Advice on What to Do with a 7 Yr Old Peeing Bed Nightly

Hi Cheri! I agree with the chiropractic suggestions. Otherwise it might be a long time before he outgrows it. Also, if having no liquids after dinner is not helping, I would go ahead and let him have water in the evenings.
Good luck!

Have you talked to his Doc? He could have a medical issue that can be taken care of. Don't know what it's called but I've heard of it before.

Good luck!

It could be an allergy. When my son, now 18, was about a year old I saw a talk show with a specialist in children's allergies. This doctor explained that artificial flavors and colors, wheat, dairy and a few other things can cause an allergic reaction in kids that causes them to wet the bed. She also said that quite often the child's doctor doesn't have the training to solve this kind of problem. That the parent has to become the detective and find out what is going on with their own child. I would take all artificial flavors and colors out of his diet for a week and see what happens. This is not as easy as it sounds. It means no Fruit Loops, no Kool-aide, no soda, no fast food, quite often no snack foods. Read labels on everything he eats and if it has atrificial flavors and/or colors he can't have it.
I would also go to the library and look for books dealing with childhood allergies and do research online.

I am quite certain that he is not doing this intentionally. There are many children with the same issue and it has to do with part of their bodies not being developed enough yet to allow them to control their bladders. Most are only affected at night when they are asleep & unaware, but some have issues even during the day. Instead of punishing him, and having everyone live with unpleasant smells & conditions, be supportive of him and proactive to avoid the negative effects his problem can create. Change the mattresses, use waterproof bedding, and put him in the "Good Nights" or similar pull-ups for older children. The good news is, he will out-grow it eventually. In the mean time, quite treating him like he's being bad when it's not something he can help right now - all you will accomplish is lowering his self-esteem. The effects of that are life-long, the bed-wetting and the little bit of extra expense and inconvenience it may create now are only temporary. Talk to your sons doctor, do some reading up on the condition, and get a better understanding of what he's going thru.

I would recommend having him adjusted by a chiropractor. It has worked like a dream for my daughter. I was skeptical at first when my chiro told me she could help her, but it really has worked!

Please don't punish him. This is uncontrollable on his part...he is not doing it intentionally. My daughter, now 11, just stopped wetting the bed about 2 months ago. On her own, she just started waking up dry. Before that we had pullups, Goodnites, and when she outgrew those, I actually bought Depends for her! Put a plastic sheet on the bed and a regular sheet over that. Have him help change the sheets in the morning. Buy some Febreeze if you're "sick of the smell". But don't punish him.
We tried the chiropractor, not drinking after 6:00, potty before bed, waking in the middle of the night, bedwetting alarms. Some of those worked to a point, but the one thing that worked was time. His body is growing and he isn't getting that signal yet to get up and go, or to hold it til morning. That will come eventually. I don't know of anyone who hasn't grown out of it!
My brother was a bedwetter til he was 12. I can remember getting up in the morning and finding him in the bathroom with the blowdryer drying his underwear so that our stepdad wouldn't know he wet and he wouldn't get into trouble. No kid needs to feel that way.
Give it time. Give him understanding. And please don't punish him. Good luck!

I feel your pain! Our four year old still wets occassionally too. First of all, invest in a plastic sheet for his bed. We also try to get our son up sometime during the night and get him to the bathroom. It's hard some nights because he's sleeping so soundly, but worth it in the morning. We tried the pull-ups and he wet right throuh them. In fact, we even put two on at the same time (one on top of the other) and he still wet the bed! Thankfully he seems to be growing out of it. You also should visit with your dr about it and see if there is anything physically causing this to continue. He is not doing this on purpose so I would not punish/reward him for it. Good luck!

Hi Cheri,

I just skimmed the other responses, so I'm sorry if I'm repeating other responses. Just two months ago we put our 8 year old son on a prescription medication called desmopressin. We visited with the doctor first and he shared that many children lack a certain hormone that contrbutes to their bedwetting. He explained that normally at night a hormone signals the body to make more concentrated pee. In a child where that hormone is not present, the body continues to make urine the way it normally does while awake. Therefore, no matter how much you eliminate evening drinks, or try to wake him in the middle of the night . . .it's likely going to be a futile attempt. The medication that my son is on is a nasal spray. You start with one spray and go up to as many as three. It worked for him within a couple of weeks. We started out allowing him to wear underjams to bed while the medication took affect, but after he admitted to purposely peeing in his underjams in the morning because he was too comfortable to get out of bed to pee, we got rid of the underjams. He has been waking dry for several weeks now. We will begin weaning him from the medication in the next couple of months to see if his body is producing the hormone on its own now. Evidently the medication is used as a kind of a "kick start" for the hormone.

