Lots of children bed wet and for many different reasons. Sometimes it happens when they are first being toilet trained. This is quite natural and there are a couple of things that you can do to eliminate this form of bed wetting in a short space of time.
Firstly give your child less drinks before bedtime. While it’s very important that your child receives enough fluids during the day to avoid becoming dehydrated, you can give more drinks earlier in the day to compensate giving less when it is coming towards bedtime.
Make sure that he used the toilet just before falling asleep, this is part of a good bedtime routine which you can also read my article on. Then when you are on your way to bed, lift him from his sleep and put him on the toilet, I know this sounds scary, and your biggest fear is that he won’t return to sleep, but if you do this quietly and gently, with minimum fuss, low lighting and without conversing with him, he will barely wake up and will return to restful sleep.
Ignore the bed wetting! Don’t speak about it to your child, don’t draw her attention to it, if she mentions it to you, gently assure her that it’s okay, it’s not a problem and change the subject quickly.
NEVER, EVER criticize your child for bedwetting, this will lead to low self-esteem and inevitably more bedwetting.
Praise and reward dry nights.
However sometimes bed wetting occurs with older children. There are many reasons why older children bed wet, but the main thing for you to know is that this behavior is not strange or unusual, it is quite common and in most cases it is temporary.
If you have any concerns about why your older child is bed wetting go to your GP. Sometimes it is a medical condition, while sometimes it’s a physiological one, while in other cases in a temporary lapse back and easily remedied.
Older children are very aware when they wet the bed and sometimes the embarrassment and fear can lead to more bed wetting. If it is nothing more than a lapse back than this method of mental coaching can be very effective.
When tucking your child into bed start talking about tomorrow
“In the morning when you wake up in your dry bed call me and I’ll come get you. We are going to have a lovely day tomorrow. After you get up from your dry bed we’ll have breakfast and you can choose whatever you want to eat. Then you can change out of your dry pajamas and you can choose anything that you want to wear. Then we will straighten your dry quilt and tidy your dry sheets and afterwards you can choose what game we will play………
Your child will interrupt you and tell you want they want to eat, wear etc, let them.
Don’t mention wet bed at all, or using the toilet.
You will have to follow through on the promises for this method to work, if she chooses to wear a princess dress, or he chooses spaghetti bol for breakfast you must go along with it. As it starts to work you can rein it in by saying ‘you can choose any cereal you want for breakfast, or you can wear which ever top you want with your jeans……’
Repeat this every night, it may take some time, persevere, until your child has had at least two weeks of dry nights.
Trust your judgment and what your instincts are telling you, if you feel there is more to his bed wetting than the normal lapse then don’t waste any time, consult a medic.
