Mom advice

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Hello! I’m new here and I’m really just looking for a support group for moms of children who wet the bed. So maybe someone can offer their advice/support. My son is 12 and is a pretty regular bedwetter since age 5. I’ve tried everything (alarms, medicine, waking up in middle of night for him to go, no caffeine, monitoring liquid intake), and nothing has helped. So now I just make him wear a diaper every night and we just deal with it. But my question is, at what point is this an incontience issue for life vs nighttime bedwetting that he will outgrow? He’s been to the Doctor (pediatrician) and she wasn’t concerned. She said he’ll grow out of it. She did prescribe medicine that “may” be helpful for sleepovers, but it doesn’t help. I’m just stressed and overwhelmed that this may be a lifetime problem for him. It’s getting harder and harder to conceal the issue the older he gets. He hates wearing the diapers when he has a sleep over (pull ups) because he says they make noise when he moves around. And you know boys, they like to play rough and wrestle. Any advice or encouragement would be most appreciative!

 

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How about Depends or equivalent ?

 

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Check out goodnites trufit. Its a washable pant with a disposable insert. They don't make noise like traditional goodnites or underjams.

 

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There are quite a few youth his age who have bedwetting challenges. Most, but not all, grow out of it. If you haven't already done so, it may be worthwhile to see a urologist. A sleep study may be beneficial as well. Sleep apnea has been related to wetting.

As for nighttime and sleepovers use whatever works best to keep him dry and comfortable. You might have him wear heavy sweatpants as pj, since they can mask the sound. You might also talk with him about how to discreetly put them on when he goes to bed.
I know there are a number of teen bedwetters groups out there online. You might want to look at some of those for him to get more support.

 

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What caused him to start bed wetting at age 5? Was he dry at night before that?

 

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Oh I so wish Depends or equivalent were available when I was a boy! I remember so clearly the fear I had of wetting at sleepovers. If I agreed to go to a sleepover, I would end up leaving by saying I was home sick. My mom or the parent of my buddies would take me home. Fortunately, I lived in a small town. Going to camp for a week in the fifth grade in the Vermont with all the other fifth graders was really tough. My mom packed enough clothes and sheets for me to wet the bed every night for five nights away. Consequently I had the largest suitcase. I could not even lift it! Fortunately,I was wet only one night, but I still remember it 46 years later. Lifelong trauma I still drag around.

Please encourage your son to do the best he can managing with whatever works for him. The quietest or least life obtrusive protection he can get. I've seen liners for sleeping bags recently. I think they are a great idea. The only management my mom had was a dry cleaner plastic bag she placed under my fitted sheet. All it did was pool the pee and protect the mattress a wee bit.

 

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Thanks got your responses! This has been very helpful to me. @Bobby103 (I don’t know how to reply directly to your post) I’m not really sure that he was ever completely dry. But I just think it happened less often when he was around 3 or 4 years old and I just attributed that to his young age. I think it became an every night occurrence around age 5 or 6. But nothing happened to cause him to start wetting the bed. It just runs on his dad’s side of the family, unfortunately. My husband says he wet the bed until around age 10. Which is why I grew concerned when it didn’t stop by age 10. I guess I thought 10 was the magic number since that’s when my husband quit bed wetting.

 

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@deraven82, do you know the absorbency of the inserts? An insert makes me think of like a maxi pad. So I’m just wondering if they can hold a full bladder of urine. I’m willing to try them though. I actually just ordered a pack from Walmart. Should be here later this week. Thanks for the recommendation

 

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Seems like it may be a hereditary thing. If mom and dad both wet the stats bring it up to about 77% that the child will be a bed wetter.Often but not always the bed wetting stops at or near the age the parents did. You have used a bed wetting alarm. They have good results when used by a motivated patient.Perhaps try it again. Read up on some of the ways to use it better. Has your son hit puberty, that often brings a cure.
I found that diapers were better than a wet bed although the wearer may not agree at first. Important to find a combination that does not leak and is discreet.

 

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Yes, actually the roger alarm gave us the best results. We used it for about 2 years and after using it regularly for about a year and a half, he was becoming dry more often and eventually went at least 6-8 months without a single accident. So then we quit using the alarm after the 6-8 month dry period, Then it slowly started back. By that time he had outgrown the underwear and we had misplaced the alarm, so I didn’t reorder. But the frustrating thing about the alarm is that it NEVER ever woke up my son. Always I had to go in and drag him out of bed. By that time, he had emptied his bladder. He is such a heavy sleeper. So it did help, but only with me waking up and dragging him out of bed. Which is hard to do every single night when I work full time. But yes, I think we need to go back to the alarm and try again. It would have been more successful had he woken up himself, but that never happened. I even bought a bed vibrator that was triggered by the alarm, they said should wake him up, but it didn’t. We’ll try this again though!