And as others suggested, you may want to avoid the punishments -- this is not something that he can control right now. Continuing to punish may negatively affect his self-esteem.

Good luck and feel free to send an email if you have other questions about the medication.

I feel your pain Cheri!! I have daughters the exact same ages and the younger one has never ever had a problem, but the 7 year does!! She doesn't wet the bed all the time, but she does wet her underwear almost every night. We have done the same things as far as no fluids, going before bed (sometimes twice), and we also keep a water proof mattress pad on her bed and a pee pad under her sheet. That way if she does wet it only the fitted sheet gets wet! We have relatives who had problems up until they were 10 or so and we have just decided to let it go! It's nothing that the child is doing wrong and our daughter is actually embarrassed when she does get wet. Now she only wakes us up if her bed gets wet. Every night I hear her get into her drawer for a clean pair of panties and it makes me sad for her. She sleeps sooooo sound that she doesn't wake up for it! We did use a pee alarm which works great except it also wakes you up along with the child!! You could always try that. But my advice being the sibling of a bedwetter myself is to try and be supportive and let him know that he'll grow out of it eventually. That it isn't anything he is doing wrong and that you love him anyway!

D.

Bed wetting, ESPECIALLY in boys, is very common! My ex husband wet the bed until he was 10, his brother till he was 9, my brother till he was 11, my son until he was 10...and the list goes on! Punishing him, or rewarding him is pointless. This is outside his control. We took my son to the doctor and he was put on medication. It made an immediate difference. After two months on the meds, we took him off of it, and we have only had once accident since. Meds have also helped the children of some of my friends. My doctor gave me some statistics on bed wetting in children, and it is far more common than you might think. DDAVP is the most common medication for bed wetting, but it didn't work for my son. What worked for him was Aripramine (sp?) He was in Good Nights for years, because we couldn't have him peeing the bed every night. I would suggest that you buy those to save the sheets and mattress until you can get him in to see his doctor and talk to him about this problem. Also, we had a plastic mattress cover in case he leaked through his Good Nights, to farther avoid a ruined mattress.

We had the same problem with my son. We did the no water after dinner thing, did the reminding him to pee before bed. He'd still have some problems here and there. Well my mom had 7 kids so I asked her and she told me to set an alarm if I wasn't still up at midnight and to get up, wake him up and make him go potty.

So I did this. He'd stumble in there and go potty. I'm happy to say we are accident free for about 6 months now! It worked. So I guess mom does know best. You could try that. Mine doesn't even really wake up and goes right back to sleep. He's just too deep of a sleeper so he pee's. I guess we'll have to do this for awhile but oh well anything is better than the pee stench and scrubing mattresses.

have you taken him to the doctor? He might have some kind of medical condition? They also make a type of pull up for bigger kids who have that problem.

Hi Cheri.
,
I have only one bit of advice to share: Make a half and half solution of water and white vinegar. Spray the vinegar mix onto the pee sites you know ofm you can spray a generous amount but just remember that you will need dry time. Then take baking soda and sprinkle genrously on to the vinegar. Allow the baking soda to suck it all up, and dry.
Then just vaccuum all of it up. The vinegar,,I am told has the power to break down the strong chemical chains that make a funky smell, the baking soda helps dry it but mostly as most of us know it gobbles up various stenches very well. I wish I could help with your other prpbs but thats all I got tonight!

Goodnight and good luck, sweetie!

I think you should take him to a doctor. He isn't peeing because he wants to be naughty, or because he doesn't care, he's peeing when he's fast asleep and he has no control over it.

You could also try to protect his mattress more, in the meantime. Buy a mattress cover, then buy a mattress protector for a crib mattress. Lay that over his mattress in the part where the center of his body lies, and then put the sheet on over that. The crib mattress protector will be wet, and you can put it in the wash, but the mattress will be protected.

Good luck!

He has a medical condition so stop punishing him for something he can't control and go see a doctor! There are nose sprays or tablets kids can take to control bed wetting.

