Signs And Symptoms of Bed Wetting
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You will know if your child is wetting the bed, eventually. They come and tell you or like many kids, are embarrassed and will hide their wet night clothes. You might find them on the couch asleep in different pajamas than they wore to bed.
This is not a time to be getting angry at your child, to punish them, or to tease them. You can instead use this to get to know your child a bit better. There are several things that could trigger bed wetting. Things like recent illnesses, stress from changes (new school, a move), or that there is an underlying health issue. You can be sure of one thing it is not under your child’s control. It is not their fault and it is not your fault.
Your pediatrician should be consulted and it could be that your child’s bladder may just be immature and as it develops the bed wetting should start going away. They may also have a smaller than normal bladder and at night couldn’t hold the normal amount of urine and the bladder simply empties itself.
Many people are very light sleepers and can easily get up, use the bathroom, and go back to sleep . There are some people though who sleep so deeply that they cannot feel the need to get up and go to the bathroom. The situation is by no means hopeless.
Do not let them have liquids too close to bedtime. This may help to reduce the incidents of bed wetting. Do not give them soda, chocolate, coffee, or tea as these things trigger over production of urine.
You can put a vinyl cover over the mattress so that urine does not soak into it. You can use layers of disposable pads or a rubber sheet under another smaller sheet. Another thing you can try is any one of various types of enuresis alarms. They can either vibrate (shake the bed), emit a bell, or a loud sound that is designed to wake your child up as wetness reaches the padding.
Praise your child when they stay dry. Let them know you understand that it is not their fault and that you will support them. Have them help you to come up with things to try. They will likely outgrow night time bed wetting on their own but in the mean time you might want to find something that you can do to help them.
