Bed Wetting - Aurora, IL

There is a device in the One Step Ahead catalog that can help. Visit the website below:

http://www.onestepahead.com/product/86184/411/117.html

Good Luck!

My husband is a chiropractor in Arlington Heights and has had a lot of success with kids and bedwetting. It is safe and very effective. Just something for you to think about. Call if you want more info. ###-###-####. I know it is very frustrating. Hang in there.

J.

I know this sounds like a bit much, but try waking him up in the middle of the night for bathroom breaks. My son use to wet the bed and I use to wake him up a few times in the middle of the night to make him go to the bathroom....That worked and he started going on his own..except he kept confusing other white pieces of furniture as the toilet! We monitored him, as he grew out of it. Its a bit frusterating becuse no matter how much I stopped hi liquid intake he still had a weak bladder. My son is 8 and still has an accasional accident. Try not to yell, as it only makes the issue worst. Hopefully he will grow out of it.

I wet my bed until I was twelve years old. My parents tried all the methods you have and more and nothing worked. We saw specialist after specialist until finally one doctor said it's hereditary (my Aunt and Uncle both wet the bed till twelve) and that it was something developmental that most children acquire by twelve. Sure enough at twelve I just stopped. My advice to you is why fight something you and your son have no control over. they have great night time pull ups, just use those and you won't have to change his bed everyday. One day he won't need them anymore. The most important thing is to protect his self esteem. If he has friends sleep over or spends the night at a friends don't let them know about the pull up. Make sure that siblings know if they use this problem as a weapon or to blackmail him they're in big trouble. Think of this as any other type of developmental delay. Would you yell at your child if he had trouble with speech or walking? I'm sure your little guy is feeling really bad about this so just let him know you love him unconditionally, put on his pull up and forget about it. Good luck!

Hi J.,
I too have a 6 year old (daughter) who wets the bed. My 9 year old wet the bed until she was around 6. I was beyond the point of frustration. I just gave up! I've tried every method you described.....and then some. I think that this is one thing that a child just simply has to grow out of on his/her own. Though, I have noticed that waking my daughter up at the RIGHT time/s of night has made a tremendous improvement. For example: Whatever time she goes to bed at night I wake her up 1 hour later. Then again 1 1/2 hours later, 2 hours, 2 1/2 hours, etc. If self-esteem is still a growing problem, 1: try giving him a boost with Huggies Goodnites (though I must warn you, my daughter became very dependant on these). 2: try to keep from getting frustrated (this does nothing more than make the child even more nervous). Lastly, try to keep all doors of communication open regarding this matter. Let him know that you are aware of his efforts and that you will continuously support him (so that he knows that he is not alone). Good Luck!

I am having the same problem with my 6 year old. My husband and I spoke to his doctor and he told us of www.bedwetter.com, there is an "alarm" when he is about to go and that alarm will wake him up to go. Eventually he will wake up on his own and go.
Please do not get frustrated with your son, my husband and I go through the same thing every night.

Good luck.

I'm coming from the other side of this situation - I was a bed wetter when I was a kid. We ignored it in our house. I washed my own bedding when no one was around and stuffed my mattress with blankets to make it look normal and appear "dry". I know that you are very frustrated with this right now but PLEASE do not make your child feel even more miserable by yelling or behaving negative towards him. I wish that I could tell you there is a magic device or something to make it go away (there's not) but do take these other Moms advice and try something. I wish that I had spoken up about it and that my parents didn't ignore it (that's NOT how it goes away). I eventually would dream about going to the bathroom and I would instantly wake up and stop myself from peeing the bed. It's not something I would wish upon anyone but I was there so I know how your son feels. Give him a big hug and keep doing the laundry as a team! Good luck to you.
A.

my girl who is now 7 also wets her bed, not all the time but at least 3 xs a week, we took her to a dr in california, the doctor there said it is normal up to 12 years old, after that it could be a problem, also his blader might not be fully developed and he can take medication for it!!

Hi J.,
We are dealing with the same thing our son is 5 1/2 and has gone maybe a handful of nights dry. We are going to try cloth overnight training pants at least in hope of him feeling it without making a mess of his bed. It is something he is embaressed about and honestly we are not sure how to comfort him as it bugs us too. His Dr. thinks he will eventually grow out of it and has told us countless times it is more common then you would think.
R.

My mom swears by the bell pad, which I think you can rent. It wakes up the child (and everyone else I understand) with a loud bell/alarm the second the pad detects moisture in the bed. It will wake up your child and force him to recognize that he's urinating. It may just be that he's a very heavy sleeper. My mom said it worked for my brother who was a chronic bed wetter.

C.

J.,
Hello! It sounds like you and your whole family is at your end point. I am a mother of 2 and a chiropractor. You need to go to www.ICPA4kids.org and find a chiropractor who is trained with kids and families. I can feel that this is affecting your entire family. Other moms have made suggestions to help you guys through the rough times. Find a chiropractor and get an answer to the cause of the issue. I am in Elmhurst. If you need to please feel free to call--###-###-####.
Dr. K.

