Bed wetting

[Shotokan-kez]

Hello all.

This is just a moan really, i needed some advice and to talk so i thought this would be the best place, i hope no-one minds.

Ryan is 12 and Ethan is 5. Ryan wets his bed every single night, medical tests have proved it isn't medical related and i have been told by doctors he will grow out of it. Ethan is 5 and he has never wet the bed, not even when he came out of nappies, he didnt even use the potty he just went straight to the toilet and he didnt need nappies at night. Why do i have two totally different kids.

Ryan is almost 13 and he doesn't even take responsibility for it. I have so much to do in my life, with work, housework, studies, bills ect. It's getting me down having to wash so many bed clothes every single day. He won't even strip his bed in the morning if he is wet and i have to force him into the shower! Another problem is that he can't have sleepovers with his friends and they can't come here because his room smells bad, as well as the fact he will wee the bed.

Has anyone had to deal with this before? It would be nice to know why he is doing and how old he would be before he stops...14, 15 or 16?? He was once on a medication called desmopressin but they wont let him have anymore because it has been so long and they said it can effect the kidneys.

Any advice much appreciated.

Kez

[bushido_man96]

I think that there are some ways to break this, but they are rather involved. You may be able to ask around for some ideas on how to break it.

The idea revolved around doing things while he had a full bladder that makes you want to pee, but forces you to hold it until you finally do go to the bathroom; I just know the idea behind it, and not the actual method. You may want to try something like that, and see if it works for him.

[white owl]

I know this may sound mean but do not let him have any fluid a few hours before bed.

If you get up through the night to go to the bathroom maybe think about waking him up to go, also. Maybe he is sleeping to deeply to wake up.

I diffidently make him strip his own bed.

I am reaching but some for some reason I recall over hearing a person talking about there kid not wanting to get up through the night to use the bathroom the parent came to the conclusion the kid was just being lazy. Don't get me wrong I am not saying this could be it. I am just giving you ideas.

[joesteph]

Ryan wets his bed every single night, medical tests have proved it isn't medical related and i have been told by doctors he will grow out of it. . . .

He was once on a medication called desmopressin but they wont let him have anymore because it has been so long and they said it can effect the kidneys.

Kez, I'm surprised, since there's nothing medically wrong, that the bell-and-pad method hasn't been suggested to you. From Psychology: Principles and Practice by Spencer A. Rathaus, p. 135:

By the time children are five or six years old, most of them wake up when their bladders are full. They stop themselves from urinating, which is an automatic response to bladder tension, and go to the bathroom. But some children do not respond to sensations of a full bladder when they are asleep. They remain asleep and often wet their beds.

To help children stop wetting their beds, psychologists came up with the bell-and-pad method. This method teaches children to wake up in response to bladder tension. A child with a bed-wetting tendency sleeps on a special pad placed on his or her bed. When the child starts to urinate, the water content of the urine triggers a bell, and the ringing wakes up the child. . . .

After a couple of weeks of using the bell-and-pad method, most children no longer wet their beds.

I sincerely hope this is of help; it's at least worth checking out. As for the medication, we live in a society that is quick to medicate, and yes there are often adverse side effects to medications, especially when dealing with the young.

[TheHighlander]

First time I ventured into the General Chat section and I am glad I did.

I was Ryan.

My parents went through the gamut: medication, psychology, etc. nothing worked. Nothing wrong physically. No sleepovers, no one in my room, etc, etc. Having to constantly say no to sleepover invitations was hard. the questions of "Why not?" and basically having to lie each time.

My younger brother (3 years younger) never had an issue.

Then, sometime in 8th grade, (12-13 yrs old) I woke up one day dry. and the next, and the next. It really was like a switch.

Having said that, I know that everyone is different, but there is hope.

To some of the particulars, I can only speak to why I did it, though it might similar for Ryan.

