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FWIW - a waterbed mattress won't be ruined by bed wetting.
Another possible cause for bed wetting is diabetes - might need to check on that.
Practice sphincter control - shutting off flow while awake. It may be a contributing factor.
That's funny you should mention that. Her pedi told me the same thing with her having to practice starting and stopping to try and strengthen her bladder muscles. Diabetes has been ruled out, thanks for the tip. I don't know about a waterproof mattress (I don't think I have ever seen one other then her old crib/toddler bed mattress) but I do have a zippered mattress cover that completely surrounds the mattress.
I was actually going to suggest the opposite. It's a not-well-known fact that people do not entirely empty their bladders when they go to the bathroom. Some amount remains behind (how much varies from person to person). So not only would I recommend keeping the flow open, I would also suggest to the OP to have her daughter use the bathroom during the daytime more frequently than she thinks she needs to. That way, there are more opportunities to drain that much more out during the day, and thus leave more "storage" room in the bladder at night.
My son was in pull-ups until around age 8 or so, when they no longer could contain the overnight deluge. After that, I would have him go regularly during the day (though, on school days, I'm pretty sure that he only went the bare minimum necessary), then have him go 2 hours before bedtime, then again at bedtime. And then 3-4 hours after he went to bed, I'd wake him up and have him go to the bathroom. He would stay dry through the night, but only if I did all of these things. Otherwise, he'd stumble into my bedroom at Zero Dark Thirty to inform me that he had wet the bed.
And then finally, sometime around his 10th birthday, his nocturnal control finally kicked in, and he was able to stay dry through the night without external help.
So yeah, I fully understand the OP's frustration. She can try the ideas that have been presented, and hopefully something will work. But in the end, she may just have to wait it out.
Thanks for ALL your suggestions. Have you ever come across anything other than the pull ups that lasted the whole night and rarely leaked? Did you move up to the ones for older kids? If I could find something that works in the mean time for now until she starts staying dry, it would help A LOT. I will definately try your suggestions regarding her using the bathroom more frequently throughout the day. The hard part is getting her to actually do it! lol Her pedi said the same thing, it might be something she is just going to have to outgrow on her own.
Was your son motivated to want to stop? That's the big problem here with my daughter. She doesn't want to put forth the effort to want to stop. I know I am the parent but I would hate to have to "punish" if she doesn't even want to make an attempt to go to the bathroom, like right before bed were most of the time I have to almost beg her to at least sit down and try.
I wet the bed as a child and as a young adult although not as frequently. I now, in my old age, have trouble emptying my bladder resulting in UTIs. My urologist took xrays which showed that I have an unusually large bladder. I think that fact and that I am a heavy sleeper resulted in bed wetting. Maybe a visit to a urologist might help.
Please do not punish your child. My parents rubbed my nose in it and beat me with a thick belt. I had to have plastic sheeting on the bed and was so embarrassed when friends came over. When I woke up to a wet bed, I was so scared of punishment. It was traumatizing.
I know where you're coming from. My youngest child was almost 10 when she stopped. Nothing we or she tried worked. Our pediatrician told us it was a hormone that needs to release and she won't be able to control it until it does. Guess we had a late bloomer. She's about to turn 11. She had 1 or 2 accidents in the last year, but otherwise everything is great.
Don't make it gross for her or you. Put a waterproof cover on the mattress, throw some other waterproof pads on top, then the sheet. Use pull ups until she starts having more than just the occasional dry night.
I stressed about this for years, so I know how frustrating it is. I'm very sorry you have to go through this too. Truth is, it runs in my family (my mom and my brother), so the hormone release thing makes a lot of sense to me. And it really did just happen when it was time...
(And then I threw away all her old sheets and pj's) :-)
Also... our pediatrician told us about the medication, but she said that the side effects were so awful that she really only recommended using it when necessary (like a sleepover). We never tried it.
