To think that if a 13yo wets the bed he should strip the sheets?

[Saddlesore]

DS had a friend here for a sleepover last night and after he'd gone I went into his room to fold away the put-me-up bed. First of all I was hit by the smell of pee, and the friend's bed was totally sodden with it. I get that anyone can have an accident. I also get that maybe he was really embarrassed. But if that were the case, why leave the bed in that state? Like I'd never know?

DS strips his own sheets and loads them in the w/machine weekly - it's just one job on a very short list of his "chores", and I would like to think that if he were on a sleepover and had an accident he would strip the bed. And for any doubters out there, it was definitely his friend who spent the night in the spare bed, not DS - they were still asleep in their respective beds when I had to retrieve my toddler DD from their room this morning before she climbed on top of them! In fact, I remember thinking at the time that DD must have wet her nappy because I could smell pee, but was surprised to find it dry.

Hmm you might be on to something, F.

Ah well, bedtime for me.

Oh fuck off OP. You've already been told over and over that the poor kid would've been mortified. Of course he wasn't thinking about the impression he'd create on you, and who gives a shit about your extra donuts. I don't know why you've even posted tbh. You had a waterproof mattress on a foldaway bed, so no harm done. You'd have been washing the sheets anyway.

One thing you might consider is calling his parents to quietly, kindly let him know that this will never go any further.

Poor sod. You are being a bit harsh I bet he was mortified.

YABVVVVVVVVU - don't know if any of mine went through this but FFS give the kid a break.

I wet the bed on and off until I was 15. I once wet the bed at a sleepover when I was 14. It was the daughter of my mums friend and I had to stay over as my mum was away overnight otherwise I refused to stay anywhere because of my problem. Anyway, I woke up, stripped the bed, tried to use the machine but it was broken. I was gutted. The mum seemed fine about it and let me take them home to wash at my insistence. It didn't matter though because she told her daughter who in turn told everyone at school. Mind you it was just another thing to be bullied about at that point.
I vowed that if I ever had kids that wet the bed or a visiting guest had an accident I'd never make them feel ashamed because of it. Even as a child I found it odd that adults could be so cruel about something a child couldn't help doing. My own mother behaved similarly to a previous posters mother and would punish me severely. Some mornings I'd wake up early because I was freezing and sodden. I'd lie there sobbing with fear about what was to come. Some nights I'd lie there scared to death of falling asleep.
Kids of all ages wet the bed for a variety of reasons and it is very common. My ds is nearly 12 and wets most nights. There is nothing physically wrong with him. Medications don't have any effect on him. I nearly cancelled his residential trip because I didn't want him to be picked on. However I spoke to his teacher who reassured me that he wasn't the only one and that it wasn't a reason not to go. They took sleeping bags, night pants and carrier bags. The kids had no idea they were grouped together because of it and they had a system where each kid put their wet pants into a carrier bag in the bathroom and the teacher moved it quietly. No one knew a thing and ds had one accident while away. I really appreciated her kindness and bought her wine and chocs to say thanks.

Aw how awful for him. My brother wet the bed until he was nearly 18, I was also a wetter but stopped at around 10/11 luckily for me. There was emotional issues at home for both of us growing up, but I'll never forget the crippling humiliation of it all.

Never wet the bed anywhere else though. I'd have died of embarrassment.

Poor kid. Can't believe your attitude OP - frankly you sound a cold person. A lot of kids wet the bed late. He probably thought he was safe as he hadn't for a year but maybe nerves did it. Or maybe it was the change of routine and he's not a late bed wetter. Either way all I'd do is wash the sheets and make sure your DS doesn't know about it. When you see the boy again pretend it didn't happen.

Poor little love, he must have been mortified. My DS wets the bed sometimes I'd hate for him to,slide somewhere he was being judged. Accidents happen and they are just that people don't lay In Bed and think. I know I'll wet the bed

Poor lad.

Well, I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it wasn't ds1. He was at a sleepover last night and this is my worst nightmare. I suspect also his. I don't think his friend is 16 though, so probably not. And he takes his own sleeping bag with him for just this reason.

It has improved hugely over the last year, hence him being brave enough to try sleepovers. He can't stunt his social life forever. I guarantee he would have been terrified and it would have been absolutely impossible for him to strip the bed, approach you, or any of the other random unlikely things you would have preferred. He would have been desperately hoping neither you nor his friend would notice. Denial. Denial. Denial.

This is the sort of thing where well meaning parents bitch, and the next thing it is all around school, kid is socially outcast and then bullied. Leading to even more social isolation. Still, at least they won't get the chance to bed wet anywhere else, eh? Please tell me you haven't breathed a word to your son.

I feel very sorry for this boy who is still a fairly young child.

I'd just chuck the sheets in the washing machine and make sure he was invited back quickly to show that it was no big deal

I would have felt awful of he'd actually felt like he'd had to come and say anything to me. I'm the adult. I'll sort it.

Oh poor lad. Surprised some don't seem to know this is not unusual for boys. My own GS was finally dry at 7 and I read some great old threads here, full of good advice, really helpful at the time.

YABTU! You have very little empathy and understanding of teens if you think that he would have dealt with it in a mature way. He isn't fully mature yet - the default position at that age is not to deal with things in a totally mature, thought through, strategic way. It's ignore it and hope it goes away.

Besides he might not even have known how to use your washing machine. Just because it seems simple to an adult, his parents might do all of his washing, or it might be different from the one he has at home.

