In most cases, the exact cause of bedwetting is not known. But many possible causes exist. Your child’s bladder might be too small. Or the amount of urine produced overnight is too much for your child’s bladder to hold. As a result, your child’s bladder fills up before the night is over. Some children sleep so deeply that they don’t wake up when they need to urinate. Others simply take longer to learn bladder control. Many children wet the bed until they are 5 years old or even older. Bedwetting often runs in families. If both parents wet the bed as children, their child is likely to have the same problem. If only one parent has a history of bedwetting, the child has about a 30 percent chance of having the problem. Some children wet the bed even if neither parent ever did. A child who has been dry for several months or even years may start wetting the bed. The cause might be emotional stress, such as the loss of a loved one, problems at school, a new sibling, or even toilet training too early.
Bedwetting is not your child’s fault. Children rarely wet the bed on purpose. You can help your child by learning about the different causes and treatments for bedwetting. You can take several steps to help your child stay dry. Make sure your child drinks enough fluids throughout the day. A child who doesn’t drink enough during the day may drink a lot before bedtime, causing wetness at night. Talk with your child’s doctor about how much your child should drink each day. Have your child avoid drinks with caffeine, such as colas or tea. Drinks with caffeine speed up urine production. Give your child one drink with dinner and explain that it will be the last drink before going to bed. Make sure your child uses the bathroom just before bed. Many children will still wet the bed, but these steps may be helpful. Children may feel bad about wetting the bed, so letting them know they are not to blame is important. Bedwetting is not a behavior problem. Scolding and punishment will not help your child stay dry.
Praise your child for dry nights. Most children grow out of bedwetting. Some children just take more time than others. Children younger than 5 do not need to see a doctor for bedwetting. Many children do not stay dry at night until age 7. A single episode of bedwetting should not cause alarm, even in an older child. If your child is 7 years old or older and wets the bed more than two or three times in a week, a doctor may be able to help. If both day and night wetting occur after age 5, your child should see a doctor before age 7. The doctor will ask questions about your child’s health and the wetting problem, conduct a physical exam, and ask your child for a urine sample. The doctor will look for signs of health problems that can cause bedwetting, including the following: The doctor may also ask your child about changes at home or school that may be causing emotional stress. In most cases, the doctor doesn’t find any specific cause for bedwetting. If a health problem is found, the doctor will talk to you about treatment options.
If your child is stressed, the doctor may be able to give your child strategies for dealing with the stress. Treatments for bedwetting include bladder training, moisture alarms, and medicines. Talk with the doctor and your child about which ones to try. Bladder training can help your child hold urine longer. Write down what times your child urinates during the day. Then figure out the amount of time between trips to the bathroom. After a day or two, have your child try to wait an extra 15 minutes before using the bathroom. For example, if a trip to the bathroom usually occurs at 3:30 p.m., have your child wait until 3:45 p.m. Slowly make the wait time longer and longer. This method helps stretch your child’s bladder to hold more urine. Bladder training can take several weeks or even months. A small moisture alarm can be put in your child’s bed or underwear. With the first drops of urine, the alarm triggers a bell or buzzer that wakes your child. Your child can then stop the flow of urine, get up, and use the bathroom.
Waking also teaches your child how a full bladder feels. Medicine is available to treat bedwetting. The medicine used most often slows down how fast the body makes urine. Though medicine for bedwetting works well, wetting often returns when the child stops taking the medicine. If this occurs, keeping the child on medicine for a longer time may help. Eating, diet, and nutrition have not been shown to play a role in causing or preventing bedwetting in children, though making sure your child drinks enough throughout the day and avoiding caffeine intake may be helpful. The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) and other components of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) conduct and support research into many diseases and conditions. Clinical trials are part of clinical research and at the heart of all medical advances. Clinical trials look at new ways to prevent, detect, or treat disease. Researchers also use clinical trials to look at other aspects of care, such as improving the quality of life for people with chronic illnesses.
Find out if clinical trials are right for you. Clinical trials that are currently open and are recruiting can be viewed at www.ClinicalTrials.gov. This page either does not exist or is currently unavailable.You can also search for something on our site below.His sleeping through the alarm, though, is a sign that treatments aimed at making it easier for him to wake up are likely to be particularly effective for him. All rational treatments for primary nocturnal enuresis, the most common form of bedwetting, are aimed at either teaching the child to wake up when the bladder is full or at decreasing the need for nighttime urination. I will discuss with you several ways to teach children to wake up. Any child beyond the sixth birthday, though, should have a medical evaluation to rule out other underlying problems before instituting any therapy for bedwetting. Bedwetting alarms are among the safest and most effective of all therapies. The alarms have a simple moisture-sensor that snaps into your son’s pajamas.
A small speaker attaches up on the shoulder with Velcro. At the first drop of urine, a piercing alarm goes off, that sounds similar to a smoke alarm. Instantly, the child reflexly stops urinating. Next, the household awakes, EXCEPT for the deep sleeper who wets the bed. Precisely those children who sleep through the alarm are most likely to be helped by it. For the alarm to be effective, someone else must wake your son up (the most trying part — I’m sure he’s difficult to awaken), walk him to the bathroom, and get him to finish urinating in the toilet — all before resetting that annoying alarm. If this ritual is continued, the alarm will likely begin to wake him up directly within 4 to 6 weeks. Within twelve weeks, your son will very likely master nighttime bladder control, and no longer need the alarm. Relapses after alarm therapy are uncommon. I participated in a conference on enuresis where one of the speakers described the use in Africa of frogs strapped to the child as a ‘natural’ alarm.
Today’s electronic alarms are more effective, and I dare say, more comfortable (for the frog as well as the child). Many good alarms are available. The technology for bedwetting alarms changes, with new models coming out faster than I can review. I recommend going to a trusted source, that provides reviews from parents, to research the best alarm for your child. When researching consider the following: Star charts prove very beneficial to some children, used either alone or with a bedwetting alarm. As you know from experience, you wake up more easily when the day holds promise and excitement. On holiday mornings it is easier to get out of bed; on dreary mornings it is easier to hit the snooze-alarm. Star charts use this to advantage. A child is offered a star on the calendar for each dry night. When the child collects a predetermined number of stars (usually 3-7), he is given a small reward. When he collects 21 in a row, he gets a larger, looked-forward-to, prize. This puts the reticular activating system of the brain in a more heightened state of readiness to wake up when the bladder signals that it is full.
For some children, this is enough to make them responsive to nighttime bladder fullness. If no improvement occurs within 2 weeks, however, it should not continue to be used without an alarm or some other therapy. Hypnotherapy and guided imagery are other techniques available to help deep sleepers gain nighttime bladder control. Hypnotherapy requires a trained therapist, but guided imagery can be employed by anyone. Have your son relax, close his eyes, and listen to what you say. Tell him that his kidneys are a pee factory, making urine day and night. His bladder is a storage tank where the pee is kept until he is ready to put it in the toilet. There is a gate or muscle that holds the pee in the bladder until he is ready. During the day, he is in control of the gate, but at night some of the pee has been sneaking out. When he sleeps, he is going to begin taking control. When the bladder starts to fill up, he will control the gate when he is asleep, just like when he is awake. He will pee in the toilet when he is ready.