Can we talk about bedwetting? HELP please

[Diane~Alena]

My Daughter Elizabeth is a bedwetter. She has been this way since potty learning and hasn't changed in the 6 years since. She is a 8 year old and stills bedwets at least 3 nights a week. I tried waking her in the night to pee that dind't help at all. I tried no water after 6 pm but that made her stomache ache. I tried homipathic tablets for bedwetting and stillnothing. I in a last ditch effort bough GOODNIGHTS those gave her a rash, and made things worse if you can believe it. She wet the goodnights every night compared to three nights a week without. So we have kept the goodnights so she can use them at sleepovers. She has a plastic sheet at home and has learned to change her own sheets. I recieved int he mail today the clean and dry booklet. It talks about medication. I am not wanting to medicate her but would it be best for her self esteem if I did?

[Peepsqueak]

Did you get a chance to ask her pediatrician? Also, is she or has she experienced anything traumatic? There are sites that discuss special issues with incontinence at night and there are several people with this problem. It is called a special name, Nocturnal Enuresis (bedwetting).
I would start first by making sure nothing is medically wrong....like a urinary tract infection or something (most little girls do not get them but it is possible, depending on diet).

Many kids (girls and boys) do wet the bed well into their preteens, so it is not unusual. It should be checked into though.

[SaneMarguerite]

I would talk to your pediatrician. it could be a condition called "horseshoe kidney", where the kidney is not finished growing in relation to your daughter's body.

nocturnal enuresis (the fancy term for wetting the bed) is usually something kids grow out of without medical intervention.

as for self-esteem, whether or not you use medication to deal with the problem is less important than how you relate to your daughter when she has an accident. if you deal with the accidents and their aftermath with highest regard for her dignity and without punishment, she'll be fine no matter what.

washing her own sheets & changing her own bed aren't punishment. that's just dealing with life. humiliating her, taking away privileges, making a "big deal" of the whole routine, making her feel bad for causing more laundry, making her feel like a baby, that kind of thing - that's what would be damaging.

but go see your doctor. that's the best thing.

(xposted with peepsqueek)

[merpk]

Have/had bedwetters, too. DS#1 did till he was 6&change, every night, and suddenly in one day his body just caught on and it abruptly stopped. :) We used plastic-ish pull-up underwear-cover thingies that a lot of CD WAHMs here sell (bought from one of them, too :D) and that at least kept the rest of us dry, for the most part.

DD#1 was dry at night for quite a while after toilet training, and in the last 6 months has totally started having "accidents" every single night. As we're moving overseas in 6 months, we totally understand and are okay with this situation, knowing the whole moving thing is stressful for everyone, and figure it will just continue till we move and are settled in and she is okay with it all ... anyway, she's doing the pull-up thing, too, and it's okay.

Agreeing with the others, as long as your attitude is okay with it, not punitive at all, it'll be okay. :) Some kids' bodies just aren't ready to be dry. It's okay. :)

[Diane~Alena]

The Dr.s don't even pause when I say she wets the bed it just gets blown off as a childhood issue she will grow out of. Nothing wrong medicaly at least thats what the Dr's say. Our Doctors call it nocturnal enuresis too. She has wet the bed since we took off the diapers. It did get worse after her brother died and when her sister was in hospital but I never thought it started because of stress since it has always happened. I am starting to think it may be diet. She is having many issues like constipation and night tummy aches(I thought that was stress from the bed wetting issue) and I think this may all be food allergies :nut I am dealing with it the best I can, letting her know it isn't her fault and nothing to be ashamed of. We clean her room and wash her up so the smell goes away. She is such a girly girl though and it breaks my heart to see her try to stay awake so she doesn't pee her bed with it's pretty pink sheets. We tell her stories of those who wet the bed before her and how they grew out of it. We even found others in her school who wet their bed and they all talk about it so they don't feel alone.

I will go back to her Dr and ask more questions before i take the medication for nocturnal enuresis. I hadn't thougt of it being kidney issues and had brushed of the diet/UTI thing too. Thanks. I am starting to feel like the worst mom with all our issues as of late, I am tired and overwhelmed.

[Oh the Irony]

diane~alena,

you may get more response if you post this in the childhood years or health and healing. also, do a search on bedwetting or eurenesis--there have been some great threads. believe me, i know. my 8 year old isn't dry at night.

[EFmom]

My older dd wet the bed almost nightly until she was 6. It was really bothering her and she asked me what we could do to stop it. We tried waking her, restricting fluids, etc. to no avail.

We bought an alarm system that has a sensor that clips to the child's underpants. It worked far better than I'd ever have suspected. In less than a week, she was dry. Dd told me we should have bought it years earlier.

There is some good information on Dr. Sears' site at http://www.askdrsears.com/html/7/T071200.asp#T071203 We used this advice about how to explain to the child about how the alarm system would work with her body.