10 Year Old Boy Still Wets the Bed

I have a 10 year old soon who has been experiencing the same thing. We started taking him to a chiropractor and it has made all the difference in the world! The weirdest parts of your body are connected and when something is out of allignment it affects other parts of your body. I would definitly reccomend seeing a chiropractor. Good Luck!

I was a bedwetter & my 9 y/o son is a bedwetter too so I know from both experiences what you are going through. It is something they will outgrow, boys usually take a little longer than girls. It is a very embarrasing ordeal and I can assure you he is not doing it on purpose. When I was younger and it wasn't as well known I got ridiculed and wasn't allowed to drink after a certain time period, got woke up in the middle of the night, and you are right, nothing works. Unfortunately he is going to have to just have to outgrow it. I got my son a bunkbed and he usually has friends stay the night with him so they can sleep in separate bunks. I got him boxer shorts to use for over the goodnights so they can't be seen, you may want to try depends for adults if he is wetting through the goodnights. They are a pain and my son doesn't like wearing them either so he only does it when he has someone stay over or goes somewhere. He has a few close friends that I am close with the parents so they know of his situation so they will always make sure he knows where he can dispose of his goodnights in the morning he thinks without anyone knowing so that helps too. I never used the medicine since I know he will eventually outgrow it. Just try to be very understanding even though it is just as frustrating for you as it is him. It was easier for me to talk to my son since I had the same experience so he knows I understand his pain and frustration, we pretend daddy and sister don't know, it makes it easier on his pride. Also, be sure older brother is not teasing him or telling others. Its hard being a kid these days and things like this only make it worse so brother needs to understand that. Good luck and give him lots of love and encouragement and reminders that it is not his fault and it will eventually go away. Might not hurt to try to find something on the internet to show him exactly how common it really is, there are probably several others in his class with the same problem.

Nocturnal Enuresis: there is a lot of information to read about this on the net.
If he is having a sleep over, have him wear big boy pants - he can discretely go put them on before he sleeps. He will have to be more careful about drinking too.

Remember don't make him feel bad about it - most likely he is not sleeping well and is very self conncious too. There may be alarms for him to use - see web for specific kinds of alarms.

Also, try using an air mattress on the bed to prevent having to clean the fabric mattress. Makes your life much easier and you won't be so stressed out thus not stressing him out. Or just give him a big air mattress to use as his bed instead. So easy to clean. We did this and I wondered why we didn't think of it earlier. Wal-mart sells them cheap.

Good luck. Just remember this is extremely h*** o* his self esteem especially since he can't stop it by himself. Never scold okay? Luck to you both, C.

My 10 year son old had great success with the alarm - we had tried chiropractor, meds, waking up etc.. After over a year seeing the urologist and lots of tests and recommendations - my son decided on the alarm - he was ready - in 2 weeks he was dry and has been dry now for 6 months!!!

We got ours from the bedwetting store. I didn't read all the replies - but I am not in favor of taking the hormone or other meds indefinitely. The urologist did say it is normal and 20% of kids will outgrow bedwetting each year until age 15 - then they consider it a major problem...we also used Dr. Pinto - he is great. We did do Ditropan for 6 months - but it didn't really make a difference.

I am speaking from my own personal experience with bed wetting. I would have an accident time to time when I was his age, actually the last time I wet the bed was when I was in 4th grade. I spent the night at my girlfriends house we drank a lot, stayed up late, and woke up in the middle of the night in a wet bed. I was EMBARRASSED, to say the least. I NEVER wet the bed after that, I guess it's what I needed to get me to stop. I would be careful with what I drank from that point on, and make sure I went to the bathroom before I fell asleep. Before that, I would go months without having an accident then out of the blue, I think more so when I drank too much and was extremely tired I would. All I know is that the embarrassment of anyone knowing stopped me from doing it again.

hi K.!

i am having the same problem with my son who is 10, my other son is 15 and he never had this problem. sounds like we are in the same boat. when he did wear the pullups they would overflow as well, so i quit buying them...i now wash sheets everyday...of course we have a plastic casing around the mattress...but i am at a loss on what to do as well...poor little guys dont wanna do it...it just happens. but i sure wish i had an answer to help him.

One of my children wet the bed until they were about 13. We used medication that you used as a nasal spray for sleepovers, camps and activities. I learned that the problem is their bladder doesn't grow as fast as their bodies so that is why they wet the bed. I know you feel bad for your child but they will probably outgrow it sometime around puberty. At least that is what happened with my child. We also tried waking and taking to the bathroom in middle of the night but had the experience that you had...so dead asleep got hard to get to the bathroom. Good luck!!

My little sister(8) wets the bed also. My parents founs out that when she was more tired than usual or went to bed later than normal she would wet. They started making sure she went to bed earlier and didn't let her get overly tired. Maybe try and put your son to bed earlier and make sure he is comfortable and is getting plenty of sleep. I hope this works for you.

