Bed Wetting - Ellwood City, PA

Please tell your husband that his boy is NOT "lazy"...they actually found that this is a problem of the brain failing to send the proper signal to the body to wake before voiding.
I wet the bed until age 11, and was mortified every time. My parents got that horrible alarm device, and I would be so terrified of it going off that I would stay awake at night or opt to sleep on the hard floor. It took weeks of not having it in bed to get back on a regular schedule.
My advice? Get some kid-sized "Good Nites" underwear and consult a specialist. :)
It is your choice if you go for the alarm, and if he is comfortable with it then I see no problem. I just wanted to give you a first hand account of someone who tried it and had gone through this problem. Good luck!

This is not laziness. It's called Enuresis. His father needs to be educated and read some info online about it. My oldest son is 22 now and he had it until he was 10, when puberty set in. I thought for years that he was lazy until he was diagnosed. I felt so horrible after learning it was a medical condition. I mean, think about it. Do these children REALLY want to wet the bed, be embarrassed, ridiculed, punished, etc? No. I have no idea where to get the alarm thing. But you can help lesson it by limiting drinks after dinner, do a double void before bed (30 minutes before and then again before laying down), and not punish for wetting but do expect them to clean their own mess. My son only got punished for not cleaned up his mess. He would toss his wet pajamas on the floor and not pull off his sheets in the morning. I would lay in the same sheets for 3 days! So he'd be punished for that, but not for wetting, as it wasn't his fault. It happens with boys more than girls, and can last up to age 10 or when puberty comes. That's how it worked for my son. He went from wetting to nocturnal emission, which just opened up another chapter in his life, lol. Try to educate Dad though. That's my biggest concern!

K. B
mom to 5 including triplets

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Hi L.,

Encourage your boyfriend to look up bedwetting on the internet. This condition is so frequent that there is a name for it: Enuresis. There is medication available to help wake of the brain centers that control the bladder.

Look up for a local Urologist to help you if you need more information.

Good luck. D.

Other tricks: 1/2 hr before bedtime, have him go to the bathroom. 1/2 hr later, have him go again. It's called a "double void" when at the urologist's office, and if the problem is physical, and his bladder is not completely emptying, then this may help. (I had a daughter with bladder problems who saw the urologist regularly from age 5 until age 10 when her body matured enough to solve the problem)

Trick #2: Be sure it isn't a bladder infection. When our daughter went off the low grade antibiotics she was on for regular infections. she would get an infection. It was always only a matter of time. So we told her that if she'd slug a shot of cranberry juice every evening at supper time, we wouldn't put her back on the pills that she hated. She hasn't had a bladder infection since. And she hasn't wet her pants without having a bladder infection.

I would like to know how many nights (of having the wee pad alarm go off) it took before your nephew started to wake up to urinate. . . . it seems kind of backwards, because the alarm goes off AFTER the fact, not in time to get you to get up and go.

So, a cheaper method would be to wake him up yourselves, before you go to bed, and have him go to the bathroom.

One other remedy from the urologist's mouth: no soda. More water.

Good luck. It's frustrating. We were really lucky that our daughter was small, so when she went on overnights, she brought a pull-up with her, and changed into her pj's privately. Then she'd just leave the pull-up (wet or dry) in her pj's to come home. It made her overnight bag a bit smelly on the return trip, but she didn't get embarrassed and she didn't wet anyone else's sheets or mattresses. :-)

He's not being lazy. My son and nephew had the same problem. My nephew is 9 and has to wear goodnights to bed. i think some kids are dead sleepers or it may be hereditary cause myself as well as nieces and nephews have problems. Talk to a urologist or your pediatrician. they have the alarms and a couple other things you can try.

Hi L., Before you go for the pad, make sure there is no physical reason for his bed wetting. Then you may want to consider if there are any mental reasons for the bed wetting at his age. It may very well be just a deep sleeping issue...they do make pull-ups for older kids with problems that will save you both laundry and further embarssement while you work on this issue. Dad needs to get over himself and get more compassion and involved...attitude won't solve anything. Best wishes.

