon. He went right back on, and I think he took himself off (with the doctor's okay) around age 11 or 12.

Look, I'm not a big proponent of medication when other things will work, but honestly, this kid has no normal social life, you are fighting about it, and he's just not getting a good night's sleep. Take the fight and worry out of this equation.

This is nothing he is doing or can stop. It's his body. You don't have to panic if he's meeting developmental milestones in all other areas. This is extremely common and he will grow out of it, but right now he, and you, need some rest.

Our son was dry at night at about 7 1/2 but a lot of his friends could not manage it until they were 11 or 12.
Ask your parents and in-laws and you might hear of family members who were bed wetters for a long time (sometimes it runs in families).
His bladder will mature when it's good and ready - and waking up in the night and alarms and vibrating undies won't make that happen any faster.
It's hard to be patient, for you and for him, but this is a lot more common than you think.
He will grow out of it eventually.

Just stop!

His brain has not turned the chemical to stop the kidneys from producing urine when he goes to sleep. He has absolutely no control over this. NONE!

So stop, there is nothing you can do until his body turns this on. He could go to a Pediatric Urologist but they will say he's not getting enough fluids and you're making him constipated by limiting them. So the weight of the pooh pushes the urine out when he falls asleep, when his core muscles relax the most. Then he'll put your son on massive doses of laxative to see if that's what it is and if it's not what is causing the wetting he'll give him a med that is supposed to help. It might work and it might not.

My 14 year old grandson still wets the bed every night. He may have been molested as a child when he lived with his dad. Dad had people living there all the time and my grandson was exposed to a lot of stuff until the state took him away. The Urologist says there is nothing to gain by giving him meds. The side effects are so much that the doc feels it would hurt him more to give him the pills or squirts of stuff than for him to just wet the bed each night. So he takes no meds.

My 9 year old granddaughter woke up Friday morning for the first time in her life dry. She has been dry every morning since, am I going to let her go without a pull up? No, she's going to wear one every night until she's been dry at least a month in a row!

She took a pull up to every sleep over, every time she went to a her mom's, everywhere. She never went without one because it is worse to wake up wet in front of her friends or others instead of discretely going to the bathroom and putting her pull-up in the bottom of the trash can.

I never fought with her about it, I never woke her up during the night, I never told her she should be dry, nothing. I made her mom's life a living hell when she was little over wetting the bed. I hated waking up to the soaked sheets every morning. I didn't know about protective mattress covers and we didn't have pull-ups back then, just training pants. I threw away more mattresses back then and simply hated the whole urine thing. So I woke her up every hour and made her life hell over it.

I know more now. I have a pediatric urologist who told me about it and that it wasn't the kids fault and how their body is made to work. I am different now and know more.

Your son is doing what we all do when we're awake. He gets woken up and he automatically starts holding the urine, those muscles just tighten up and hold it. He doesn't wake up enough to actually process the activity so he doesn't go, even if he does he is still producing urine as soon as he goes back to sleep so he'll be wet anyway. There is no reason to wake them up. This makes him sleepy and tired all the time and it makes you tired and grumpy too. Resentment comes and then no one is happy in the home. So sleep all night, put a pull up on him, put protective pads on the sheets, make life easy, don't add money and waste your time washing sheets and other bedding every day, put this child in a pull up and tell him he'll grow out of it one day on his own.

Do you wake up several times during the night to go? If so I suggest you get tested for Diabetes because normally an adult does not wake up during the night to go pee, they stop making urine during the night and as soon as they wake up their kidneys kick in and they feel their bladder fill. Waking during the night to go pee is one of the questions they ask you to help determine if you need to do testing for Diabetes. If you are waking up occasionally then it could be that you had a sleep cycle that was very light and your kidney produced urine then you woke up.

Your son is normal. Lots of kids his age still wear a pull-up every night. He needs to know there is nothing wrong with him and they one day he'll wake up dry.

Give him more to drink, it truly will help. Do some research if you like. My hubby swears that if the kids don't drink chocolate milk right before bed they should be dry. That has NOT proven to make any difference in the kids. They are still wet each morning no matter what.