Not changing the sheets or showering - it is an act of denial. He is probably ashamed and embarrassed, even though it's not his fault. You're dealing with it everyday, you want it to stop and you don't want the reminder that, "Look again at what you did last night"

With regard to the bell and pad, my parents were deadset against it. Their feeling was -- "DING DING DING - hey everyone, it's 3 am and I just wet my bed! just thought I would wake everyone up and let you know right now instead of the morning!" But is has been shown to work. I was such a hard sleeper that I probably would've slept through it anyway.

It seemed like such an act of negative reinforcement.

Once he hopefully has that breakthrough, you eventually should have him sleep over at someone's house who either knows what is going on, or who will be trusted with what has been going on. Get that first sleepover out of the way will go a long ways into building confidence and getting the whole ordeal out of his head.

It is tough to go through, but once he's past it, it will be gone. I haven't really thought about it for years. Even in high school, just a year or two removed from it all, I didn't think twice about going on campouts, sleeping over etc. At that age there are so many other things to occupy the mind.

[sensei8]

When I was just a kid, my parents had me go through a series of urethal dilation to stem off my bed-wetting...QUACKS...every single one of them! The dilation is one of the most barbaric things to put any child/person through. WHY? It's done in the doctors office, you're put under anesthesia, something that resembles a long knitting needle is inserted into the male organ, thus, dilation is achieved somehow. Then, they bring you out of anesthesia and before you're allowed to leave the doctors office you've got to urinate...this is where the screaming and crying begins. Why? The dilation causes so much pain and so much blood when you first urinate after dilation, it's inhuman! It usually takes about 3-4 more visits to the bathroom at home before the pain/blood stops.

The urethal dilation done at the hospital is 10 times worse as far as the pain and the blood is concerned.

I'd never do this to my two sons and I pray that they never do it to their sons.

After all of the pain/blood I endured as a child...the urethal dilation DIDN'T WORK!!!

Please seek out other alternatives to cure bed-wetting if you're entertaining urethal dilation because it's beyond pain...and it doesn't work!!!!

[TheHighlander]

When I was just a kid, my parents had me go through a series of urethal dilation to stem off my bed-wetting...QUACKS...every single one of them! The dilation is one of the most barbaric things to put any child/person through. WHY? It's done in the doctors office, you're put under anesthesia, something that resembles a long knitting needle is inserted into the male organ, thus, dilation is achieved somehow. Then, they bring you out of anesthesia and before you're allowed to leave the doctors office you've got to urinate...this is where the screaming and crying begins. Why? The dilation causes so much pain and so much blood when you first urinate after dilation, it's inhuman! It usually takes about 3-4 more visits to the bathroom at home before the pain/blood stops.

The urethal dilation done at the hospital is 10 times worse as far as the pain and the blood is concerned.

I'd never do this to my two sons and I pray that they never do it to their sons.

After all of the pain/blood I endured as a child...the urethal dilation DIDN'T WORK!!!

Please seek out other alternatives to cure bed-wetting if you're entertaining urethal dilation because it's beyond pain...and it doesn't work!!!!

OH GOD, I forgot that... I probably blocked it from my mind I had that done too, in the hospital. I was screaming so loud, I was scaring people in other rooms on the floor.

Yeah, that was bad, real bad. and it didn't do a damn thing for me either.

[joesteph]

I recall over hearing a person talking about there kid not wanting to get up through the night to use the bathroom the parent came to the conclusion the kid was just being lazy.

This is an old and misguided conclusion by the person you overheard saying this, White Owl. It's even included in the novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, in which the drill sergeant has this same conclusion about bed-wetters, so among the young men he's supposed to train, he has the two with incontinence sleep in bunk beds, switching who's on top each night. An absolutely ignorant approach.

I feel that the bell-and-pad method is worth a shot. It's certainly not as invasive as the hospital procedure described in other postings. Although I'm a parent whose children do not have the bed-wetting problem, I'd rather hear a bell go off during the night if one did, and check to see that my child woke up. It's in the chapter in the book I cited as "classical conditioning," meaning that when the bladder experiences tension, the body learns/is conditioned by association to wake up before that loud-enough bell sounds.

[Patrick]

Thanks for sharing that, TheHighlander and Bob.