Enurisis

How old are they? Some kids just take some time to develope the "wake up when you need to pee" resonse. Most of my family had issues. I had problems until I was 5 but my brothers went even into their teens and mom tried everything, including the buzzer that goes off when they start to pee. Nothing worked until it was just time. Not saying you shouldnt rule out other things but it could just need time. Pull ups and pads help with the cleanup and are discreet enough for sleepovers.

A friend of mine had problems with her 6 year old daughter wetting the bed. They tried everything. Come to find out there was actually a problem with her kidneys. This was not discovered until she went to a specialist. I would request a referral from a doctor and go see some one who specializes in this area.

I don't know how old your girls are. I'm guessing their older than the preschool age - otherwise you probably wouldn't be talking to the doctor about it.

What I did with my son (who is now nearly five) was to make it as stress-free for me as possible. His mattress was covered in plastic, so I didn't have to worry about urine soaking it. He had a small pillow (rather than the standard twin-sized pillow, which takes FOREVER to wash and dry). I kept the house a bit warmer than I usually did, so he only needed a sheet and a light blanket to stay warm.

I set him up with a back-up bed and back-up pajamas each night before I went to bed. When he wet his bed, he would strip himself out of his wet pjs, put on the clean pjs and jump into the back-up bed (just a little something on the floor). I would NOT get up with him. He'd just do this himself and would be back to sleep before he even really woke up all of the way. In the morning, I'd have him help me strip the wet things off of the bed and toss them into the washer.

In a short while, the amount of urine in his bed started decreasing. He'd actually start waking up while he was wetting the bed and would jump up and run to the bathroom to finish.

We haven't had an accident in well over six months, so this worked well for us!

I agree with Jenifer, depending on the age of the child it is a pretty common thing.
If they are older or you suspect a medical problem see a specialist (pediatric urologist). They can conduct very targeted tests to figure out what's going on. You shoudl avoid making a big issue out of it so it does not turn into a struggle/shame issue.
Good luck!

My son was having the same problem, but having bad dreams too. When I talked to the pediatrician, he tol me to try to limit his milk intake later in the day. He tolk me that milk causes a child to sleep deeper. Since we've done that (usually no milk after mid afternoon), he has been much better. An occasional bed wetting, but nothing like before!!!!!!!!! He's 5.

C.,
You don't say how old your girls are. For our oldest son, he had this issue until he was almost 6 and for our youngest son, he still unloads a full bladder each night even though he uses the restroom before he goes to bed. We used pull-ups for both boys. Now they make night time pull-ups designed specifically for the genders.
Enuresis is common and can continue for children who have delayed development.
Try not to worry.
My suggestion is to use night time pull-ups found at Walgreens and let them sleep. Children need their sleep.
Also, check out Enuresis on Wikipedia.com. This might give you more insight to this condition.
(A result of my experiences I have lost faith in most doctors and it sounds like yours may be grasping at straws.)Do some research and arm yourself with information.
Best of luck.

There can be a lot of reasons for the bed wetting. I have 6 children and everyone of them have been bed wetters. My boys outgrew it about 14,15 years of age. My girls were over it at about age 8. The truth be know I too was a bed wetter. I still remember the stigma of it. As it turned out in my family it is something that came with ADD.

If you cannot figure out and if there is no medical solution to stopping the wetting, I recommend great KINDNESS when your children have accidents. There is nothing worse than a parent who does not or will not understand.

It took me 4 children to realize that this was not something that that we were going to control. We tried EVERYTHING! Almost every night we had wet beds. So I bought rubber sheeting at the fabric store, cut them to fit the bed and made their beds over top of the sheeting. Which helped with saving the mattresses and cleaning up after accidents. I had extra sheeting on hand just in case it happened more than once a night. We watched to water intake after 6:00 p.m. but it usually did not help. But now that I think about it, Not letting them have MILK after 4:00 p.m. did help. It didn't solve the problem, but it did help.

Good Luck, and be patient.

N.

