HELP! I am at my wits end, 5yo DS has started wetting the bed

[tiff211]

My DD5 goes through her little periods of bedwetting as well. I make sure she goes to the bathroom before bed and also limit her drinking after dinner. Good luck. I know how frustating it can be!

 

[Tigger&Belle]

Did my OP say anything about me thinking punishing would help? I said I DID punish once over the summer when I thought it was laziness, after dealing with it for a while. Now that it has moved to bed wetting, I realize something has to be wrong somewhere. I believe I ACTUALLY said punishing would not help and make matters worse even.

Thanks for making feel that much better.

Sorry if it seemed like I was coming down hard on you. You said that you had punished him for daytime wetting and you thought about it for the nighttime wetting, but knew it wouldn't help. I'm glad that you realize this. Also, watch how you react because your son will remember this. My mother denies punishing me or getting mad at me for wetting the bed. She did, though, and it was very hard on me growing up. At 44yo, though, I have moved on.

 

[swilphil]

my 5yo has started to wet the bed. Over the summer, I discovered he had been having "accidents" during the day, not everyday, but once or twice a week. I passed it off at laziness, and I finally punished him. (no tv for a 2 days). The daytime wetting stopped after that, confirming the laziness. ( I assume).....

HELP. My 1st instinct is to punish him, but I know that won't solve anything and may make it worse.

Your last sentence and that fact that you previously punished him (though not harshly) is what made us focus on the punishment angle. Plus I think punishment is the 1st instinct for many of us who have tried all the positive reinforcements we can think of and are extremely frustrated. I'm currently pottying training my youngest son, and there are times when I'm at my wit's end.

 

[Pea-n-Me]

Just curious, for people who have reported medical problems like small bladders, spastic bladder, messed up plumbing and such - were there chronic problems in childhood wetting or was there a sudden change in wetting behaviors such as how the OP's child's problem has presented itself? I would think probems such as those would have been noticed before the age of 5, but I don't know. This might be helpful to the OP to know.

 

[halestrm]

With my DH's small bladder, it become more noticiable at 5 because we now think of them as more grown-up with school and all. Also, with school, he no longer had 24/7 access to restrooms during the day.

In many cases a physical issue can become a problem the more emotional a person is. I have a steel rod next to my spine. Many days I don't even think about it, but when I am emotional or tired, egads does it ache.

Does that answer your question?

 

[Hillbeans]

My son who is 4.5 just started wetting the bed again last week(I attribute it to the changes with the new baby at home).

I try not to get upset about it, however I started "asking" him to wear the goodnights to bed because washing a full set of sheets and the comforter every day is just too much to handle with everything else going on. He dislikes them, but I told him it's only temporary.

I think it's not a bad idea to call your dr to rule out anything medical, however I know that a 5 yo wetting the bed is probably more common than you think. Is there anything new going on with family or a change in routine? You are not alone, and we're all here to help because many of us are going through something similar.

 

[va32h]

My daughter is 9 and still wets the bed on occasion. She used to do it very frequently, but our ped said that the pediatric urologist in his group wouldn't even see patients for bedwetting until they were over 7.

So since then she's been, and the doctor can find nothing physically wrong with her. We have finally reached the point where she will at least wake up when she has an accident, she used to sleep so deeply that she wouldn't even notice she was soaking wet.

What works for us is to limit drinks (nothing to drink after 7pm), and she goes to the bathroom before bed. For some reason, she is more likely to have an accident if she gets cold - no idea why that is! - but in the winter, we make sure that she has warm jammies and I check on her before I go to bed to make sure the covers are on.

If your son is hiding his bed wetting from you, he might be ashamed or frightened of what you might do about it. So I'd give him a big hug, and say that you know it isn't his fault, and to not be embarassed to tell you when it happens.

When my daughter was 5, she would come and get me to help change her sheets. Now she knows how to make her onw bed and just changes the sheets herself in the night, if she needs to.

If your son will wear Goodnites, that's one option, but definitely get a plastic mattress cover for the mattress.

 

[Disney Doll]

Did my OP say anything about me thinking punishing would help? I said I DID punish once over the summer when I thought it was laziness, after dealing with it for a while. Now that it has moved to bed wetting, I realize something has to be wrong somewhere. I believe I ACTUALLY said punishing would not help and make matters worse even.

Thanks for making feel that much better.

Well, since you punished him over the summer, and your "first instinct" now is to punish him, I guess I just assumed that you felt that punishing him was the way to go, seeing as how it is a tactic you used in the past and indicated that it was your first instinct this time.

Not trying to make you feel bad...guess I'm just not a mind-reader, especially when the post specifically says something about punishing. However, I guess the majority of folks reading the post must be mistaken too, since pretty much all the repsonses say something about not punishing. I guess the DISers lack in the reading comprehension area.

Perhaps you should do what you think is best for your child, whether that be punish him or take him to a doctor.

 

[VickiVM]

I wouldn't sweat it so much. My son is 11 and still every now and again (rarely) he'll have an accident. It's likely a physiological maturity thing and seems to be more prevalent with boys than girls. But it remained an issue with my son until just a couple of years ago. We would limit his liquid intake in the evenings, have him pee before going to bed and when it was at its worst, would wake him again around 11pm or so to get him to pee again.

When he would go to his regular ped. checkups, we were assured that's it pretty normal development. I don't want to focus on the punishment, but although it was frustrating to be doing laundry at 1 am (so his sheets would be clean again the next night), we never punished or embarassed him. Even now when he goes to sleep overs (or on our vacations) I worry a great deal that he'll soil someone else's sheets/mattress. He knows the routine and so far - knock on wood - so good.

Good luck. See your pediatrician to rule out anything else (I don't see why you would need to take him to a specialist at this point). And be patient - he'll grow out of it.

 

[LoveWDW]

In addition to ruling out medical and emotional causes, I'd recommend waking him up and taking him to the bathroom when you go to bed, and either taking him or setting an alarm for him to go again in the middle of the night. He might be willing to get himself up to an alarm if it would mean staying dry. A bright nightlight or easy to turn on light so he wouldn't have to worry about the dark would be helpful.

 

[liamandcaili]

To OP, I wouldn't worry too much. It is probably just a phase. My DS 6 started wetting the bed this summer after staying dry through the night for over a year. He was hiding it for a while, but I reassured him that he wasn't in trouble, and that if he wet the bed I wanted to know so he wasn't sleeping in smelly sheets the next night. We agreed that if he wet the bed, he would take a shower and we would take the wet sheets off the bed. It wasn't a punishment at all, but he did understand that sometimes he might not have his favorite sheets or blankets back in time for the next night depending on the laundry situation. At night, I limited him to one glass of milk with dinner -- for some reason having more than one glass of milk was worse than having milk and then some water if he was really thirsty -- and I woke him up every night before I went to bed. He has been dry for a month now, I think, and he is very proud of himself. I still wake him up at night -- although I fell asleep a couple of nights and he woke himself up -- and limit the milk intake.