How do I get my 4 year old to stop wetting the bed?

Question

He is a wonderful boy. Never has problems with using the bathroom. Until he is asleep. Usually every night he wets the bed. It really bothers him. I bought him the goodnights. Which I love , I don't have to wash his blankets everyday. But he just hates it. I know it makes him feel like he is a baby. But I don't want to go back to washing his blankets all the time again. What do I do?

Answer 1

My son is almost six and still wets the bed almost every night. We use Good Nights (and call them Nighttime Pants).

I've talked to several pediatricians about this, who have all told me not to worry, and that he'll probably grow out of it by the time he's 6 or 7.

The important thing to stress to your son is that he's not a baby for wetting the bed. It's just that his body isn't ready to let him go all night without peeing. One thing we do with my son, it get him and take him to the bathroom right before we go to bed. Most nights, he's barely awake for this, but it does help with keeping him dry.

Please let your son know that he's not alone and that he is definitely NOT a baby!

Answer 2

Keep him in the good night pants. Just tell him its so he doesnt make a mess and that he only has to wear them at night until he can wake himself up to go. My brother wet the bed until he was 8 and they never had diapers like that when we were kids. So just be patient and use the pants. Good luck

Answer 3

take him to the doctor some kids have problems with bed wetting and alot of the time they can give you something or even tell you what to do to help stop it also he might be a deep sleeper so when the body trys to say hey got to pee he dont realize it dont let him have anything to drink befor bed from 30 min to hr and make him go potty before he falls asleep

Answer 4

PATIENCE.
Let him know that this is normal for some kids for a long time. Up to age 9 or so is considered norma! At age 4, the doctor wouldn't even be concerned yet. At age 5 they might give you a referal to a urologist.

Don't let him have a lot of liquids before bed. Let him know that the Goodnights are just for kids like him. It's NOT a diaper and he shouldn't feel bad about wearing it.

My 3 and 5 yo are fine at night but my 7 yo is a bedwetter!

Here is my son's story -

Our stuggle with enuresis

Keithen turned 7 years old in February and still wets the bed at night and sometimes has accidents during the day. Here is a little about our journey with enuresis.

When my son turned 5 he was bedwetting every night and having at least one, usually more, accidents each day. Our family doctor did a urinalysis to make sure he didn't have any infections or anything and that came back normal. He referred us to a urologist. The urologist put him on Ditropan. He also ordered an u/s. I filled the perscription and waited a bit, unsure if I wanted to give it to him. We decided to wait on the u/s, feeling pretty sure that this was not physical but instead a discipline one. (Didn't care if he was wet...wouldn't stop what he was doing to go...engrossed in play...we saw a pattern to when accidents happened...etc.)

That wasn't working so we tried the meds - I think we did a total of 3 doses of Ditropan. He HATED it. There was no pretty color or flavoring to it to make it palatable to kids. It smelled very strong and tasted nasty. The side effects were horrible. He would get dizzy and he fell asleep in the middle of the day. With the start of Kindergarten coming up soon, I felt the side effects were unacceptable. I didn't want him getting sleepy like that when he was in school and he was simply not himself on the medication. We stopped them - like I said I think we tried 3 doses. We struggled through the rest of the year on our own.

Around his 6th birthday, someone on the Mothering boards suggested chiropractic to me as a treatment for enuresis. We were open to the idea and decided it was worth a try. Through a network of local mothers, we found a chiropractor with special training in treating kids.

We started treatments 3 times per week. This did seem to help. The first time that he woke up dry, I honestly cried. I was so happy for him to see that he was making progress. And I was so relieved that maybe we had found an answer. At our next appointment I had to choke back tears of joy and relief as I told our chiropractor our good news. I even asked to give him a hug because I was so deeply grateful for the help he had given my son.

Shortly after staring treatment, he was waking up dry about once every two weeks - a huge accomplishment compared to how things had been! And his number of daytime accidents decreased. Around this same time we had a checkup with our family doc and with his urologist. We refused to try the meds again because of the side effects. We reported that the chiropractic treatment was helping and agreed to do an ultrasound. The ultrasound came back normal.

As his chiropractic scans got better and his accidents decreased, his visit frequency decreased. After a couple of months of chiropractic treatment, our chiropractor suggested that we try DHA supplements. These made a HUGE difference for us. This was probably the point that nighttime accidents went down to once a week or so. Daytime accidents at this point were reduced to ones that seemed undeniably behavioral (only wetting while playing on the computer). We were doing so much better!

You may wonder why the DHA supplements were recommended and how they help. Children with enuresis have increased levels of prostaglandin E2 and nitric oxide. Omega-3 fatty acids are known to inhibit the synthesis of prostaglandin E2 and renal nitric oxide. Bed-wetting children have an underdeveloped region of the brain that controles nighttime micturition (as noted by their inappropriate startle response). Omega-3 fatty acids play a critical role in the development of and function of the CNS including micturition control and startle response. Nations with the lowest prevalence of bed-wetting children consume more than double the fish/seafood as compared to the nations with the highest prevalence of bedwetting children.

A week before his 7th birthday, I was frustrated once again. He had backslid. He was no longer cooperating with taking his DHA and he was wetting the bed almost every night. (He still wears pullups to bed.) He had been having a daytime accident several days per week again. I still think those are mostly behavoral - tied in to computer/gameboy/etc. - activities where he is super focused. Chiropractic visits are now only once every 2 weeks as his body looks good, so I don't think the increase in accidents was due to a physical problem.

We have gone through periods of taking his Gameboy away waiting for him to go a week with no daytime accidents. A month after he turned 7, things seemed to be looking up. He was having occasional dry nights and was having more dry days than wet ones.

I think I do need to get him back on the DHA on a regular basis as the drop in the DHA levels in his body may be creating some of our problems (at least the night-time part). I may have to find ways to sneak it into his food if he continues to avoid taking the pills. We had to stop seeing the chiropractor back in April because we couldn't afford it anymore. He has definately regressed since then. :-( I wish we couldn afford to go back to regular adjustments.

Last year in Kindergarten he only had 2 or 3 accidents at school all year long. This past year, in first grade, I think he had 2 or 3 accidents at school which were "giggle pees" when he was laughing too hard with a friend in gym class and at a class party. I'm relieved that it hasn't been a big problem for him at school. I remember that my cousin was "that kid" in grade school who was always being sent to the class for clean clothes. I remember the stigma that it can carry to be the "stinky kid" who wets his pants. I am thankful that he doesn't seem to be dealing with that at school.

I hope our experience helps some other families out there who are struggling with this problem. I know I am eternally grateful that we found chiropractic and the DHA supplements to help our son instead of going the traditional medical route with the prescription drugs.

Answer 5

Buy him pull-ups.No problem with wearing that.You don't have to get up to go.