I understand your problem. When I was frustrated with my son wetting the bed it would not make me feel any better to hear that this was a common problem and could last into the teens! But that is exactly what happened. Believe me, I tried everything...waking at night, medications, specialists. I would say keep trying whatever is available, but know that time may be the only thing that works. It can be difficult to be patient, but try your hardest to be patient with your daughters while putting the responsibility to clean up after themselves back on them when they are old enough. Pull ups are great and let them lead a normal life with friends and sleepovers. I would always tell other parents when my son had sleepovers, so he wouldn't have to be secretive, and I would pack extra clothes and plastic bags for him to dispose his wet cloths and/or pull ups. This can be an emotionally charged situation as kids get older and it is difficult to stay empathetic, but I would encourage you to try and stay patient and know you are not alone.

How old are the girls? Bedwetting is common and not of medical concern usually until age 7 or older.

My 12 yo son is a bed wetter. We have tried every trick but he just sleeps too soundly. His doctor gives him ddavp. It helped him so much.

(You don't say what age your girls are, but I'm assuming they are no older than 12.)

My daughter, now 9, was a very deep sleeper. As a result she would wet her bed just about every night.

We tried the waking her up to go before we went to bed, but it was like waking the dead. AND if we did manage to get her up and on to the potty chances were we'd have an inconsolable raging sleep walker whose fits could literally wake the dead :). Plus it didn't always work; sometimes she'd still wet.

Having read a bunch on bedwetting, which says most kiddos outgrow this around age 8/9-- if you don't make a big emotional deal about it--we decided to take the "nighttime diaper" route. They sell pull-up type "underwear" for just such reasons. They are called "Goodnights."

At around age 8 she began growing out of this-- as all the research suggested. She hasn't wet her bed in over a year!

Hi C.,
Don't worry. I have a 5 year old who still wears pull ups just to bed. We just visited Childrens Hospital for her enurisis. We were told to make sure she empties her bladder every 2 hours during the day, no liquid after dinner, and she is on a laxitive. If the bowels get too full it pushes on the bladder causing accidents. She also has a problem with constipation.
My friend has 4 children ages 4-10 and all of her children wear pull-ups to bed because they sleep so deep (even the 10 year old).
I hope maybe this helps. God bless you.

Hello C.
I am a grandmother of 10, when my son was a young boy, he too had problems with bed wetting. I would go in and wake him, help him to the bathroom, he was never fully awake. I would have to coax him to using the toilet. He was also a very heavy sleeper. An elderly neighbor lady told me to make sure he was completely awake by using a cool wash cloth on him to wake him. Then take him to the bathroom. Children will go right back to sleep. I did this consistently for a week. He never wet the bed again. Good luck.
R.

how old are they you do not say. And it is in the genes, my husband wet the bed till he was 12.

I know it sounds crazy but your Doc may be right! Afull colon puts pressure on the bladderand your children just sleep through it. I have had the difficulty myself!

This works great and fast! I wish I would have known about it sooner.
http://store.matchlowestprice.com/wet-stop-2.html

How old are your girls?

I had two bed wetters because of the same problem, they sleep so hard they wouldn't wake up. I also took them to see doctors, the one doctor said we could go through all the test all the alarms, but that they would grow out of it in time. That is what we did, i put night diaper on them plastic cover over there mattres and we werer fine.

Mom of 6 here LOL. Bedwetting ran in my husbands family, thus we had some bedwetters. The dr. that told you it could be constipation...well the theory behind that is that the poop in the bottom presses against the bladder wall, thus numbing the bladder a little bit so the child doesn't feel the urge to go potty. We had that problem, but it manifested itself more during the daytime and we had daytime wetting. We did the alarm system on my son who was by then 10 or 11 years old. They had us fill the kid to the brim with water right before bed and for the first few nights he was wetting that alarm a LOT. He was getting up, changing all his sheets (I was there for support) and then splashed water in his face, went to the potty and back to bed. don't know if THAT is what worked??? But he did stop. We paid a MINT for the pad through an agency. Anyway, my daughter, we just kept her in regular undies, and put plastic on her bed. She outgrew it by age 8. Don't know how old your kids are, but I think that now that we have pull-up there are MORE bedwetters than ever. Kids are trained later and if they wet the bed pull ups seem to be society answer. I only say this because I have 3 older kids before pull ups were invented, no bed wetting, and trained by 2 1/2 yrs. old. Kids In my opinion only....get lazy as they go untrained for 3 years or older. Habits are made early. Anyway, hope this helps.