J.,
This situation breaks my heart, as well. Obviously, your son does not want to wet his bed and is trying everything he can to stay dry. If I read correctly, I must advise not to make him clean up his own bed. This is a type of punishment, and he is ashamed already. And PLEASE tell your husband not to yell. This only makes it worse.
We have had luck with "Good Nites" disposable underwear for night time. Also, there is a homeopathic remedy called CAUSTICUM. It is for bed-wetting. This has worked for us too. It is by Boiron--in a little blue tube. Also, bed-wetting at age six is not that uncommon. Please look at any changes in routine, other stressors, and relationship dynamics. You will solve this problem. I hope you can do it while being sensitive to your precious son.
Amy

This topic is close to my heart, because I wet the bed till I was 11, and my 8 year old still does and has to wear goodnights. You know, there is really nothing you can do. I did all you mentioned and it does not work. She is a very heavy sleeper too. There is this med that you can take for it, or an alarm thing to wake them up when they start to go. However, my daughter still has overnights and she just takes her pullup with her and she puts in on in private and mostly the parents know about it. Yelling is the last thing you really want to do, because that will surely hurt their self esteem. I know it is frusterating, but itis hard for them. We dont make a deal out of it now. It was so frusterating but we knew we could not get mad. She is not on the meds now, but we were waiting to see what meds she was put on for a tick disorder that we finally got a diagnosis for on Wed. so I have to call her Dr. and see if she can get on it if we go that route. She will be dry a bunch of nights and then she will be wet a bunch of nights then too. It goes in spurts.

S. Bailey CLD
Aurora
www.tendermomentsdoula.com

We had this problem with our son too. The bad news was that it was something that he just had to physically grow out of, it's a physiological development thing. Unfortunately, it lasted until he was about 11. The good news is we had great success with the potty alarm. It has a sensor pad that goes in the underwear, and a little alarm that clips on to the pj's. When a drop (and I mean a TINY drop) of liquid hits the sensor pad, the alarm goes off and wakes them up. It worked very, very well for us, in a relatively short period of time, too. I want to say a couple weeks, but i can't remember. We didn't try it sooner, so I don't know how it would work with a younger child, but it's worth a try. Goodnights brand sleep pants work very well at controllong the mess. I hope this helps. I really feel your misery!

Hi J., Let me start out by saying I can really comiserate with you on this subject. My son just turned 9 and he is still having problems with bed wetting. My step-sons (who are now in their late teens) had the same problem, so I am sure it is a hereditary thing.

The one thing I want to stress is that it is not in thier control. Their bladders are just not big enough to hold the urine they produce at night, and they sleep too soundly to awake themselves.

With my step-sons we bought alarms. They were like mini-pagers that had a sensor on their underwear that would beep when it felt a drop of moisture. That would wake them up (or me) and we would go to the bathroom. We had some success with that.

If you feel he just needs to grow out of it, I would consider using Goodnights underpants. You can also go to a fabric store and have them cut you a peice of water reppelent material (it feels like heavy felt) that you can cover his bed with. That at least makes the clean-up better. As far as self-esteem, if you do not shame him for it, and you all recognize that his body is still developing, their should be no scars.

Goodluck. I need to try some of these things myself.

T.

Hi

Well I am a mom to 4 wonderful children. Although I havent experienced this problem myself I do have a almost 5 year old still in pull ups. He has some developmental delays. My advice to you is simply to be patient. He will eventually outgrow this. I know its hard but yelling and getting angry will only damage his self esteem. This is not something he can control. I also have a friend who tried a sort of alarm with her 2nd grader. Although I dont know the details but im sure you can find it online. It goes of when the bed starts to get wet or something like that. It might be something to look into. Good Luck!

My daughter was potty trained at 2.5, but did not GROW OUT of having accidents at night until she was 5.5. At that point, she just suddenly started having dry pull-ups and within a few weeks was consistently dry (had a few sporadic accidents for about a month afterwards). I don't remember the exact statistics our dr. gave us, but it was something like 30% of 6 years old still have issues at night. It dropped by approx 5-10% each year thereafter. So I would agree with a lot of other posters. Don't worry about it and give it some more time.

This happened to my nephew and my sister used a "bell and pad" device. Basically, it's a pad that goes on the bed and it rings if it senses moisture. The bell wakes them up and they get up to go to the bathroom. Eventually they will wake up with the feeling of bladder fullness. I don't know if it works for everyone but it did for my nephew and my cousin's son. Sorry but I am not sure where you get one.

J.,

I am writing this to you as a child who also had extreme problems with wetting herself. My problems were not just at night, but during the day. The worst of it was on my first day of 1st grade. We were all sitting a a circle listening to the teacher read I had No urge to go at all, but suddenly there was a big wet circle spilling out from underneath me. Needless to say my mother tried everything...special underwear, treats, special dresses what ever she could think of. The hardest part for me was that no one believed me when I said I did not know I had to go. I always tried to go or would go when I went to the restroom, but still I did not have a feeling of having to go. Finally my mother took me to a uroligist and they did a bunch of test, even a sleep study, and together we found something that worked. I know it sounds weird, but see if you can have a sleep study done with your son. It might give some insight as to what is going on with him at night that is preventing him from waking up.

Most importantly don't get upset with him over this. He already knows that something is not right. He needs to have good self-esteem more than anything and while this could just be a small bump in the road, bad self esteem over this will last a long time.

Don't lose your temper if you can help it. I have an Autistic son and he was a VERY heavy sleeper, with the same issue. Get him pull-ups and make sure he has them on before he goes to bed. Put a plastic sheet on the mattress. Get several changes of sheets and teach HIM how to strip and remake the bed and then put the sheets in the washer. It teaches him to be responsible for his own clean up and also makes him *shudder* work! It is amazing how fast kids will stop/start doing something when they take over a chore that they have inflicted on you. =) Hope it works for you!