Before you can share your botheration or distressed about your kid bet-wetting, know what causes it and how can you help it. As a parent, you are bound to be worried about your child wetting the bed. But there are many ways in which you can go about to help them and stop the embarrassment.
Over the last summer, my sister gave me a visit along with her daughter. The little one used to go out every evening to play with the kids in my locality, soon she had made friends. One day she came back running to her mother saying “ Mummy! They are inviting me for a sleep-over tomorrow” and quickly burst into tears. She was just 5 years old then.
Took me by shock looking her cry. Later, her mother explained about her concern of girl wetting her bed and wanted her to learn to be dry to go for sleepovers. Sad, but happens with more than 5 million children around the globe. “How to stop bed-wetting?” seems to be a pretty common topic of concern among the parents.
Getting angry or upset with your little one and punishing them is not going to help their bed-wetting habit rather only make it worse. As a parent you need to understand and realize that the child themselves are embarrassed and stressing them out further is not going to help. Do not make it a big deal, instead, offer some comfort to them.
Let us First Know the Causes of Bed-Wetting:
A physical or neurological immature bladder is the first and foremost reason for bed-wetting. And the second being the deep sleeping pattern. Apparently, the children are more often in deep sleep as compared to the adults. The deep makes them ignore the message from the bladder sent to the brain that it is full. Thus leading to bed-wetting at night. It is also said that bed-wetting could be inherited from someone from the family – could be parents, aunt, uncle or grandparents. Kids with learning disorders or allergies also most likely go through the bed-wetting habits.
How Does Bed-Wetting Affect the Child and the Parent:
The foremost thing that a parent should let the kid know is that they are with them in this and that they want to help too. Such kids are usually low on self-image, owing to which the parents need to assist them out of it. The kids tend to withdraw from social activities and sleepovers outside their home. A parent’s attitude towards the child can change this for them and make it easier for the kids to deal with bed-wetting habit. Offer positive support, sympathize and encourage the kid to overcome it.
How to Stop Bed-Wetting
1. Urinary Bed Alarms
These are the most effective way to treat bed-wetting. Medical research has an amazing invention of the moisture alarms that have helped many children. The alarms are available in various styles, mostly includes a moisture sensor in them. This can be worn on the underwear or pajamas, attached to an alarm box on the shirt. The sensor detects the moisture and the alarm goes on alerting the child to go to the bathroom. Pediatricians recommend such bed alarms for the kids.
2. Rewards for Dry Nights
This is a general trick to help kids to learn the right things. Rewarding them for an act makes them happy to do it right again. If there has been a dry successful night, reward the kid. That might not be a permanent solution but try it out, there isn’t any harm. Speak to the kid and let them say how they feel about it the next morning!
3. Wake up
This strategy involves making sure your kid goes to the bathroom right before his bedtime and then wake them up after about 2/3 hours of sleep to take them to the toilet. This helps them to know what is going on and in a while, they learn to just grow out of it. This might be a time taking process however we have seen positive results out of it.
4. Bladder Training
A very sensible and helpful strategy is to delay their urination during the day time. Which means, during the day when the child says that they want to urinate, ask them to hold it for a bit more longer. Start with 5 minutes and then add a couple of minutes each time. The goal is to set it to 40 minutes at least. Even though this process takes longer for the kid to learn, but an effective way on how to help kids to stop bed-wetting.
5. Lesser Fluid
Restricting fluid intake at night is suggested. The kid might not know how much water to intake and end up with bed-wetting. They should be explained and told to monitor their liquid intake at night hours so that kids do not feel it as a punishment.
6. Talk to the Pediatrician
Tell your pediatrician about the bed-wetting. They will help your child’s situation by tracking the progress. If the kid is older than 5 or if the bed-wetting has started abruptly, discuss it clearly with the pediatrician why it’s occurring.
7. Check for constipation
Constipation could be one of the common causes of bladder problems too. In case of large amount of poop is still in the rectum which is just behind the bladder, it adds pressure on the bladder resulting in instability of the bladder. Especially during the nighttime, the accident is prone to happen. Check your child’s bowel movements. Fruits, fiber rich food helps in having a normal bowel system and avoids constipation.
8. Waterproof Mattress
Even though you are trying the above methods to stop the kid’s bed-wetting habit, it is good to be sure the bed has a waterproof mattress cover or a pad. Lay a dry pajama right beside the kid, handy for them to change when they wake up at the middle of the night. If the bed is wet the next morning, ask your kid to change the bed sheet politely such that he learns to take the responsibility of bed-wetting.
