I am getting so frustrated with this.

[momofkhm]

DS is 7 . He wets the bed. Sometime in August, I bought an alarm and thought ok average of 3 months. No, it's going on 7 months. The most days in a row he's been dry is 10. 10 days dry and then he'll have a week of every night, then at least 2 weeks of not every night.

Someone last week (2 weeks ago?) posted that magnesium worked for their child. OK, I got some chewable Mg. took 3 days for it to "work". It worked for 8 days. Now we're on day 4 of getting up every night again.

It's 2:20 in the morning. I'm up b/c I had to rehook the alarm and I can't get back to sleep. DH has no room to complain b/c I do the alarm overnight 99% of the time.

He decided months ago that he doesn't like peanut butter so he has had it rarely since then. Please don't tell me to cut out peanut butter. He drinks milk every day, even the days he is dry so don't tell me it's the milk.

Yes, I want a miracle cure. I want to do something, give him something, not give him something that will cause him to be dry at night. I'm tired of getting woken up most nights.

The thing that is the hardest to take is that I'm sure that he had been dry for long periods when we went to Disney in January 2007. I know for a fact he was dry while we were there. I don't know when he started wetting at night after that, but I'm pretty sure he'd been dry for a few months and then started again.

OK, I'm finally feeling tired (after an hour 1/2 of being up), I'm going back to bed now.

[melissel]

Oh, ((HUGS)) mama. I'm so sorry. I saw your last post about this. One thing occurred to me that no one else mentioned. How are your DS's pooping habits? (These poor kids, they have no privacy :rolleyes:) I've read that sometimes the bedwetting problem is linked to what is actually a full bowel, but the brain misinterprets the signals and the bladder empties instead. I'll have to see if I can find a link.

ETA: Here's one (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1370/is_n4_v23/ai_7598981). I might not be remembering correctly, because this is more about constipation, but I'll keep looking. Maybe one more avenue to explore?

[Lolly]

My brother had the same problem. Alarms didn't work for him at all. The doctor prescribed some little pills, and the problem was solved. Seems he simply slept too deeply to wake up. The pills kept him from hitting such a deep sleep. Or, you could just keep him in disposables. I'd sure rather do that than be woken up every night. If he does wake up when he wets them, he is old enough to throw it away and get a fresh one himself. (diaper, not sheets)

[MelissaM]

My ds will be 6 in April and has never had a dry night. The Ped. said from the outside he is fine. We are scheduled to see a urologist this month.

My suggestion is to have him wear a pullup.

[Karen sn]

Research Doris Rapp. She is an awesome doctor.
Several books - I'm out of town or I'd look to see which one is about food or other allergies.

One good point she makes - allergens put into the body are like a full barrel. Over time it starts to overflow. If we take the allergen out of the diet - it may take a while for the barrel to empty. We may need to avoid it for a while.

Then - one day when the barrel is empty - we can actually eat that food once in a blue moon and be OK because it's such a small drop in an otherwise empty barrel.

It could also just be HIM. Deep sleep - small bladder - dream about peeing etc..... I know it is frustrating. I was getting REALLY crabby myself dealing with wet sheets, wet kid, trying to potty throughout the night etc.....

I finally just bought pull ups!!!!
NEVER used a paper diaper EVER in the entire time she was a baby/toddler. NEVER. NOT A SINGLE ONE. Was very very dedicated to the cloth diaper cause. Finally - at 6&1/2 years old - I gave up on the cause and bought pull ups. It saved our relationship! I could sleep all night again.

She was 8&1/2 when we discovered the PB cause.

Be honest and don't stress him out about it. Kids pee the bed. I always told my dd about a friend of mine (she is close to this person) who peed the bed til she was 13&1/2. This way dd didn't feel so isolated or ashamed.

Even now - she has no shame about it - 2 years later - if someone offers her PB in ANY form (cookie, cracker, sandwhich) she says, "No way, it makes me pee the bed."

FWIW - she did just pee the bed for the first time in YEARS last week. Totally unrelated to diet (that I know of). But hey, my own last time I was 16 and dreaming that I was in the bathroom......