L.~

How compassionate of you to want to help your stepson get past this potentially embarrassing (and very common) problem. Kudos to you for that. I often look at the One Step Ahead / Leaps and Bounds website for innovative things, and I remembered seeing something like what you described there. Here is a link to a device like you described.

http://www.onestepahead.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId...

If the link doesn't work, go to www.onestepahead.com, click on the Leaps and Bounds tab at the top, and go to the Common Childhood Challenges section, Potty Training and Bedwetting. There are some other things on there worth looking at also, but there is a pair of undies with the alarm that you mentioned. Hope this helps! Wish your stepson good luck from someone wishing him well.

PS... I wet the bed occasionally well into my grade school years, so I can certainly identify. If it is any consolation, I did eventually grow out of it, but sure wish someone would have done something to help me get past it too. Best of luck to you both!

My sister had the same problem with my nephew. They tried everything. One thing that helped was if my sister went in and woke him up before she went to bed (a few hours after he did) to go. He hardly ever had accidents when she did this. She would even go to bed early sometimes and set her alarm so she could wake him up..because the alarm wouldn't wake him up. Eventually she put a second set of sheets in his room and made him change his own sheets in the middle of the night and voila he stopped wetting the bed within a week.

Your stepson is most probably not being lazy. My now 17 year old was put on medicine for his bed wetting problems. He would sleep right through a completely soaked pullup and bed. We noticed the problem when he was about 4 and was already potty trained during the day. He just couldn't wake up. He also had to (and still does) go a lot during the day and can't hold it. When he has to go he has to go. Guess it is getting a little better. A doctor put him on Imipramine and also a nasal spray. All I remember is DDAVP spray. We tried at different times stopping one or the other of the medications but he needed both. He has actually only been off them for about 3 years. Which means he had them till he was 14.
All that to say you should make sure there is no physical problem involved. And please find all you can to educate your boyfriend so his son will not be labeled "lazy" by his dad. He doesn't need that.

I think I just saw that "wee pad" in the One Step Up catalog yesterday!

I think those things work because he is probably a deep sleeper and does not wake up with the urge.

Good luck!

It is not uncommon for boys that age to wet the bed. It's typically a physical issue and not a behavioral issue.

There is medication that can be given to help. I would recommend checking with his pediatrician and asking what they recommend.

Good luck!

My six year old still wets the bed, but he is on the autism spectrum and has other "issues" so we aren't even close to tackling this issue. Thank goodness for kids pullups.

Hi L.,
My 11 year old son successfully used a bedwetting alarm to stop wetting the bed at around the age your step son is now. He used the type that attached to his underpants. They do still make them and used correctly they work wonderfully.

The most important thing about using the alarm is to understand that this is all about teaching the child to feel and then respond to his body's signals. This takes time, it took us months for my son to achieve nighttime dryness. The alarm is only part of the process and for it to work you need to have at least two willing participants - the child and someone to help him. I slept on an air mattress on the floor in my son's room for months when he started using the alarm. For the first few nights it didn't wake him at all - I did.

I absolutely don't want to discourage you, just let you know that the alarm isn't a magic, overnight cure. Your sister has probably told you this already, but it is worth repeating. Your step son isn't lazy, he simply need help learning to respond to his body's signals while he is sleeping. Helping my son use the alarm to stop wetting the bed was the best thing I could have done for him. We both worked hard at first, but ultimately this was his victory. I can count on one hand the number of times he has wet the bed since he graduated from the alarm. This is something he can and should be proud of.

I suggest you do some research on the web, www.thebedwettingstore.com is a good place to start. They have two great books, including "Waking Up Dry" by Howard Bennett, which is written for both the parent and the child to read. I highly recommend it - this is the program we used.

Good-luck,
K. L.

Check out leapsandbounds.com
I think they have something like that.