Bed Wetting?

Question

My daughter is 6 years old and wets the bed at night, I currently buy "Good Nights" underpants for her. These are very expensive, Why is there no other generic brands that make these pants for older children? What are some other things I can do to help my daughter out on bed wetting?

Answer 1

CVS has their own brand, foodlion has their own brand, and i think that most pharmacy stores (like cvs, and walgreens) have their own brands too. they are out there you just have to look for them.

she will outgrow it, just dont make it a big deal.

Answer 2

Oh can i just tell you that i sooo understand where you are coming from. My daughter is 9 years old and sometimes i feel like it is never going to end.
On Tuesday we went for her yearly check up and this was brought up.
Her doctor explained to me that it is not in her head and that she truly is not to blame that it is not laziness she just can't feel when her bladder is full at night. due to being a heavy sleeper, or just really tired and went on to say other things. Any way so he went on to say that i could try waking her 30-40minutes after she has been asleep and making her use the bathroom. Well we have done this before and nothing helped. So he gave her a prescription called Demsopressin it is a nasal spray that she takes one hour before bed. Today is Friday and she only had one accident this week.
Its such a heart breaking thing to go threw. My daughter wouldn't wear the pull up they gave her a really bad rash. So i bought some depends and told her they were for adults who had the same problem and she will wear them but only until she wets them and then off they come leading to wetting in the bed. But this medicine has been working so far.
Please if you ever want to chat about this or just vent you can email me. I know how frustrating and tiring it can get. Best of luck.

Answer 3

My 5yo wets the bed. She can't help it.

We used Pull-Ups until she started kindergarden. She was leaking all the time. So we're back to diapers at night. Makes mornings easier for us.

The typical advice like stopping drinks, waking her, etc. didn't help. The ped says that's common, too, just like bedwetting at 4, 5, 6. They need more bladder capacity and/or learn to wake themselves. So the common advice is well-intentioned and works for some, but don't de disappointed if it doesn;t work for your daughter.

Lots of kids wet at 6. She will probably outgrow it in a year ot two. Once she does, it will be a childhood memory. So try not to stress too much.

The best thing is to try to manage the situation so you both have less stress. For us, that's having Allie wear a diaper while she sleeps. Other families have other solutions.

Kids and families are all different. What works for one, doesn't for another. Just keep trying alternatives until you find something that lets you get through the nights and early mornings without ether of you feeling like a failure.

Answer 4

This is mainly for momma2min: Every person in the U.S.
should be supplementing with EFAs ; Essential Fatty Acids.
We simply do not eat enough of GOOD FATS. I won't go
into detail (and I 'm not sure if I can list a company) but I
personally have been taking essential oils for many years.
Go to site www.swansonvitamins.com. Look in the Index for
Essential fatty acids and Omega 3 fish oils and flaxseed
products. All humans should get Omega 3-6-9 each day BUT
the oils must come from an uncontaminated source--organic.
The DHA you are looking for comes in one product that
contains 100% pure Norwegian Cod liver oil for an easily
affordable price. They have flaxseed oil/borage oil/evening primrose oil/which are wonderful for a growing child.
they have a product on sale now that is from a highly
respected nutritional supplement company. This has 180mg
EPA and 120 mg DHA in each pill.

You can also call 1-800-437-4148 and ask for a Customer
Service person. Tell this lady what you are looking for and
order the lowest quantity to test it out. Most DHA comes
from fish oils which your son probably objects to. Best bet,
mix it in with tuna sandwich or salmon. The Other oils all
have pleasant taskes and can be added to any non-sugary
dinner foods.

Answer 5

Some children have problems with their bladders; my brother was this way until he was about 8 or 9. He eventually grew out of it. Don't make an issue out of it or she will become self conscious of it. As others have said limit fluids and wake her up every 2-3 hours so she can start waking herself up. This may mean an earlier bedtime so that she is still refreshed in the mornings before school (If her school work were start to suffer, that would just add to the problem).

Answer 6

My son wet the bed until he was about nine. Not every night but enough that it was a problem. I started setting my alarm clock so that I got up with him every 2 hours to wake him up to use the restroom. He also wasn't given anything to drink an hour before bed. After a few tiring nights he started waking up himself. "Good Nights" can be embarrassing even at home. I know it's a pain to have to wash sheets alot but if your daughter could feel wet it might be easier in the long run to break this.

Answer 7

I admit it I was a bed wetter. We did the whole "no liquids thing at night time" and my parents used to get me out of bed, but it was something I had to grow out of. I stopped when I was about 8 years old. It gradually stopped. I was such a heavy sleeper when I was little I just could not stop myself. Also, I started doing kegel exercises (recommended by my doctor) when I was 8 which I think really helped me strengthen my bladder muscles. I would do kegels during the day, and also while I was going pee. This really helps a lot!

Invest in some plastic sheets and depends diapers and get her to do some kegels.

Answer 8

Stop all fluids 3 hrs before bed time. I make my son pee before getting ready for bed, then again RIGHT before bed time. Also.. have you discussed this with her dr? There is a lot of info that toncilitis can cause bed wetting because of the disruptive sleep pattern associated with it. Bed wetting could be a sign of something as serious as sleep apnea (not breathing overnight).

Answer 9

Stop all liquids after 5:00pm. Get her up at midnight to go to the bathroom. (This works great if one parent works nights I did it for 2 years and had dry sheets), get a plastic mattress cover. Teach her how to take the sheets off the bed and where to put them to be washed.

Answer 10

Have you seen a doctor? Have her get a urinalysis and an ultrasound to rule out medical problems. She should see a urologist. Get your ped or family doc to refer you to one.

Make sure the mattress is protected with a vinyl sheet. My son still wears Pull Ups, but is getting too big for them. I think I need to move him into Good Nights but they are expensive! I was going to check to see how small the "adult diapers" run and if the prices compare.

Consider starting chiropractic treatment and DHA supplements.

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.

In Kindergarten he only had 2 or 3 accidents at school all year long. Last 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. This year, in second grade, he has gotten off the bus wet once. (But his bus ride is nearly an hour each way, so he was out of luck if he forgot to go before getting on the bus!) 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.