[JudoMom]

I've got bedwetters. Yep, that's plural. According to the doctor, they are healthy. He offered to give us meds when it started bothering my sons, but it doesn't yet so we haven't taken him up on it (we don't do sleepovers, so it hasn't been an issue). My brother and my mom were bedwetters, so was my dh's sister. They (my bedwetters, not my mom, brother, or SIL LOL) wear pullups, and every now and then we try underwear for a few weeks to see if they at least wake up when they wet. They never have, so we go back to pullups. Given our family history, I think it has more to do with genetics than anything, and I figure at some point everything in with their brains & bodies will come together and they'll be able to stay dry at night.

[Lolly]

At his 5 yo check-up, the dr asked him if he was dry at night in a "of course you are since you are such a big boy" tone. Ds answered with a really confused look on his face, "Of course I still wet the bed sometimes. EVERYBODY does." The doctor was taken quite a back, hemmed and hawed, and finally grinned with a "yeah, I guess they do don't they". He then asked me if it was a problem. I told him no, it was just infrequent. That there was a family history and I wasn't concerned. End of story.

[TRILLIUM]

We found the book Dry All Night by Alison Mack to be good for our kids. It shifts the responsibility from the adult to the kid. It helps them learn to wake themselve us at night. It is targeted at 7 yo up range that still has bedwetting issues.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/102-3252949-2851358?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Dry+all+night

[Kelli in TN]

Like Judomom and Lolly said, this is pretty normal. Do you have pull-ups or nite-pants for him? He may sleep better if he has something like that. I can imagine the alarm is disturbing his sleep patterns, not to mention yours, and if it is not working then what is the point?

I know the alarms can work, but I understand that they do not work for everyone.

When he is older, if he does not outgrow this, then there are prescriptions. When my middle son was going to go to Boy Scout camp for the first time we brought this up when we went for his camp exam. Our ped gave us a prescription for a nasal spray. He used it for one month, but when it ran out HE decided that he wanted to see if he could stay dry without it. And he did and that was the end of that!!

My 8 year old is not always wet in the morning, but I have him wear nite-pants anyway, so that if he does wet he will still sleep okay and he won't get rashy. He wets often enough for this to be a concern. Plus, I don't like washing sheets everyday, esp for this kid since he sleeps on the top bunk! I hate stripping and making the top bunk!!!

[Mandamom]

when they stopped. I just taught them laundry skills early and had them responsible for clean up. I know now it was genetic on dh's side.

I have since read that honey before bedtime can be a cure for some kids. Just google honey and bedwetting for more information.

[Blue Hen]

My oldest was a bedwetter, every night, EVERY NIGHT, until he went through puberty at age 12. Alarms did not work. Eliminating certain food did not work. Getting him up in the middle of the night did not work--he would wet just before waking in the morning.

It is hard, hard on you, and hard on them. He did not dare go to a sleepover, even wearing GoodNights, cause they did not contain all his wetness.

Finally though he went through puberty and is always dry now.

My youngest was dry for years and years and years. Even while still in diapers he would be dry through the night. Then when he was 8 he started wetting his bed at night. Because he had been dry for so many years it was a real concern. Long story short, we tested him for diabetes and he was cleared of that. However, in the process we learned that he had to have protein with every meal, and no sugary items, or low-density carbs (popcorn, bread, cookies, ice cream ...) after around 6pm. Now at almost 12 he is fine and we don't adhere to that as much.

[lynn]

I know first hand how frustrating this can be. My ds wet the bed until he was 11. We did everythign and I am not sure what exactly worked part he grew out of it, part alarm who knows. Did you try having him be responsible to take off the wet sheets and showhim how to put them in the washing machine? Sometimes this works to. You are not alone. I know there's nothing more frustrating than getting ready to make a bed only to find it saturated not a fun way to start the day.

[Elisabeth in IL]

My son will sometimes still wet at night but what concerns me is that he will wet quiet often during the day and it isn't because he too busy playing to be bothered. I've checked my dss blood sugar several times as my father is a diabetic and he has the equipment. His blood sugar has been fine. I'm about ready to seek out an urologist..... Not sure what is going on.