I was a bed wetter until I was 12. I actually fell out of bed, broke my color bone, and got back into bed! When I woke up in the morning I could not get out of bed. It hurt sooo bad. My mom got me to the Dr's office and we fond out I had slept through the whole thing!! Maybe your son gets up in the middle of the night and gets into his brothers bed and doesn't even know he is doing this. My parents tried everything and so did I to try to stop wetting the bed, but nothing worked. I simply had to grow out of it. If you hate the smell of urine, think about how your son feels when he wakes up with the bed all wet. I remember very clear how that felt. I was always so ashamed. My son wets the bed at night to. We buy the goodnight diapers to wear at night. Sometimes he uses them and sometimes he does not. My son is in boy scouts to when we go camping or sleep over and someone’s house it is a must to wear the goodnights so that no one else finds out he wets the bed. We have created a special word for the diapers, so we say things like “honey don’t forget supper man" and that means don’t for get to put your diaper on. I just know how bad it hurt when I woke up to a wet bed. So I always let my son know that it is not his fault. good luck. He will outgrow it!

There may be a medical reason for this and something that can be treated. Talk to your ped. for suggestions.

Cheri - this could be a medical issue not a "drinking" issue. Personally, I use chiropractic care for many, many things and this is one that I would definitely seek the advice of a chiropractor. I personally know several and would highly recommend them in the south metro area.

Good luck,

I know it is frustrating. We went through that as well. He will grow out of it. There are a lot of "remedies" out there, but in the end you'll just need time. Almost all kids grow out of it around 8 years old. Just be patient and remember that he cannot help it. Likely he already feels terrible and embarrassed about it. I do empathize with having to wash so many sheets!
If you don't already have it, you should have the waterproof mattress protector. That way you can pull all the sheets off and just wipe clean the mattress to get off any odor or dampness. You can also buy absorbant/washable big pads at nursing supply type places that go under the child at night - they are pretty big in the hopes of only having to wash that. I hear they work great.
Good luck.

Try a chiropractor. I was skeptical but have seen it work firsthand.

Hi Cheri, I feel your pain and frustration. I too have a 7 year old son who still wets the bed every single night! We have the plastic mattress cover to protect his mattress, then on top of that we put his regular mattress cover with another plastic-backed "pee pad". We then make his bed as usual and then put a crib pad like you would use on a changing table underneath him as he sleeps. To top it all off he has to wear Goodnites sleep diapers underneath his jammies just to cut down on the amount of laundry we were doing.
It turns out that bed wetting can be a problem with the nerve endings between the bladder and the brain, so basically in most children as their bladders fill up it sends a signal to the brain to wake up the child to go to the bathroom. For some children, like ours, those nerve passageways are not working together to let the brain know the bladder is full so they end up wetting. It does not matter if we make our children go to the bathroom before bed or limit water intake before bed it will happen regardless.
There is a product out there that is like an alarm system that attaches it self to the shoulder near the ear and runs a wire down to the crotch of the underwear. At the first detection of wetness the alarm sounds and wakes the child to get up and go to the bathroom. What this product is helping to do is to "wake up" and help build up the nerve endings so that the child is eventually able to do this on their own.
I know this product works from my own personal experience as a girl- after struggling with bed wetting until the age of 12!
The website bedwettingstore.com can help you find some great products.
Best of luck to you!

Sounds like one of my daughters and my nephew. Everyone produces a hormone when they are sleeping that causes the body not to produce urine. If your child is lacking that hormone nothing you do will work. Have you tried bed alarms? That works for most kids. My daughter and nephew were some of the few it didn't work for. They lacked the hormone. You have 2 choices at that point. My sister didn't want to give my nephew any pills so he wore a "goodnight's" pullup that is made for bigger kids. I chose to go with the hormone pill because my daughter was getting invited to sleepovers and such and the pullup was still embarrassing. The pills worked great and she has no side effects. Once they go through puberity most kid's bodies correct this hormone imbalance. The hormones change in the body at this time anyway. Both my daughter and nephew stopped wetting when they got to this age. I think my daughter was about 8 when we put her on the pill and she was on it for years and LOVED not wetting herself. I've been there it isn't easy for you and the child CAN'T help themself and they loose a lot of self estem. Good luck.