Ds is nearly 12 and wets the bed regularly. He's seen numerous consultants & it's just a matter of waiting for a specific hormone to kick in. At home he has pull ups & on sleepovers also takes medication but it's no guarantee of a dry bed!

At home he knows what to do if he's wet, but I suspect at a sleepover he might 'freeze' and go down the route of least resistance. He certainly wouldn't be confident enough to go stripping a bed in a house he didn't know well and go hunting for a washing machine. He might just be brave enough to mutter that his bed would need changing.

I am lucky that he - so far - is mostly matter of fact about it - so has told his best mates - and I would never let him go on a sleepover without pre warning the adults/providing bed mats etc. But I live in fear of him hitting an adult or child who doesn't have the empathy and sees his behaviour as a joke or somehow his fault. He would take it hard.

OP - thank you for not telling your son. Please don't. Wash the sheets and imagine how you'd feel if you wet the bed in the house of one of your husbands distant relatives. Then remember being 13.

I think you are being harsh. My son is a very sensitive boy and I know if this happened to him we would be really upset. I feel sorry for the boy, you sound awful.

Lookatall the teacher sounds lovely and kind.

OP you sound er not lovely and kind

Hey madwomanbackintheattic - although your username could apply to most of my friends, it's not your DS! This boy's family and us go way back and although he is a couple of years younger than my DS they have known each other since year dot. So I know him and his parents really well and I'm just puzzled why he thought I wouldn't notice the sodden sheets. But, like you say - denial!
I'm not going to tell his mother either because it's probably just a one-off (he has stayed several times before) and there's no point making her (and him) anxious.
There is another explanation, of course: as many of the posters have, with authority, identified me as a callous, child-hating, baby-eating, bomb-building b who delights in drowning kittens (ok, I made some of those up), the poor lad wet himself at the thought of encountering me prowling the corridors of the east wing.

I am guessing the replies you received weren't what you had in mind when you started the thread OP?

I don't get why you are judging this boy about not making a good enough impression on you because he was too embarrassed to admit he'd had an accident and using this as an example of inconsiderate behaviour that could cause people to have a negative impression of teenagers. TBh you don't sound very considerate yourself. He is a teenage boy who wet the bed. He wanted to disappear, not have a mature conversation about bladder issues and wash cycles with his friend's mother over doughnuts. What is so hard to understand about that?! Use empathy!

In fairness op if you haven't had much experience with bed wetting over the years then I can understand your bewilderment at the manner in which he dealt with this. I think most of the replies come from experience and have evoked (well for me at least) some sad/bad memories. I think it's safe to say you'll react differently if it happens again. I agree with a pp who says to invite him back. Let him know where spare bedding is and where to put anything that gets "spilled on" (the empty machine).

But it's not that he thought you wouldn't notice, it's that he didn't want to highlight it and hoped you'd not mention it once you discover it.. My 14 year old friend did this on a sleepover at my house once, she didn't tell me and I stripped the sheets and didn't say anything.. Years later she admitted it and says she was so mortified. We can't expect teens to act like adults.. Everything is a bigger deal to them.

He didn't think you wouldn't notice. At the most he's harbouring some desperate hope that it will have dried by the time you strip the bed. But really he knows damn well you've noticed, he's just too paralysed with embarrassment to actually do anything about it. So he's keeping his head down and praying it all goes away. Kids often do. He's not seeing it from your perspective, and what you actually think of him is less terrifying than the prospect of having to confront someone who knows what he did. This way he can pretend.

Didn't you ever make stupid decisions at 13? I didn't wet the bed, but I shat my sleeping bag on a school trip aged 11 (had been holding it all week because I was chronically constipated and too shy to spend as long as I needed in the toilet) and I remember going to ludicrous lengths to pretend it hadn't happened. Worst bloody night of my life, I swear. I also remember hiding period-stained items from my mum, and even stashing used sanitary towels behind my bed at one point because I was embarrassed for them to be seen in the bathroom bin. As an adult I can see that's no way to deal with things, but I wasn't an adult then. I was an adolescent child, and of course I knew rationally what I should have done, but I didn't because sometimes children don't!

I don't know if you're deliberately misunderstanding or what

He didn't think you wouldn't notice. He just didn't want you to notice it until after he had left and hoped that you were polite enough not to mention it later, because he didn't know what else to do.

As others have explained - putting laundry on is a simple thing to adults but to a teenager, the thought wouldn't cross his mind that you might see him putting on a wash and think "Oh wow, what a helpful boy!" - he'd have assumed that either:

a, You'd find out that he'd put on a wash and start asking questions as to why.
b, He was worried he'd encounter a problem at the washing machine itself - he wouldn't know how to use it, it would already be in use or he wouldn't know which setting to use for bedding, meaning he'd have to sneak the bedding back upstairs again with double the risk of getting caught and having to answer questions, or ask for help, and, again, answer questions.
c, If he's only just getting started with laundry or doesn't do his own (both fair assumptions at 13) a washing machine different from his own might be totally bamboozling, and he might worry that the sheets need special settings, he might worry that the machine is easy to break or the sheets are easy to damage by washing wrongly and he didn't want to make anything else wrong.

But mostly it will have been the thought that by the time they are discovered, he'll be out of the house and not have to answer any face to face questions.

Lol saddle. You know I went and ferretted around in ds1's psyche to make sure, though... (As well as checking his sleeping bag). He says he was dry...

OP - are you being deliberately obtuse?
Can you honestly not remember being 13?
As others have said it isn't that he thought you wouldn't notice, he was just hoping that it would just go without mention.
Just read the 'I pooed on my skirt at work today' thread to see how fully grown women deal with this kind of thing.