Looking for Bedwetting Solutions

Get a malem bedwetting monitor. I finally did it when my son was 11 and really wished I had never waited so long. It solved the problem.

If this is just a recent problem then I would take her to her Dr. ASAP. My daughters best friend (she's 7) started wetting the bed again. They took her to the Dr. & found out she had Type 1 Diabetes. I guess bedwetting is one of the signs for it.

My brothers wet the bed until they hit puberty as did our uncle...and some cousins. Actually had a cousin die from a medication given to him for bedwetting when he was six....turned seven in the hospital before he died.

First thing my mother/father had to do was get it out of their heads that the boys were just being lazy. They honestly couldn't hold their urine at night when they slept. So my mother developed tactics to combat the problem until they outgrew it...puberty.

1.) No drinking at all after five pm.

2.) Urinate before bed.

3.) She set her alarm for four hours after they went to sleep and then another four hours after that and got them up to go to the bathroom. So about midnight and four or five in the morning she would have them go to the bathroom. They were often so tired and out of it that when she was waking the other, the first would go into the wrong room and pee on furniture...the piano once, the dirty clothes hamper, the tub....She had to make them go together to keep an eye on them.

4.) She put plastic mattress covers on the bed. She had them strip the bed every morning when they got up and put the sheets in the washer if they still had an accident.

Mind you will all that they didn't have accidents often. Usually only if they snuck water, had a late night, or ate something late like watermelon did they have an accident.

Other issues could be diabetes. My niece was tested because she had pretty evident weight gain at 7 or so and then started wetting the bed every night.

Turns out she had sleep apnea and was just so tired she couldn't wake up. (I think there might have been some emotional issues too)

Hope some of that helps.

My nephew went through a similar situation. I'm sure you've spoke to your doctor about this, has he/she ever recommended a sleep study? As a respiratory therapist, we learn that if a child is not getting into a deep sleep the hormone from their kidney is not released, therefore they wet the bed. A lot of times it is fixed by getting their tonsils removed believe it or not. My nephew was snoring very very loudly and that is NEVER normal for a child. My sister finally convinced her childs father to get him for a sleep study, needless to say he had surgery the next day! He is now a very quiet sleeper and has since stopped wetting the bed. Is your daughter usually tired, even when she wakes up? Does she snore? I would ask my doctor for a sleep study, no biggie, you can be in the room with her and most insurances cover it:)

My son just turned 7 and wets every night. He recently protested the pull-ups, so we have just been waking him up every 4 or 5 hours to go to the bathroom.

I agree with Sarah K. I have a boy and a girl who both used the Malem Bedwetting Alarm and had success very quickly and easily. Both of my children were trained within a month. It's a commitment for you as well as for your child, but SO worth it in the end. It's wonderful for their self-esteem. One more thing I would add is something called a double-void (per the Malem instruction manual) where the child urinates when you go upstairs to get ready for bed, and then urinates again just before going to sleep. That part was key in our house. Good luck!

I took my 7 1/2 year old daughter to a pediatric urologist for this same problem a couple of months ago. They recommended a program called "try for dry." I'm sure if you google it you can find some info. It was interesting, but I modified the program to fit our family better. I used a combination of a Malem alarm, Miralax, and making sure we were consistent with fluids/potty schedule after dinner. I did not use any prescription drugs, even though the doctor recommended a muscle relaxer to help increase bladder capacity. I didn't think we needed it that badly! Anyway, the program worked within 2 weeks and 2 months later she is out of pull ups, has no accidents, and most nights can sleep through the whole night without getting up to go to the bathroom. About 2x a week she seems to get up in the middle of the night, but she has a really small bladder. If you go to a urologist, they will want you to keep a fluid and voiding journal for 3 consecutive days. I would suggest doing this anyway -- I found it very informative. For example, the doctor said that most kids have a 100 ml bladder capacity, but my daughter regularly voids at half that. ALso, most kids go about 6 x a day but she goes about 10, so she has a really small bladder. I hope that helps! Good luck!

Check your child's diet. A common thread that was found in most bed wetters was a diet high in refined carbohydrates--white flour and white sugar products, creats vitamin B deficiency in the body. The bladder is simply a muscle, too much sugar--not enough B vitamin--equal wet beds.
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This is a hard situation for her as well. She can't spend the night at friends either. She doesn't want to do this. I have helped several with the situation by taking a really good look at her diet. I know you have done the no liquids after 7PM....

The one that is over looked is the sugar. Sugar works in kids like alcohol works in adults. Alcohol effects are central nervous system which effects our muscles so we drive erratic, or we can't walk in a straight line and that is primarily because the alcohol "turns into sugar" in our bodies. It is caused by a deficiency of B vitamins. ( I am simplifying this, but hope you get the general concept)

So eliminating Sugar and adding supplements that will support health might be important. There are several that are essential. Calciium Magnsium is necessary and will stop the bladder from twitching if that is what is happening at night.