When talking to the Dr about my 8 year old taking medicine- I was told there are 3 things you can't force someone to do-eat, sleep or pee. My son also wets the bed- I have matress protectors and now if he wets, he has to strip the bed and take them to the wash-Immediately. Our Pediatrician told me not to worry about it at this point. And, we use "night time underwear" Good nights has a boxer style so it doesn't look as much like a pull up diaper. They are made to fit up to 110 lbs so that indicates to me that we are not the only ones having this problem- it is common or they would have no reason to make them in that size. You can't get mad at him- and punishment is actually ineffective and inappropriate. There are those alarms you can put in his underpants- or you -or your husband- can get your son up in the middle of the night and take him to the potty when you go( I rarely wake at night so this isn't an option for me) And you may check with the pediatrician- there maybe be a medical reason behind it as well

A friend of mine had this trouble and the doctor had her get an alarm. She didn't want to use the alarm but reluctantly did. She was so happily suprised that within 3 days of the alarm her son was able to wake up by himself and not have any more problems wetting the bed.

I was also a bedwetter as a child, so I know how your son feels. Bedwetting is a type of sleeping disorder. I encourage you not to think of it as something he has control over, but think of it like a disorder such as OCD. Your son knows it is a problem and needs to stop, but he has no idea how. I would recommend waking him up a couple times during the night to bring him to the bathroom, if he is wetting before you go to bed, go wake him up an hour after he goes to sleep. Also, make sure you let him know that it isn't his fault, stress can trigger bedwetting. Even if you don't believe that bedwetting is a disorder, I know many don't. Try twlling your son for a week or two that you know he can't help it, and see if anything improves.

I am sure this is stressful as a parent, but remember that this is also very stressful on your son.

Cheri,
Just a possibility here. My nephew was about the same age and wetting the bed. They had him into the doctor and found that he was constipated. Therefore with so much stool in his bowels, his little bladder became even smaller because there was not much room left for it. They treated him for constipation and the bedwetting got better. I think it is worth it to check with your doctor and see if this may be the problem. FYI my nephew was having a bowel movement daily,so they didn't think it was a problem, but he was never emptying his bowels. I think they found out with an xray. Anyway just something to think about and maybe check.
Good luck,
V.

My son had been trained for a while and then when he started a new daycare he started wetting the bed again. I thought it was just because of the new daycare then when I talked to her I found out he was drinking juice through out the day. We stopped the juice and went to milk. The problems stopped. He can have juice in the morning or lunch but only 1 cup and thats it the rest has to be milk.

Take him to the chiropractor. If he is out of allignment he may not be feeling enough urge to wake himself up in the middle of the night.

What I did with my son when we were having accidents was to wake him up and have him go potty right before I went to bed for the night. It made a world of difference. Some of the time he was barely awake to go but he did and it helped stop the accidents. Some kids it just takes longer to make it through the night. Otherwise you can buy pull up like things that look like boxer shorts that he can wear to bed at night makes for less clean up.
Hope this helps.
J.

Have you tried a night light? Sometimes children are afraid to venture to the bathroom because its too dark. If that fails pull-ups are an option.

I would suggest taking him to a pediatrician to make sure there are no medical reasons for his bed wetting. I have a 12 year old who is still wetting the bed. What I have researched is this:
This ususally happens with boys. Boys have a tendency to grow faster than some of their organs. In my son's case I believe he has grown faster than his body can catch up with and he is a VERY sound sleeper. The case with him is the urge to go to the bathroom is not strong enough to wake him up. At 12 I am sure he's not doing this on purpose, he is embarrassed by it, so we don't make a big deal of it. The pediatrician offered him meds to decrease his need to urinate at night, but I opted not to take it because I don't want him dependent on meds. I want him to learn to manage this on his own.

I would suggest not punishing your son for this, especially if there is a plausible medical reason for it. Teach him how to take his sheets off and change them. Make sure there's plastic on his mattress and show him how to clean that as well. Make an appointment with his pediatrician.

Good Luck

There are many many children with this issue and they have no control over it. My son is one of them, and he is also 7. We use Underjams or Goodnights every night. I also have a waterproof mattress pad on his bed for the rare occasion that those fail. Please don't punish him for this because I"m sure he already feels bad enough about it and he can't stop it. My brother had this problem even as a teenager and I remember him being punished and it does no good and makes them feel even worse about it. You should try buying him something to wear at night, in the morning he can throw them away when they are wet, and no one will have to get upset about it and no more washing sheets everyday! Good Luck!