 

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The alarm never worked for me either. Everyone in the house woke up and by the time I was woken up by one of my parents I was soaked anyway. Looking back I would have been much better off in thick diapers and plastic pants. I was allowed to stop wearing the diapers at about your sons age but then had to deal with the mid night floods, soaked bedding, freezing cold, even resorting to sleeping on the floor next to my bed was a way too often situation. I always had noisy plastic mattress covers under my sheets and plastic covers on my pillows. My room was obviously a bedwetters from the smell and my bed often laid there drying out during the day while I was in school. I could never have anyone over for sleepovers and rarely ever went to anyone elses house to sleep over, and when I did I remember twice specifically wetting a friends bed once at age 13 and once at 15, beds which had been prepared with plastic under the sheets because my mom obviously told my friends mom to protect her bed from my wetting. Sometimes a friend would find out, like my friend when I was 15 when he told me he saw his mom putting the plastic on my bed. I lived in fear of the news traveling, but he never told anyone.
Anyway diapers serve a very useful purpose and am so glad I use them now as nighttime issues are so much easier to deal with. I also remember all too well being 12 and how hard that was. I do now realize that diapers would not have been my first choice but when I wore them I was better rested and much more comfortable at night. There really aren't any other good choices. I put myself back into diapers at about age 18 and have been much happier and relieved ever since. I know you don't want to hear about your son dealing with this long term, and I hope for his sake it doesn't.

 

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You can often find am alarm on Craigslist.

 

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@ward1119 They are freely absorbent. One insert can last me four to five hours during the day time but I slap get the large when I do but them.

It's actually a two part system of protection which consists of a pair of underwear with a interior waterproof pouch that the disposable absorbent pad sits snuggly. The underwear is the same material as regular underwear so it won't be detectable at sleep overs.

 

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you mention that he has issues with waking from sleep even with an alarm. Have you mentioned this to his pediatrician? You may want to get a referral to a pediatric sleep specialist. There may be a link between his sleep cycle and wetting.

 

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I was thinking about your situation and I had a thought. Is your son overweight or diabetic at all. Those are both factors that can contribute to bladder control problems. If he has those difficulties, you might want to focus on those areas first.

 

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@Mightychi nope, he’s neither. He’s actually a bean pole! I mean he’s not underweight but he’s definitely small for his age. He’ll be y’all and lanky like his dad. And no diabetes either.

 

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@Zoowabi hmmm, no I’m not sure I mentioned that. But I doubt I’ll even go back and have a conversation with her because she was very unhelpful when I talked to her about this a couple of years ago. She said “he’ll grow out of it”. I wanted more information and more resources and she just kept saying “mom you’re over thinking this...lots of kids wet the bed at his age, and they grow out of it, so will he”. Very frustrating! I wonder if I can send him to a urologist without a pediatrician referral?

 

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That will depend on your insurance. You might give your insurance a call and see what they say.

 

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As a consistent bedwetter since childhood I applaud you for not going back to this pediatrician. I'm now 22 years old and didn't start receiving help until I was about 17 because my parents accepted my doctors complacent attitude about it. Luckily I had a few close friends who knew and never said anything. While it was embarrassing to deal with they thankfully were pretty understanding and were more concerned about me protecting myself and their mattresses than the actual bedwetting lol. But it can be different for boys than it is girls. I would always just keep my overnight bag close to the bedroom door and as soon as I got to their house I'd run to the bathroom with it and hide my pull ups in the cabinet under the sink, that way right before we went to bed I could just go to the bathroom and put it on and tuck my regular underwear into my bag as I came back in the room. But I do agree that finding a new pediatrician that could give him a referral would be a good idea, just so the questions you have could finally get some answers.

 

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@LovelyPhoenix yes, my son’s sleepover drill is similar to yours. His cue is “Ive got to go take out my contacts”. And so he takes his bag with him because he needs his contact case, and solution. So far, none of his friends know. But of course he’s 12. I’m sure as he gets older kids will catch on. You said you didn’t get help until she 17. What kind of help did you get and did it help?