Homeschool Facts

For children that are 7 years of age and younger, it is very common to wet the bed during a nap or during the night. Bedwetting can become very frustrating for mom and dad and even more frustrating and embarrassing for the child. When dealing with bedwetting, parents should recognize and realize that bedwetting is very normal and many if not all children go through it before they reach 7. Bedwetting has nothing to do with any type of physical or psychological issues. In many cases, children sleep deeply and while sleeping the urge to go to the bathroom is not recognized, which leads to bedwetting.

Most times, bedwetting goes away without the use of anything. However, there are many ways to reduce and sometimes speed of the process of ending bedwetting. Here are a few that can be very helpful to parents:

* One to two hours before your child’s bedtime, do not give them any sort of fluid. During the day and evening, give your child a lot of fluid to prevent constipation and dehydration which occurs a lot in children because they have so much energy. This will not stop bedwetting, but it will reduce how many times a week your child wets the bed.

* Use Bathroom: Right before you put your child to bed you usually have them brush their teeth. Well as a part of the routine make sure that they also use the bathroom and empty their bladder. Even when they say they are done, have them try to squeeze out more, if more comes have them do it one more time. This is referred to as double voiding.

* Bladder Exercises: Some children just have a bladder that is too small. To help with this you have your child do bladder-stretching exercises. To do this you simply tell them when they feel the urge to urinate to wait for a little while longer, usually 10 minutes before going. Then slowly increase this over time. This will not happen overnight, it can take months to increase the size of the bladder.

* Visit your family doctor. Sometimes your child can have an underlying cause that leads to bedwetting. While at the doctors, mention what is going on and the doctor will check for problems that contribute to bedwetting. If the doctor does in fact find anything, it will be treated. Medications will most times help bedwetting go away.

* Use an Alarm: You can purchase moisture pads for your child’s underwear that sense when your child begins to urinate. An alarm will sound or in some cases a vibration will alert and wake your child that he needs to go to the bathroom. Over time children can get used to getting up to urinate in the night when you use this method.

* Medication: The last thing you ever want to do is put your child on medication. So if after trying everything you may want to consider speaking with your physician about this. There are medications available that will actually less the urine production and remember that all medications to have potential side effects. This might be something that you keep on hand for trips and sleepovers to save your child embarrassment.

* Do not yell, punish, or scold your child when he/she wets the bed. Parents and children need to realize that bedwetting is no one’s fault. Yelling and punishing will lead to nothing but hurt feelings.

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