[Cadam]

but my son's friend had this so it is worth seeing if the symptoms happen to fit your son. Tethered cord (http://www.muhealth.org/neuromed/tetheredcord.shtml)

[Rhesa]

Because I don't want to embarrass my 7 yo son, I don't talk about this with others. But he has had maybe 5 dry nights- in his life! His old pediatrician was rather nonchalant about it, but I'm starting to wonder if I'll have ds in pullups until he goes to college!

At least I know I'm not alone... I'm going to be meeting with the new ped this month, so I'm hoping to get a little more help.

[WTMindy]

(or whatever the cheap brand is :-)) My ds is age 9 and I let him determine whether he wants to wear a pull up or not. Some nights he does and some he doesn't. I'm just not too worried about it. I figure he will grow out of it sometime. He takes his sheets off and washes them himself. It just isn't a big deal to us. I have tried a couple different things with diet and it doesn't make any difference. So, it is what it is and I certainly don't want to wake up in the middle of the night!!!

[Kate CA]

Yep, pull-ups. I could never do the every-night thing. I do know that some children take longer (as in they have to get older) to produce the hormone that concentrates their urine. If that does not happen at a young age then their bodies produce urine like it is day time. This causes the issues when the don't wake up to go.

Pull-ups have saved us from many a night of frustration and I am grateful for them.

Sorry you are so frustrated!
Warmly,
Kate

[mcconnellboys]

We had a neighbor boy who had this problem. I'm not sure now what treatment the doctors prescribed, but there *was* a treatment that they applied for it. I was told that the problem was because he slept so deeply that he could not tell when he had the urge to go. Also, they said that they were told that children do, eventually, grow out of this as they get older, but it might be closer to age 10 or so.

I haven't read your other posts on this, have you tried using Depends or something like that in order to help him have some control over this problem? There's also a brand of nighshorts out now that have a built-in diaper, but I'm not certain of what size they go up to....

Good luck to you,

Regena

[Mrs Mungo]

I would talk to the doctor just in case. I have a few friends whose kids have had kidney reflux, two of them required surgery to fix it. It can cause UTIs and such, even if you (or they) didn't notice there was something wrong and it can damage the kidneys.

[debbiec]

When my oldest son went through this many years ago, he was the age at least of your son with the same problem. I talked to my pediatrician about it and he swears that in most cases, its a sleeping disorder (hence the alarm systems). But, more often that not, it will be outgrown, if you can wait that long. I did not want to wait, so he recommended to me an inexpensive alarm type system, called a Potty Pager. I was SO skeptical and I was not going to spend $$ on an alarm system, butu I agreed to try this. But, it kind of has the same principle but it's just a flat wetness sensitive pager that vibrates the second it feels wetness to wake up the child (without waking up the entire house like the alarm systems do, especially if you live in a small house.). Anyway, it worked for us and I coudn't not believe it. Yes, we had a relapse now and again, but we just put the pager back on for a week. The relapses were far and few between, usually if he was exceptionally tired.

I'm sure you've heard about it and I know I sound like some infomercial or something. But, if you have tried an alarm type system, this may not be for you. You may just have to wait it out. I feel your pain and frustration and remember too well those days. Also, it's usually genetic, sleep disorders, and they ran in both sides of our family. Thankfully, son #2 never had a problem.

[Sunflower]

She was dry but then started wetting the bed frequently. We were told by our Dr. to use the "potty pager". It didn't work. Then we were told to cut out allergy causing foods. It didn't work.

Finally, we saw an ENT Dr. who said a lot of bedwetting is related to sleep disorders. She ordered a sleep study. The study revealed our daughter did not snore (the Dr. kept insisting she must snore) but did average 28 apneaic(sp?) episodes per hour. Her airway was collapsing and causing the apnea. We had tonsils and adenoids removed and viola.... no more bedwetting! This is just our experience but it was wonderful to have an answer.