I used to wet the bed when I was young. Today they found out I have kidney reflux, children born with it, or could be hereditary. They told me that my kidneys are all scarred now. It would have been easily corrected if i would have been diagnoised as a child. As an adult now correcting the problem would not be easy. Just a thought. I am sure todays docs do more research with bedwetting children. FYI.

Hi K.,

I have a nine year old boy that wets the bed every night. He has just recently stopped wetting through the pulls ups which he does wear every night. We tried the alarm for a while, but it scared him. The doctor gave us a prescription on the hormone at his nine year old check up, but we did not fill it. He told us it was to try out tho get the correct dose then only use for camp/sleepovers so it suprises me that your doctor wouldn't refill if you were saving for just those occasions. He told us it was not for everynight use. It is called DDAVP. I'm sorry I can't help, because trust me I know how frustrating it is for you and for him. Mine has wet the bed almost every night for nine years! There may be one night a month he is dry. I've been told they just have to outgrow it.

My 10 year old son still wets the bed. We've tried alarms and that didn't work AT ALL. It awoke everyone in the house EXCEPT my 10 year old. (7 or 8 at the time) He's currently taking DDAVP and Ditropan and it's working. He's seeing a pediatric urologist and we've seen good results.

Dr. Kirk Pinto w/ UANT of Fort Worth is who he's seeing.

Don't give up. I know it's hard.

Hi K.. I have a 6 and a half year old who wets the bed consistently every night. We have been using the alarm and it is beginning to help but it does take at least 3 months to see any improvement. This is because it is a learned behavior and takes a while to figure it out, especially since it happens while they are asleep. Yes the alarm is annoying but that is the point of it: it is annoying to them so the learned conditioned response is that if they are about to wet the bed, their brain remembers the unpleasant alarm sound (and vibration if you buy that kind of alarm) and wakes the child up.

One thing in the literature I received that was new to me, and I thought I'd read everything about nighttime wetting, is to make sure your child's daytime habits are already good. If your child plays and plays and holds it, then when they go they aren't able to fully relax their bladder muscles and then some pee is still in their body. This becomes a natural feeling for them if they do it for a long time, and they don't really know what it feels like to have an empty bladder. Then, when nighttime comes, their body naturally relaxes and the pee comes out. So if your son ever has accidents during the day or if he holds his pee a lot, getting him to go more often and COMPLETELY empty his bladder may also help your problem.

I hope you get some relief. I hope I do too, very soon! Good Luck!

Hi K.,

Out of curiousity, does your son also struggle with ADHD or learning disabilities.

Many children who struggle with learning issues also wet the bed. This is due to the fact that a part of the brain is not processing information correctly and does not alert him to the fact that he needs to get up. Other things to look for - Frequent ear infections as a young child, hyperactivity, lots of hand movements like picking at lables, scabs, scratching, chewing on clothing, aversion to certain textures in clothing and food, difficulty with fine motor skills like tying shoes or handwriting.

If this sounds like him - let me know.

Hope this helps!
S.

K., We had the same problem with our son with all the same results (alarms, etc...they didn't work. ) and the same heartaches & frustrations (couldn't have friends over or spend the night anywhere, etc) (They didn't have 'pull-ups' back then! After all the tests, etc., were said & done, the doctor concluded that he simply slept so hard that the 'brain waves' that are supposed to trigger you to wake up couldn't 'get through.'

He put him on some medication that actually kept him from sleeping so hard.

He also indicated that we keep an eye on what else was going on in his life.... school classes and/or events, home situations with parents/siblings, etc., that might be causing some stress. We found very little correlation there. He DID seem to have more trouble when his allergies and asthma were acting up .... in the spring and summer.

But what worked best for us really was just limiting his liquid intake after 8 PM and making sure he went before going to bed and, of course, not making a big deal about it - NEVER EVER talked about it in front of his sister or friends/ family. Of course, if we were up in the middle of the night, we'd wake him (which was almost impossible - he, too, was comatose!)but .... he finally DID outgrow it.

We never knew what caused it. Our daughter (11 months younger) didn't have that problem. I regret all the tests I put him through .... it was really traumatic for him. I feel like we should have just tried to find a way to deal with it between us.

Good luck, K.!

Have you asked him if he has something on his mind that could be making him wet the bed?I would not use that medication you should maby take him to a different(im not a mom but a 10 Year old boy)

HI, my son wet the bed and we used the big boy pants and his friends never knew. If he was sleeping over in our neighborhood, he just came home in his p.j.s... showered and went right back. But our pediatrician said not to take any meds or anything until after age 11 because almost all bed wetters stop at that age. I was worried about it but sure enough within just a few months after turning 11 he never wet the bed again. With the night pants, he just wore pajama bottoms and you couldn't tell.