Honestly - I took my five and a half year old to see a chiropractor. It really cleared it up. He was wetting almost every night - not it's down to once in a great while. My son is a pretty deep sleeper as well. I think it mostly relates to a weak bladder, something interrupting the functioning of the bladder, or an unwillingness to get out of bed... The trick is to figure out which it is.

Well, I am no doctor that is for sure, but when I was a child I had some serious bedwetting issues and my parents were distraught trying to figure out how to solve my problem. They were not very patient about it and they feel bad that they would get so mad at me because potty training was almost non existent. They tried lots of things with me. I remember having to take some medications, one being some kind of inhaler. I even had to have surgery at the age of 6 or so to cut a bigger opening in my urethrea. (Did I spell that right?) I don't know how that was supposed to help, but I remember being very scared in the hospital and being so sad that everyone was so mad at me for not knowing when I needed to go to the bathroom. Later on, some doctor decided that the nerves to my bladder were not there since i didn't have the warning signs that I needed to go like everyone else. Eventually I got over the problem and I was able to feel when I needed to go..my point is, make sure not to shame them!! They really may not be able to help it. I'm not saying you are, just know that that could be a possibilty. One thing that did help me as a kid was to not drink any water several hours before bedtime and to make sure I went potty before bed. You might actually might want to consider a therapist or something. Sometimes things that we can't explain about our bodies are psychological and regular fmaily doctors may or may not know how to help a child resolve pyschological issues. A lot of people don't realize that our pyschological part of us has a direct correlation with our physiological side of us. That's my 2 cents, good luck!

i dont know how old your daugters are but my friends daughter has the same problem(6yrs) they found out her bladder was just slightly underdeveloped and that she would grow out of it.

Hi C.,
My kids are little so I haven't been there yet but I am studying Chinese Medicine at NCNM here in Portland and one of our professors, Dr Zhang, specialises in pediatrics. I haven't taken his peds class yet, but bedwetting is one of the key topics. Plus his son was a bedwetter so he has 1st hand experience. What I do know, which is very basic, is that in Chinese Medicine, it is usually attributed to an imbalance of yin and yang. We all have this imbalance, else we would be perfect! but if we have alot more yin than yang, we do sleep more deeply and are hard to wake. And this is the principle cause behind bedwetting as far as chinese med is concerned.
If you are interested in persuing an alternative route, Dr Zhang sees patients at our school clinic on NW Pettygrove 22nd/23rd tel ###-###-####.
He would give very gentle treatments to help stimulate the yang energy, and if this out of balance it would help your girls overall cos it is our yang energy that gets us up in the am, gives us energy to move and want to move, keeps us warm, protects us from colds and infections, helps us metabolize our food properly, promotes good blood circulation and much more.

From the other responses, it sounds like bedwetting resolves with maturity. But if it could take a few more years, it might be worth paying Dr Zhang a visit. As it is a teaching clinic, it is low cost (and they take insurance) and as I said, addressing the problem from the theraputic balancing method that chinese medicine takes, it will improve your girls health and vitality overall.

Oh and save you some laundry!

All the best
Helen

C.,

Try not to let the girls think it is a bad thing: children are very hard on themselves...sometimes children just develop a bit more slowly in this way. Personally, I believe this can be hereditary. My father was a bed wetter, my sister was...I skipped this. My sister's daughter was a bed wetter...

Most bed wetter in our family seem to stop around age 7-8. We used all the techniques available to us as well. One doctor told our family not to worry, but stay vigilant for accidents.

T.

carie, I know that this is going to soud as weird to you as it did me when te doctor suggested it to me. I woked for a pediatrician that was about to retire so he had been in practice for many years and used some really down to earth treatments. He was really into natural things.

I took my three year old daughter ino him after mentioning that she wet the bed every night and I had tried everything. I took her in and he said he could guaranatee tht he could get her to quit wetting the bed after checking her over and seeing that she had no bladder infection.
He was guessing that she had pin worms...we lived on a farm with a lot of animals and she spent alot of time in the barns with me although he said that had nothing to do with it.
He gave her a dose of pinworm medication and she never wet her bed again...just thought. L.