This isn't your son's fault and you shouldn't be punishing him. He is probably such a sound sleeper that he can't wake up. You should buy him night time pull-ups. He will out-grow it; however, since he's 7, I would take him to a pediatrician and see if maybe some further test should be done to rule out anything physical that could be wrong. Night time training is not the same as day time training. We had one child that had this same problem. We tried everything. We even woke him up at nite when we went to bed to make him go again. Eventually he was able to wake up and go at night. He still has to get up several times at nite to go to the bathroom. A couple years ago he had an ultrasound done on his bladder. Everything was normal. My son has really bad allergies and wakes up frequently at night for that. We think that has something to do with the night waking and we think when he was little that the medication we had him on made it hard for him to wake up.

Please don't punish your child. He's not doing it on purpose and I'm sure he feels horrible about himself. Build him up and help him feel good about himself. Also, I would make sure he's drinking enough water during the day since he's so limited to drinking after 5:30p. I can't imagine anyone telling me I couldn't have a drink of water if I were thirsty.

I was a bedwetter until age 10 as were both my kids. I took my kids to the doctor to make sure it wasn't something medical and it wasn't. It isn't always. Sometimes children are just sound sleepers and their body can't wake them from deep sleep so that they can get up to go. If that is the case, then it is a matter of waiting for him to outgrow it and give him support in the meantime.

What worked for my kids was to have a laundry basket sitting by the bed where they could strip their sheets and put them every morning. As soon as they were old enough to reach the washer knobs, I taught them how to wash their own sheets and blankets. That in itself helped boost their confidence and self esteem because then they could take care of it themselves and no one else would have to know. Plastic matress covers are nice tho my kids didn't like them and wouldn't keep them on the bed because even with the sheet between them and the plastic, it made noise and made them sweaty.

Fabreeze is a wonderful invention that I had the kids spray on the bed every morning to help reduce the smell. Since the bed was uncovered all day, it had time to dry out. When they got home, because I'd toss their things in the dryer for them, they would make their bed up again.

As a former bedwetter myself, who had no control over it as I wouldn't wake up until it was too late....by all means, please be supportive of your son for what he can't control until his body matures properly. It's embarassing enough knowing that you can't sleep over with friends or have them over and having to explain why or coming up with excuses. My children handled it much better than I did because they had my support and understanding while I grew up with threats of having alarms attached to me that would go off and wake me up if I started to pee. Though they never did it, I was always in fear of waking up and finding a wet bed, knowing I would get yelled at for it when I had no control over it.

As an adult, I go to the bathroom several times every night before I go to bed and even get up several times during the night to go for fear that I will again wet the bed (I'm 42). My kids, because they had my understanding, do not have that fear and sleep through the night (and don't wet anymore). I understand the problems with the smell, I really do! Just take him to a doctor, rule out any medical problems, then work to help him learn how to handle it himself until he can outgrow it. Good luck to ya hun!

Hi Cheri. I have an 8 year old and he wets the bed almost every night. Here is what we have done and I hope it helps. We buy pullups/overnights and he wears those at night. If he wakes up and they are wet, he simply puts it in the garbage and gets a clean one out for the next night. I have a small garbage can in his room and I put those grocery sacks (like from WalMart or HyVee) in there. As I walk by his room in the morning, if there is a pullup in there, I tie the bag up and put a new bag in. I just take the bag to the big garbage can on my way out. Pullups rarely leak, so the mattress doesn't get wet at all. On the rare occasion that pullups do leak, we also use a waterproof liner on the mattress. The room never smells because we get the wet pullup out of there each day. I have the mindset that he isn't going to graduate from highschool as a bed wetter and honestly, his body just isn't ready yet. Sometimes he asks us about "why do I have to wear pullups?" We just tell him that his body just isn't ready yet and sometimes our body takes longer to do certain things than others. Good luck to you.

I was a bedwetter until I was 12, as was my dad until 14, my aunt until 13, and my dad's cousin until she was 18. I thank God for my parents response to this every day. They were understanding and patient. My mother even went so far as to have a plan with me if I went to stay over at someone else's house (my mother called the mother privately and told her of our plan and my situation). My friends never knew. I was never embarassed of my situation. I grew out of it.

Also, my parents thankfully never listened to the doctor's and just let me grow out of it. The doctor's wanted to do all kinds of tests and therapies. All it took was time and growing older.