Bed Wetting - Bucyrus,KS

Hello- I have a 6 year old son that would wake up every morning wet because he was soaking through his pull up. We had limited drinks to only at dinner and only about 8 oz. I bought the Malem Alarm through www.bedwettingstore.com. I know it is expensive, but it was absolutely one of the best things we have ever bought. We are also saving money by not having to buy pull ups and having to do laundry every day. We starting using it right before Thanksgiving 2010 and he has not had a wet night in over a month and a half. In addition to that, he is actually waking up in the middle of the night to use the restroom. Hope this helps. Good Luck!!

It sounds like you need to try a few different things before investing in the alarm. First, while someone suggested increasing liquids so they have to "go more strongly", you may want to eliminate liquids entirely for at least an hour before bed. Have them to go the bathroom just before bed and have them "sit" until they completely empty their bladders. I would also suggest putting them on the toilet just before you go to bed at night. Yes, this means waking the 7 yr old, but if you keep the lights off and put her on the toilet and rub her back she will likely go again.

Is your daughter generally lazy about things? If so, then this is a behavioral issue. If she's generally good about following through and being responsible then it's entirely possible that she's claiming to be lazy so she has an excuse for engaging in a behavior that is not developmentally typical.

Hi D.,

Don't worry, you are not alone. My older kid stopped wetting his bed until recently at 10 years old. I never punished him or made a big deal out of it. The pediatrician mentioned different ways to help him but all vary according to the child, and she said that the problem is mostly inherited (My husband and I were both bedwetters!). I learned that it is very helpful to keep the kid's bladder warm even in hot weather, so I made my son wears thicker underwear at nights. That helps a lot. It is very difficult for them since they have sleepovers and many activities that are not easy to deal with a problem like that, but you just encourage him and let him know that it will pass. My kid drinks a lot of water, he never stopped doing that but he stopped drinking liquids about an hour and half before going to bed.
With the youngest the potty thing was so easy day and night and never did any great effort. I just taught him how to do it, and he just learned so easily. He was totally potty trained at 3 and half. He gets up in the middle of the night to pee and goes back to bed without my help. Every kid is different, but it is important to encourage them, and let them know that this kind of things are natural part of growing up. Kids should know without embarrassing that these milestones or steps in their lives are different (easier or harder) for each kid.
Good luck!

Try increasing her liquids , it's easier to tell when you have to go bad than when you have to go a little.
Also get an alarm and set it, get um up before you go to bed and then have an alarm set for like 2 or 3 am so they can get up and go when it goes off.

Do your kids eat lots of refined foods and/or consume lots of sugars and carbs? It is possible that they don't have enough B-Complex to handle all that. What can happen is essentially like when someone is drunk and loses muscle control, only they can't control the bladder muscles. Try to get more protein and less carbs in them and try adding some B-Complex. I recommend Shaklee's because of the balance, purity, and guarantees that come with it. I've seen it do wonders in situations like yours.
S.

My almost 9yo son was a bedwetter. We never made a big deal about it, I was just waiting for him to outgrow it. He did help strip his bed if his pull-up leaked or if there was an accident when he was wearing underwear. When he was about 7 he started asking why he wet the bed but his younger sister never did, and asked when he would learn to stay dry. That is when I got an alarm for him. I loved it! There was a piece that clipped to the front of his underwear and the alarm attached to the top of his shirt. At the FIRST drop of moisture it went off, I got up and helped him in the bathroom. The first night things were pretty wet when I got to him, and I still had to wake him up a bit, he is a very heavy sleeper. But each night there was less and less urine in the bed when I got to him. His brain was learning to stop urination when it heard the alarm, even when he wasn't fully awake. I thought it would eventually teach him to wake up in the night in response to his full bladder, but for him he just started holding it all night. Within two weeks he was dry 90+% of the time. The alarm came with a lot of info and very specific directions , including how to wean off the alarm. This was 2 years ago for us, and he has since had 2-3 "relapse" times. An occasional accident I don't do anything about, but if he has 3 accidents over a few days we just put the alarm back on. We have only had to keep in on for 4-5 days in the relapse periods before he is back on track, and even then it rarely goes off during those 4-5 days. I think just knowing it is on helps him. I got mine, a basic Malem model, for about 70-80 bucks. Totally worth it to me in the end. It makes staying at hotels and other peoples houses much less stressful for both of us. He feels much happier and confident. It was an easy and fast process. Definitely worth the investment. And you could probably get one and use it with the oldest, then work your way down the line (Malem can be used for boys or girls). That would really make it worth it, probably a couple months worth of pullups in your house. I liked how it helped his brain learn to respond to his body's signals rather than just me waking him up and making him go in the night, that is not going to "teach" him anything if his brain is not getting the signal of a full bladder at the time you are waking him up. I highly recommend an alarm, and while expensive, Malem is the best brand. The slightly higher cost of a Malem is worth it, especially with the amount of use it will get at your house. Also with Malems, if the sensor eventually goes bad, you can buy a replacement sensor without having to buy a whole new alarm. Good luck, I wish you the best.

