Staying Dry At Night...

[kaylk in tx]

at what age did you decide to have this checked at the dr's just to make sure there wasn't a physical cause? one of my twins (ds age 6.5, 7 in november) still wets the bed almost every night. sometimes he'll go a night or two without an accident but that's unusual. he'll also get busy during the day and "forget" to go to the bathroom resulting in multiple underwear changes during the day. he doesn't flood, just tiny leaks to release the pressure, but it adds up to one stinky little boy! any btdt advice?

[graywiggle]

my son was dry during the day, but not at night. we checked with the dr at 11 yrs old. nothing was wrong physically, and her advice was to try the alarms. worked great within about 3 weeks, and has been fine since.

 

maria.

[momofkhm]

Nothing was wrong. I tried the alarm for many months. I really wish I had just taken the advice here, he will get it when he does. The alarm did help some. He went from soaking the bed to waking up right after a few drops, but it was still up every night for months! We started the alarm in August last year. He was finally dry in May. He turned 7 in October.

 

Be patient. It will happen.

[KellyGirl]

My oldest was a constant bedwetter and had little daytime accidents too. He would sometimes (until at least age 5, maybe 6) all out wet his pants when he was too busy playing...

 

Our dr. said they have to be at least 7 to go to a urologist - that until then it is perfectly normal for boys to be wetting the bed. But, when I changed doctors (around age 6 for ds) the new one suggested a bed wetting alarm if I wanted to try to address the problem on my own.

 

The alarm was probably $60 (I got it new on ebay), which isn't cheap, but I figured that is maybe 4 packages of pullups... It was like a miracle! After less than a week he dropped it in the toilet so it stopped working a few days after that. But it didn't matter, he never wet the bed again. Although he does still have the "few drops" problem before he can get to the bathroom once in a while.

HTH

[Country Mouse]

I am having the exact same problem with my recently turned 7 ds. I am going to look into this alarm others have mentioned.

I talked to our ped about this at his annual visit and he said to keep a daily log of what ds eats and drinks. He says there may be a dietary trigger that we could be determined by comparing the diet journal with the incidents of bedwetting. I haven't tried it yet.

I'm glad to know that this is pretty common.

[Mom2GirlsTX]

I won't post the entire saga, but you can probably google it to confirm, but one of the most common and easily treatable reasons that children wet the bed after age 5 or so is constipation. The Chief of Urology at the local children's hospital tells me that he sees several cases a day of kids still wetting the bed that are due to constipation, and the parents had no idea. My kid was one of those kids, I didn't know she was constipated because we had been dealing with chronic diarrhea since age 1 (foreign adoption, everyone thought it was this or that). This urologist recommends a 6 month course of Miralax, starting with 1 1/2 capfuls for 3 days then 1 capful a day for a month then 1/2 capful a day for next 5 months or so. He said he basically retrains the muscles to know how to react and many children "leak" urine at night as their muscles simply don't tell their brain "its time to pee" the muscles are focused on the constipation. Oh this was probably more info than anyone wanted about constipation. You of course would want to rule out any medical reasons, but the constipation could be a cause for some kids.

[kaylk in tx]

he has a bm just about every day but his have always been very very dry and firm, even as a baby his poop would just roll out of his diaper....