peeing the bed

[melissawilliam]

The cause would be that children's bladder size and the signal waking their brain takes longer to develop in some children. Children do not suddenly start to wake up during the night at age 7 like magic, but it is just the age that enough children's bladders now wake them up that "they"(medical experts) begin to call it "bed wetting" whereas before age 7 it is considered normal (like a 2 year old peeing in a diaper) and therefore doesn't have a label. Remember YOU wake up during the night to pee, so it isn't an issue of stopping the nighttime peeing, but having the bladder wake the brain to go to the bathroom.

The vast majority of children will begin to wake up on their own before puberty. Wiki says 95% of 10 year olds are dry every night. There is a genetic disposition to this where if mom or dad wet the bed until puberty it was about a 70% chance their child would also. (I had some amazing pamphlets from the hospital many years ago and don't completely remember percentages anymore). As a child who wet the bed until age 13, with other relatives who wet the bed until puberty, I can say the WORST thing you can do is make a big deal about it and act like it is something that should be changed.
Horrible things to do to your child:
-try to bribe your child to make their bladder wake them up at night
-praise them when their bladder does wake them up at night
- withhold liquids after 6pm
-wake them up during the night to try to make them pee in the toilet


In a couple years, if it is still happening you can teach them to deal with it on their own. Keep a couple towels in their room, so if they wet the bed they can put the towel down and go back to sleep, then in the morning pull their sheet up to dry - then you only have to wash the sheets weekly.
If when they are older they refuse to have a waterproof sheet on their bed that their friends may notice (although the new ones mentioned are really nice and they can tell friends it is hyperallergenic and not for water/pee), they can get a damp cloth and scrub where the pee was on the mattress, and then blow dry it or put a towel on it. There are also new, thin diapers that children could wear every night or just for sleepovers so this shouldn't have to be a horrible situation anymore.

Basically, while this is a situation that may be embarrassing and could cause self-esteem issues you can make sure that you don't make it worse and maybe can even make them feel better by not making them think they are doing something wrong and should be able to control it. Allow them to think this is "normal" for as long as possible so they have less time feeling bad about it. Teach them how to deal with it on their own so they feel control over it and you don't feel frustrated by having to deal with it every night.


Impact[edit]

A review of medical literature shows doctors consistently stressing that a bedwetting child is not at fault for the situation. Many medical studies state that the psychological impacts of bedwetting are more important than the physical considerations. "It is often the child's and family member's reaction to bedwetting that determines whether it is a problem or not."^[10]
Self-esteem[edit]

Whether bedwetting causes low self-esteem remains a subject of debate, but several studies have found that self-esteem improved with management of the condition.^[13] Children questioned in one study ranked bedwetting as the third most stressful life event, after parental divorce and parental fighting. Adolescents in the same study ranked bedwetting as tied for second with parental fighting.^[13]
Bedwetting children face problems ranging from being teased by siblings, being punished by parents, and being afraid that friends will find out.
Psychologists report that the amount of psychological harm depends on whether the bedwetting harms self-esteem or development of social skills. Key factors are:^[14]

• How much the bedwetting limits social activities like sleep-overs and campouts
• The degree of the social ostracism by peers
• Anger, punishment, and rejection by caregivers
• The number of failed treatment attempts
• How long the child has been wetting

[MamaM]

Boys wet longer and more often. My son is 11 and stopped peeing the bed everynight this past fall at about 10.5 my brother wet till about age 12 and i wet the bed until about 9. No need to worry. 6 is still so young

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