[Patty Joanna]

Dear Cheryl,

This happened here--dry at night since age 3, hit age 6, and wham, we were back at the beginning. I was not very gracious or kind--but was very frustrated. We determined that there was a lot of anxiety about school (kid was in school at the time) and pulled him out to homeschool (not just because of this issue; it was just one of the clues). I washed sheets every night for at least a year. I also had HIM do them (thinking it was a help to make him stop being lazy--it wasn't). We did medical tests, we tried everything. The alarm helped a lot more than it did in your case, but we had to use it a couple of rounds (and it really did the job after a week, but he wore it for6 both times)...

What I *wish* I had done is to just calm down and put him in pull-ups. It would have been better for our relationship. And I have to tell you, he has only been completely dry since he turned 12. That's about what most people told me would happen when I was in the middle of things, and it turned out to be the case. Given that it was the case, I wish I had been a lot calmer and more pragmatic about what needed to happen.

I am not sure, and am not going to say I am, but I do wonder if the fact that he was heading into Boy Scouts, complete with campouts and all, had something to do with it.

All that I have recommended is easier said than done, and easier seen in hindsight.

[WTMindy]

What I *wish* I had done is to just calm down and put him in pull-ups. It would have been better for our relationship. I'm glad to hear you say that Patty, because sometimes I feel guilty for note trying to do more to change things. But, it is better than it used to be. I think he is dry 50% of the time. I'm not even sure how often he wears pull-ups and how often he wears underwear.

[Rhondabee]

my boys (now 13 and 10yo) were both dry at night long before they were potty-trained. But my much-more-easily-potty-trained dd (now 2 1/2) never stays dry at night. I was beginning to wonder if I should be worried, but now I won't even bother going there.

Thanks a bunch!
:D

[hpymomof3]

My ds had the problem until he was 8. We tried alarms. It didn't work all the time and the alarm would just wake up the rest of the family. He tried the pills. The first time he was on them they worked but it was during the summer and it didn't work out well for us. You have to limit their fluid intake before and after the pills. He would play outside at night and of course would be thirsty when he came in. Then we would have to wait 2 hours before we could give him the pill. We tried the pills again the following fall/winter but this time they made him very sleepy and fall into a very deep sleep. The doctor didn't like the way it was affecting him so he took him off the pills.

The doctor also explained to us that it didn't have anything with ds behavior. He couldn't control it. His bladder was immature and it would just take time for it to develop.

We decided to just live with the situation for awhile and had ds wear Goodnight's Pullups. Magically a few months later it just stopped and he hasn't had a problem ever since.

[Rhesa]

I'd better buy stock in Goodnites, then. :)

[Patty Joanna]

It's such a toughie. I hated this season, a lot. And it takes a long time to get the trust built that it is indeed OVER. But (I think) it is. It's been a good long time. Hang in there...he'll get there. And if not, in a few years, it will be his wife's problem, not yours (wink).

[Robin in Tx]

My dd wasn't consistently dry until she was around ten. I decided it just wasn't worth worrying/fretting over. I always bought the night time pull ups, and she wore them every night until she was ready to quit on her own. I never once felt pressured to make her overcome that by a certain age. We were happy. She slept well and wasn't facing a wet bed/embarrassing moment/frustrated mom every morning. The mattress stayed nice and dry and odor free. The sheets only had to be washed once a week or so, like normal. The pants cost some money, but they bought us peace and it was worth it. Don't know if this is the course for you, but it sure worked for me. One thing's for sure... you don't have to worry about him going off to college still wetting the bed, kwim? I'm a firm believer in letting kids reach milestones in their own timeframe.

Hope you find the solution that's best for you,
Robin

[Hannah]

For a friend's 8yo dd the storytelling technique in the book "Telling Tales" by Arthur Rowsham worked.

Hannah

[Shannon831]

I wet the bed till I was about 11 or 12. It runs in my family. My mom was also a bed-wetter and was harassed by her family about it growing up. It was so damaging to her. On the flip side, she was totally encouraging to my brother and I, who both wet. I'm so thankful that she handled it the way that she did. I forewarned my dh before we had kids that we would likely have bed wetters. Frankly, I expected them all to wet. But as it turns out, it's just my 5yo who seems to have the issue. I'm fully prepared for him to take years to grow out of it.