Good Morning, D.,
I have a little bit of a different perspective to your bed wetting question. We've found that many visual-spatial learners have these same kinds of difficulties with bed wetting; sometimes even kids up into their teens can have some levels of bed wetting problems.

There are methods of using cognitive therapy that address this issue without using alarms, medicines or restrictions on drinks, etc.

Hope this was helpful,
C.
www.onpointlearning.org

Wow. VERY similar to my family. I, also, had bladder problems as a child and a couple surgeries later, I eventually grew out of it. My kids have all used pull-ups at night until at least the age of 9. My boys were very embarassed, so I knew it wasn't a laziness issue with them. As others suggested, limiting fluids, waking them to go before you go to bed, etc. Yep, tried it all. I even took the oldest to the pediatric urologist to make sure it wasn't a physical issue.

First of all, let me tell you that I recently learned that kids who are "gifted", have more of a likelihood to have these problems. My kids (despite my husband and my very average brains...LOL )are very bright- in the TAG program, blah, blah.. It was explained to me that their brains are so intense and engaged during the day, that they just cannot wake themselves to pee at night. This totally makes sense, because my kids sleep through EVERYTHING! Fire alarms, house alarms, thunder storms, dogs barking, you name it- they sleep through it. SO, no wonder they don't wake to the "urination signals" the brain sends out. Several doctors have told us that they will outgrow it, it may just take them longer than most kids. IT's not their fault, they really can't help it.

Ok, that being said, we DID buy the Wetstop alarm for my oldest about 4+years ago. He used it for a couple weeks and was dry. He hated it, but used it. I then tried it for my second son, but the dang thing didn't work right. So, I bought another one and before I had a chance to use it - my son started becoming dry. So, I tried it with my daughter at one point and the dang thing (second one) quit working. ARGH!!

Just recently, we decided to try again with my daughter. I purchased, yet another, alarm. THey have redesigned the Wetstop and this one works better. My daughter really, really doesn't like to use it, but she has also admitted to just going in the pull-ups because she doesn't want to get up. She does also sleep hard and cannot wake to go. I told her it was time......

I think one of the biggest challenges is finding the right time to start. We will have to have my daughter sleep in our room, because the alarm is not loud enough for me to hear it in her room, even if the doors are open. We used the alarm one night and it took awhile for me to hear it (and she was in our room on our floor). It seems there's always something "coming up" - a sleepover schedulee for her birthday weekend, guests staying with us, me being out of town, etc. So, finding time when I am able to have her sleep in our room and be able to get up with her is the hard part right now.

If you have a monitor, you could put that in your kids' room - turn it up loud, because, like a said, the alarm isn't too loud. We couldn't do this, because we have a monitor already for my toddler, and the two cancel each other out.

I think the alarms work well . I have only tried the wetstop brand and was assured after the second purchase, that they had been updated and the bugs were worked out. I have researched the effectiveness and it seems most kids become dry after using it. It's what our pediatric urologist suggested.

I think the investment into the alarm is a good idea. You have potentially three kids that will use it, so you'll get your money out of it. I would say to make sure that if there is a while between uses, clean the sensor and make sure it is dry. Possibly one of our issues was that it corroded and that's why the sensor didn't work after awhile. Not sure, though-just a guess.

Good luck to all of you! :)