How do you stop your child from bedwetting?

There are several factors that could be at work. Sometimes a UTI is to blame- children aren’t usually capable of describing a UTI to the parents. Sometimes their bladder simply hasn’t developed enough yet and they will out grow it.

Some options to help- restrict liquid intake for a few hours before bed. No liquid foods either- like jello or fruit. Another thing that can help is to play the ‘Red Light/Green Light’ game while they urinate. Have a parent stand with them and say “Red Light!” to have the child stop the stream of urine. Have the child hold it a second or two- then say “Green Light!”. This helps develop the muscles to control bladder contractions.

I wet the bed until I was 14 and the only way I could stop was to wait until nature took its course. Bed wetting is not fun for the bed wetter. In fact, it is degrading and humiliating. To this day I am afraid to tell people about it for fear of harsh judgment. My advice to you would be to not treat this boy like he is doing something wrong or gross. Trust me, he is punishing himself enough for this.

@gemiwing: Does reducing fluid intake actually help? The only this would do for me is cause the bed-wetting to happen later at night, rather than earlier.

@KatawaGrey In my experience, it helped about a quarter of the children that have been in my care. For one child we had to use the red light/green light in conjunction with witholding fluids for three hours before bed. Of course, we chugged them full of fluid in the morning and kept exercise/sweat to a minimum later to avoid dehydration. It took about six months, but it did help. I think it was the combination of those two- plus they outgrew it quickly (they were eight at the time).

I also fully agree that it’s humiliating enough to a child’s psyche- adding shame on top of that will reap nothing but a harmed little soul.

One useful tool is to set an alarm clock to go off in the middle of the night. When it goes off have the child get up and use the bathroom. After a couple of times they can man the clock and bathroom themself and learn to become in charge of this themselves. It gives them a little power over the situation.

You may have to spend a couple of nights adjusting the time it goes off.

I have known people who have had success with bed wetting alarms: this site describes the various kind.

Above all, I would hope the parents wouldn’t make a huge, embarrassing deal about it because as someone says, the bed wetter is humiliated as it is.

When my daughter was three, she was fully potty trained. But suddenly, for what ever reason, she started wetting the bed at night. It made her SOOOOO upset. I told her it was no big deal, and I had a plan. I bought a box of diapers, put one on her every night at bed time, and by the time the box of 30 were gone she was relaxed enough, and not worried about it any more, so that she didn’t do it again.

We have a six year old son that has yet to stay dry all night. We’ve tried limiting fluids before bed, having him go potty twice before bed, waking him up to go potty before we go to bed…he still wakes up soaked. We stuck with that routine for two weeks with no improvement, and just decided to go back to Pull-ups and give him more time. We don’t make him feel bad about it at all, and he clearly has no control over it.

Some kids sleep too deeply to wake up when they have to go. Other kids’ bodies need to mature a bit, so their brains signal the body to produce less urine when sleeping. I think our son has both of those problems. We’d wake him 2 times at night to use the bathroom, and in the morning he’d still wake up sopping wet and mad at us because he didn’t remember getting up to go potty. We were all tired, not sleeping well, and frustrated, so decided it would be best to wait and try again when he’s a bit older.

When we do try again, we are going to try this. It is quite a bit less expensive than other bedwetting alarms, can be used with a pull-up, and has consistently good reviews. The cost will be worth it, considering what we spend on those stupid pull-ups, not to mention the extra loads of laundry from the nights he overwhelms the pull-up and wakes up with wet sheets. Seriously, I have no idea how such a small person can produce so much pee.

Your nephew just needs time and understanding, most likely. The pediatrician should be consulted just to rule out any kind of physical problem, like a UTI.

An important question. You don’t get your child to stop wetting the bed. It happens when it happens, and various methods are useless at best and harmful at worst. This is an awareness that develops in the brain, and until that time, a child will just wet the bed.

Urge your sister to relax about this and be happy her son is trained during the day.

One thing though, you didn’t tell us how the child feels about it. Does it make him feel bad? If so, he just needs some security (like a diaper at night) until he can get over it. On the other hand, are there some attention issues going on?

I was a bedwetter. Thats right. I wet my bed all the time. I had to do these excersizes… called kegals I think… basically…. what you do is drink a lot of liquid. You have him hold it as long as he can. Then, when he cant hold it any more, he has to start and stop the pee stream, (which is really hard to do by the way) on off on off on off until he is done peeing.

I now can outlast anyone in a bladder holding contest… and this also made me better at something that is NSFW. :)

The first thing to do is take her/im to her/is pediatrician to rule out any medical condition. The doctor usually can provide tips and ideas.

Is the child in a happy enviroment? Do the parents argue a lot, or is there tension for the child to see? That would be a great cause for the bedwetting.

Bed wetter here too. I always felt terrible and embarrassed when I wet the bed, so I think which ever route you decide to try always remember to provide love and support because it is traumatic every time.

@Sophief: Do you have any info to back that up? I have never heard of bed wetting being caused by tension in the home.

This article gives emotional stress as a cause of secondary bed wetting. Secondary bed wetting is the name given to bed wetting that starts in a child who has previously been consistently dry during the day and at night. A child who, like my son, has never been able to stay dry at night, is said to have primary bed wetting.

If a child has been dry at night for a long period but starts bed wetting, the cause is usually either medical, neurological, or emotional and should be quickly addressed with a pediatrician.

@Sophief The child is in a very comfortable environment, in fact I find too comfortable because they spoil him alot I suppose its just a bladder problem…but why I ask this is because I know people who wet the bed for a long time even up to their teenage years. That is a horrible trick for nature to play on people dont you think?

@cornbird: Yeah, I guess it is a horrible trick but it still happens and is still fairly common. It doesn’t matter if the boy is spoiled or not, drawing any kind of attention to the bed wetting is going to make him ashamed and feel like a failure. Trust me, no bed wetter is happy or confident when it comes to bed wetting.

One of my children wet the bed consistently until the age of 8. Nothing we tried worked well, and we just ended up double-making the bed (waterproof mattress pad, fitted sheet – followed by waterproof mattress pad, and another fitted sheet) to make it easier on all of us. What finally stopped it was a medication given for a completely different reason. My child had severe anxiety & panic attacks, and was prescribed liquid Nortriptyline (because she couldn’t swallow pills) for that. It happens to have a happy secondary effect… stopping bed-wetting!

@KatawaGrey Yes, myself.