Use pads under him (adult incontinence bed pads) and if he wets and has to change the bed it's his responsibility and he just needs to change the pad and his pj's. It actually may be years before he can wake up on his own to go in the middle of the night.

Limiting his fluids really doesn't help as you've found, just make it a part of his bedtime routine to go to the bathroom right before bed, and put the cleanup on him.

http://mobile.slate.com/articles/life/family/2012/03/bed_...

The alarm system does work, but you are right they aren't cheap. Check on E-Bay, my husband sold the one we got for my oldest son after we'd finished with it.

I was a bed-wetter, and it is very traumatic, you can't go spend the night with friends just because you don't know what will happen...

If you have any questions about the alarm (it worked for my son, within a week he was getting up on his own and waking up dry) send me a message.

M.

About 20 years ago I watched a daytime talk show about bedwetting. A pediatric allgerist was dicussing that sometimes bedwetting is caused by an allergy. But this allgery can be so minute that it doesn't show up on a typical allgery test. She said the biggest culpruits are dairy, artificial colors and flavors, gluten (but not celiacs). The best way to determine his trigger is to take him off one thing at a time, artificial colors and flavors was easiest for me, for about 2 weeks and see what happens. She admitted that quite often the medical community does not take the concerns of parents serious enough and parents often have to become their own detectives to really find out what is wrong with their child.

Remember when I saw this program the internet was in it's infancy I think AOL and Prodigy were the only options and AOL was at 1.0 or maybe 2.0.

Night time urinating usually has its root in adrenal issues, high sodium retention, and glucose issues which do affect the kidney. Have you ever had him checked for diabetes with an A1c test- I recommend it. Not morning fasting glucose testing, either a 24 hr glucose tolerance test or A1c

Here's what else: Stop milk products at night, and reduce total amount- too much calcium can cause milk alkali syndrome, which contributes.
Start taking magnesium (kidcalm). This will help reduce alkali syndrome.
reduce sodium and sugar as much as possible. Potassium should be beneficial also. This all helped my son. I can guarantree to make him pee the bed by giving him milk anytime before bed.

we used the bed wetting alarm $100 ish at the bedwettingstore.com it was the best $100 we ever spent. a lot cheaper that pull ups in the long run. but I get it, it is hard to have that initial $100 to buy it. But if you do, please feel free to PM me I'll give you some tips to make it a lot easier! worked like a charm!

How early are you cutting off fluids? Maybe you can roll it back another hour and see how that goes. When my kids were younger, I would pick them up at night (before I went to bed around midnight) and carry them into the bathroom. For my son, I would pull his pants down and point his body towards the toilet and he would go. They really were only partially awake when I did this, but I think it kind of "trained" them because they both make night-time trips on their own now (at ages 5 and 7) with no problems. Now, carrying an 8 year old might be a bit of a challenge, but you can at least walk him to the bathroom like I did when my son got bigger. If he gets grumpy, so be it. You're training him to do it for himself and it will pay off in the end.

Hi A.,

I didn't read your other responses so this may be repetitive :). My son who is now 12 wet the bed until recently. It is SO hard, but I'd just go in and take the sheets off. As he got older he got to where he didn't always tell me, he'd say I forgot, so constantly check his bed as the odor gets bad.

We went to the dr with the issue when he was in 5th grade and going to go on the 5th grade camp out. He was constipated (still had bowel movement every day). The stool pushed on the bladder at night. He peed at the urologists office and they did sono and his bladder was still full. His bladder muscle had got very strong, but that muscle is supposed to be weak so you "feel" like you have to go (not weak that you wet yourself). We increased his fiber and started the pills to get him through camp. He was 11 by this time though. We tried the alarm at around 8 or 9, but it scared him. I put underwear on him then attached the alarm to the underwear then a pull up on over that. The dr also said they will take longer to stop in a pull up since they are so absorbent and they don't wake up. My son was wetting through the pull up though. And, the pull ups are so much easier then washing sheets every morning! The bed wetting store has some great stuff www.bedwettingstore.com I can get the name of our pediatric urologist if you want. She was great! But, honestly your son is young. I also still have my alarm if you would like I could drop it in the mail to you - just send me an email. I know how extremely frustrating it is. My son missed many sleep overs do to this.