Thanks for ALL your suggestions. Have you ever come across anything other than the pull ups that lasted the whole night and rarely leaked? Did you move up to the ones for older kids? If I could find something that works in the mean time for now until she starts staying dry, it would help A LOT. I will definately try your suggestions regarding her using the bathroom more frequently throughout the day. The hard part is getting her to actually do it! lol Her pedi said the same thing, it might be something she is just going to have to outgrow on her own.
Was your son motivated to want to stop? That's the big problem here with my daughter. She doesn't want to put forth the effort to want to stop. I know I am the parent but I would hate to have to "punish" if she doesn't even want to make an attempt to go to the bathroom, like right before bed were most of the time I have to almost beg her to at least sit down and try.
Thanks,
Laura
He didn't enjoy the bedwetting, but I didn't get the sense that he desperately wanted it to stop, either. In his mind, it seemed to be simply some annoying thing that he had to face. Sometimes he would resist going to the bathroom, probably more as a power struggle than anything else. But usually he would do it. I don't recall ever having any resistance from him when I would wake him in the night. He would just trudge off to the bathroom, do his business, then go back to his room and climb back in bed. He would fall back to sleep instantly; in fact there were times when I think he just sleepwalked through the whole thing.
We never did try the Goodnights. Stuck with pull-ups until he outgrew them, which was when I started getting him up in the night.
On those occasions when my son would flat-out refuse to use the bathroom, I would regard it as a disobedience issue and punish him for that. There were a few times when he would spitefully stand in front of the toilet and refuse to let anything out, which was highly annoying but I didn't punish him for those because, at least he "tried." I NEVER punished him for wetting the bed.
He didn't enjoy the bedwetting, but I didn't get the sense that he desperately wanted it to stop, either. In his mind, it seemed to be simply some annoying thing that he had to face. Sometimes he would resist going to the bathroom, probably more as a power struggle than anything else. But usually he would do it. I don't recall ever having any resistance from him when I would wake him in the night. He would just trudge off to the bathroom, do his business, then go back to his room and climb back in bed. He would fall back to sleep instantly; in fact there were times when I think he just sleepwalked through the whole thing.
We never did try the Goodnights. Stuck with pull-ups until he outgrew them, which was when I started getting him up in the night.
On those occasions when my son would flat-out refuse to use the bathroom, I would regard it as a disobedience issue and punish him for that. There were a few times when he would spitefully stand in front of the toilet and refuse to let anything out, which was highly annoying but I didn't punish him for those because, at least he "tried." I NEVER punished him for wetting the bed.
He sounds a lot like my daughter....sometimes stubborn lol She will do the exact same things with me sheesh! He must of been small like she is. She is a bean pole and can still fit in the pull ups still without them being tight at all. I feel bad for saying this but there are times where I catch myself thinking...why don't I just go back to have her wearing a diaper at night? And then I tell myself that she is almost 8 and dismiss the idea. I feel bad for even thinking it but when I get to the point where nothing seems to work...you know? Please tell me I am not the only one that's considered going back to them. I would never do it as a punishment but more as a tool to help us both out, especially me.
Also... our pediatrician told us about the medication, but she said that the side effects were so awful that she really only recommended using it when necessary (like a sleepover). We never tried it.
Her pedi brought up the idea of medication but also stated that she wouldn't recommend it until she was older and started to go on sleepovers and such. She also said that just like mostly all other meds that if she stops taking it, the bedwetting will most likely return.
He sounds a lot like my daughter....sometimes stubborn lol She will do the exact same things with me sheesh! He must of been small like she is. She is a bean pole and can still fit in the pull ups still without them being tight at all. I feel bad for saying this but there are times where I catch myself thinking...why don't I just go back to have her wearing a diaper at night? And then I tell myself that she is almost 8 and dismiss the idea. I feel bad for even thinking it but when I get to the point where nothing seems to work...you know? Please tell me I am not the only one that's considered going back to them. I would never do it as a punishment but more as a tool to help us both out, especially me.
Thanks,
Laura
Yep, my son was (and still is) a small, thin boy. I'm glad that he made a distinction in his mind between diapers and pull-ups, because there's just no way that he would have tolerated going back to diapers.
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