Put a plastic covering on his bed, keep a change of sheets in his room and let him wear pull ups. My 5yo will often wake up right after he wets and come into my room. We just change his pull up and send him back to bed. It takes all of 60 seconds. Whatever you do- don't stress your child out about this. If he could control it, he would.

[Sandra in NC]

My oldest was a bedwetter. The key, for us, was to find an alarm system that worked. I spent lots of money on alarms that would fail after two weeks or so - or worse yet, be undependable. It was discouraging for my son to wake up wet, with the alarm wired but not sounding. He often wanted to give up saying, "These things don't work."

Finally I found a system that was reliable. We used a flat pad alarm under him AND one that attached to his underwear. Because he tossed and turned so much at night, we needed the flat pad to act as a backup in case his other alarm came loose.

Having two alarms did the trick (I still had to wake him up though, becasue he slept through them!). And yes, it took about 5 months. We had to "retrain" him a few times.

He was dry for two years and I thought we were done. NO. He started wetting again when our family had a stressful situation. I thought it would clear itself up, but after a month, I realized he needed to be retrained again. He was 14. He's 17 now and I still have the alarms just in case. NiteTrain-r is the brand we used for the pad; Malem Ultimate I for the other.

[Rebecca in GA]

I had brothers who wet the bed until they were 8, 11 and 14. They were very heavy sleepers and couldn't wake themselves. DH wet the bet until he was about 8 as well. We figure genes play a big part in it.

My bed-wetter is a heavy sleeper; he has no physical or psychological problems that would contribute to the wetting. He turns 7 in a few weeks. We left it alone and bought Goodnites until about six months ago, when DH and I started taking turns waking him up at night to take him to the potty. Between the two of us, we usually got up about four times a night.

During this time, A wore regular underwear. It took a long, long, long, long time, but eventually his body got used to being dry at night and DH and I stopped having to get up so often. On the nights he wets (still happens occasionally), we don't make a big deal out of it, but over time he has gotten in the habit of getting himself up, even in his half-asleep state.

This just seemed like a more natural approach to us, less dramatic than some of the other approaches we considered. Fortunately, it seems to have worked pretty well even though it took some effort on our parts.

[Doran]

Clearly it's that "magical" little product called Pull-Ups (or GoodNites for older kids) which has saved sanity for many of us. It was what saved my youngest (and me). She was your son's age and still wet every.single.morning. You've heard from so many moms here who are dealing with this, so hopefully you know that it's not unusual, not his fault, not your fault - it just is. But, that doesn't eliminate the fact that it's frustrating to be waking up every night or day to change sheets. Enter Pull-Ups. I found that the cheaper ones didn't absorb quite as well - some were better than others - but they all did a whole lot of good.

A bit of happy news to tuck into your memory bank. Our daughter relied on GoodNites every night. We had tried repeatedly to encourage her out of them only to have wet sheets to deal with the next day. So, we just decided to stop struggling with the "You're old enough now..." mentality. We let her wear the things. She was actually relieved to no longer have such an impossible burden to 'stay dry'. But, one night, years later and just before bed, she said out of the blue, "Mom, I want to go without my Pull-Ups tonight." I gotta tell you, it took all my nerve to comply. She had never been dry! But, I said, "Okay, if you're sure" and resigned myself to the fact that I was going to be doing laundry in the morning.

She woke up dry. And except for 2 or maybe 3 accidents in all the years (4) since, she has been dry ever since.

Have hope!

Doran

[Tia in Wa]

I wet the bed until about 11. My mom took me to the chiropractor and for a few days after every visit I could wake up at night and go. My mom is on vacation right now or I would ask her just what the problem was. I will get back to you with more info when I can. Oh and the pullups help.:o

[Robin Hood]

My brother had the same problem. Alarms didn't work for him at all. The doctor prescribed some little pills, and the problem was solved.

My brother also took pills. Besides being a bed wetter, he would sleep walk and pee anywhere.