Has she been in a lot of antibiotics in her lifetime? There are also solutions for this as well. I'd be happy to give you some "talking" time so we can get it figured out in a conversation, rather than 15 back and forth emails. Get back with me if you are interested in hearing more.

I know it's a little late but wanted to let you know of these audios - can be downloaded as mp3s and have your child listen to it when falling asleep. It may be combined with alarms too. They're quality "self-help" audios - there's one for younger and one older children. Here is the link to the older children's audio:

http://www.lodingo.com/_product_7945/Dry_Nights_For_Older...

Please let me know if you want more details. Also, you may look for a discount code before you download it - I found one and it costs me just a few dollars. Hope it helps.

You may want to look into food sensitivity issues. Dairy and gluten are major urine triggers. Also, her neurotransmitters may be out of wack. A urine test can test for that. My son sees a terrific doctor who can run all these tests. Here is his website: www.drfeely.com

I just recently bought an alarm. I was less than $20. I don't know what the features the more expensive units have. I know what you're going through. Good luck!

My 7yo son just became dry at night a few months ago. We were very successful with a bedwetting alarm. I was a little surprised by the initial cost (maybe $70-100+ depending on the brand and style), but it was so worth it in the end. We got the kind that clips to the underwear and alarms at the first drop of moisture. The child (with the parents help at first) then gets up and uses the bathroom, resets the alarm, changes underwear if necessary, and returns to bed. They recommend not clipping the alarm to pullups because it is harder for sensor the detect the urine, but we initially covered his underwear with pullups to help keep the bed dry. By the end of the first week he went from a soaked pullup to a small spot of urine by the time we got to the bathroom. By the end of the second week the urine was hardly detectable by me, so we quit using the pullups. As the alarm went off less and less over the next couple weeks we began using it every other night for a week (as recommended by the instructions) and he continued to have no accidents. Since we quit using it all together he has been very successful at staying dry. At first I thought it would teach him to wake up and go during the night, but instead he has learned to sleep through the night without wetting. I think it could work either way depending on the physical capabilities of the child (i.e. if their bladder is actually big enough to hold the urine all night, etc). It is a bit of disruption to your sleep initially (but I still have a baby in the house so it was nothing new to me), but for most kids the learning is quick and therefore the interrupted sleep is short term. There are a couple of Rx medications that increase the level of ADH at night. ADH is an Anti-Diruetic Hormone that we make at night to decrease the amount of urine we make while we sleep. But from what I understand there are potential side effects, not always that successful, and the bedwetting usually returns when the meds are stopped because nothing in the child has actually changed and no learning taking place. So I would highly recommend you look into an alarm. We still have 3/4 of a pack of pullups left over because it worked so well and fast for us. Good luck to her, she will feel so much better when this phase of her life is over.

I've heard the book Dry All Night is excellent. About 2/3 of the book is for parents, and the last third is a book that the kids read to help them not wet their bed.
Good luck!

If her doctor has ruled out any physical reasons for her bedwetting; you need to make sure she doesn't drink anything after 6 or 7 p.m.

Also, it probably wouldn't hurt if you wake her and take her for a potty break once each night. She could simply be sleeping too soundly to get the message that she needs to "go". My daughter used to tell me that she would be dreaming she was in the bathroom and wouldn't realize otherwise until she felt the wetness.

I hope this helps.

My son is almost 9 & has been wet free for a few months. It was a very frustrating process, but it was worth it in the end. We started with the liquid limitation first as we were using pull-ups, but he soon grew too big for them, then we went to waking 2-3 times a night. Needless to say that was not good for any of us, then we finally broke down & bought the Malem bedwetting alarm that was recommended to us by our ped. It was a wonderful investment & would recommend it to anyone. It did take us a lot longer than some people say, but again I would do it again in a minute & I recommend it all the time. BTW, we also had an RX from the ped which we used for a bit, but never really seemed to work. If you want to try the alarm without the intial $100+ fee, then I would check out Ebay.
Good Luck!

I'd echo Sarah K's response. My son's 9 and we're using the alarm now, at the suggestion of a pediatric nephrologist. (We went to the MD to rule out any underlying issues -- there are plenty of possible issues, so it's worth checking them all out before you go to meds or an alarm.) He started by waking once a night to go but quickly learned to sleep through most nights and to wake himself up on others. Now, after seven weeks, he's dry most nights and just barely wet on the nights he does wet, so we're ready to let the alarm go. We waited a really long time to do anything about it, because it didn't bother him, but if your daughter is beginning to get embarrassed, she's probably ready to do something about it. We found that restricting fluids before bed is key -- if he drinks within 90 minutes before bedtime, he's much, much more likely to set off the alarm. We also used pullups over his underwear -- we were all much less frustrated when we weren't changing sheets at 3 a.m. Good luck, be patient, and remind your daughter that lots of kids -- boys and girls -- go through this; they just don't talk about it. She'll be OK.

I would ask the doctor to prescribe the medicine that combats this. It worked for my friend's daughter who is that age.