Bedwetting - I don't understand....

[SundayNightBluesAreHere]

NC for this.

My 8.5 DS still wets the bed. Most nights. Several nights per week he soaks through a pull-up, his PJs, a folded up towel, a waterproof mattress protector onto his mattress. He is a big child, wears 12-13 year old clothes, needs teen pull-ups, etc... so it is a lot of wee.

Been dry in the day since 2 years old. No day time accidents. No period of dry nights previously so it's not a new thing. I don't know what time of night he is weeing.

He is just not aware he's doing it. He can get up in the morning and realise he's wet, but equally can get up and have to check.

I got him referred to the local continence team in Mar 2024, they said the waiting list was 7 months long. On chasing them up, they've said they are only seeing children who were referred in Nov 2023 so he's nowhere near being seen yet.

They sent me lots of info and said they have spoken to the GPs (blanket advice email to all surgeries) re: stage one interventions, one of which is medication. My GP's won't do anything as they said they haven't received anything from the continence team. I've chased them up, still waiting to hear anything.

He has a 3 night school trip coming up in March and wants to go, so we need to make some progress with this quickly. He only drinks water/milk so no blackcurrant squash to cut out. Drinks well in the day but I've had to enforce less drinking before bed but when he is at his evening clubs, they are active and he needs a drink.

In desperation and following the advice from the continence team, I've bought a bedwetting alarm and tonight is the first night trying it.

I know all about the vasopressin hormone kicking in but am confused to how that works with the alarm. The alarm trains them to wake up but if they still don't have the hormone, won't they just keep wetting the bed?

If anyone has any experience, knowledge or tips about this, please let me know! Thanks!

My two kids (12 and 13) are only now getting long stretches of dryness.

With the camp, I do not have more practical suggestions. We made the choice with DS to keep him home when he was younger, because he also used to saturate everything, even with huge-capacity pull-ups. There was no concentration of urine at all.

Even when we restricted fluids, toileted before bed etc, DS would pee an hour after going to bed, and then regularly every hour or two after that. Then he got so used to the alarm that he slept through it. And peed. I can laugh now. It helps that I was also a teen bed-wetter, and I could understand both how my son felt and now how my mum felt 😁

No extra advice here, OP. Just keep plodding until you get that appointment.

What milk does he drink? My daughter is nearly 4 and went from being dry for 9 months (toilet trained her at 2) to several accidents a day and bedwetting. Trips to the GP, paediatrician, frequent sitting on the toilet, monitoring water intake and no luck. As soon as we swapped her to oat milk (I'd read it can help), it was an overnight change and now back to mainly being dry.

Worth a try maybe?

My son has been seeing the continence nurse for around a year. He was 8 in November. We had to do lots of charts and he had a bladder scan, she thinks he had a smaller bladder and also irritable as he did suffer urgency, he's been taking oxybutynin tablets for 3 months to help stretch his bladder as we had only a mild improvement after following the plan of drinking more etc. She asked us to try again over Xmas without the pants and he has been dry now for about 10 days, so it does feel like the end is in sight! Our next step was the desmopressin but he had a few nights dry pants so she wanted us to try it. I really feel for you (and him)- it's so frustrating that there is such a wait.
I wish you the best of luck!

My DS was the same. We got the alarm on the advice of the GP. Like your DS he was very motivated thanks to an upcoming trip and I think that helped. He slept in my bed with me while we used the alarm and he was dry within a week. The alarm is REALLY loud and takes some getting used to, but it worked. It was about £30 from Amazon at the time if I remember correctly.

We've just used the alarm for my DD9, mainly for the same reason of an upcoming school trip.
We'd tried previously but she either slept through or turned it off and had given up. This time we slept in the room with her for about 3 weeks. Quickly realised she also weed about an hour or 2 after going to bed so started waking her and taking to the toilet then as well. Still had an accident later on at the beginning but this reduced after about a week. She's now been dry at night for about 8 weeks, (bar a couple of accidents) and doesn't even wake to go to the toilet after a couple of hours.

With the mat I put a small waterproof sheet underneath it with a cot sized sheet on top, then the mat and then another cot sized sheet. This meant that it was easy to change in the middle of the night and i didn't need to change the big sheet.
Also have a damp cloth to wipe the mat with and dry it off each time, if you just dry it the alarm can go off again when you plug it back in. Also have a spare duvet ready in a cover to change in the middle of the night too, makes it much quicker and less disruptive.

Its tedious while your doing it but so much easier not washing all the bedding everyday. Good Luck

We're in a very similar position with ds9. Going to try the alarm- just bought it. I think idea is to get the body to associate weeing and the alarm waking them so eventually it's weeing and waking and u can drop the alarm. Good luck!

I came on here to suggest getting the alarm. If you haven’t also get the second alarm for you as it doesn’t always wake them up to start. Took a few weeks but persevere as it worked wonders for us. Dd was 8 when we started with it I would say about spring last year. Still have the odd accident if she doesn’t go for a wee before bed but that is few and far between.

Also sounds odd but how long after he gets up does he go for a wee? We realised that dd could go all morning without urinating. We now make a conscious effort to make sure she goes as soon as she wakes up as this helps to train their brain to recognise the feeling of a full bladder which can assist with nighttime waking.

I had two bedwetters until they were at least 8 or 9. It's years ago and I can't remember the details but they were prescribed desmopressin. We had very limited success with an alarm. Eventually their bodies and brains mature enough that they don't do it any more but there's not much you can do until that happens. It's nothing to do with poor parenting or the child not making an effort.

It's incredibly common - a lot of their friends were similar and we often had kids on sleepovers who used pull ups. They also went to a primary school that did a lot of residentials and camping trips and the teachers took it in their stride and would discreetly help with pull ups too.

Went through this with one of mine

did the whole ladder of things

after a kidney scan and confirmation that there was no other issues (psychological I guess) they went on desmopressin

this was hit and miss for a while but eventually I think their body regulated and it stopped but it was a few years

but they would sleep through a soaking wet bed

they are a very deep sleeper

DS 10- soaking wet every night. No dry nights ever. Poor thing had to take pull ups for sleepovers and school trips.
Desmopressin didn't help and tried all the normal things.
Anyway another school trip planned in February so we've tried the alarm over Christmas and he has been dry for 7 nights! Can't believe it. He's been good going to the toilet bed.
I've been waiting for the hormones to kick in and didn't think an alarm could ever help, but fingers crossed 🤞

Bedwetting runs in our family. My DN was given meds and it brought fainting fits on. They then got anxiety with the alarm which made it worse. After more GP visits Dr suggested they didn’t drink enough in the day so didn’t know what a full bladder felt like so slept through needing to go. After increasing daytime hydrdaytime

…. Daytime hydration the bed wetting stopped. It may have been age and development as the meds began age 9 and then after back and forth to GP was about 12 when reliably dry. We benefitted from this and rode it out with ours, they were about 10. It’s so hard not to pass your worries onto them.

Well all these responses show you how common this is but people don't tend to discuss it irl.
I have 3 children.

One was dry during the night at 4 years old..

One eventually became dry at 11 with the help of an alarm. We tried one that went inside the pants but that didn't work. However, a more expensive version, a mat that was laid on the bed worked a treat.

Third child became dry at 12. Nothing worked but we certainly tried everything.

Looking back, I wish I'd stressed less and just left them in pull-ups, although I was careful to never show any negativity to the kids.

Definitely speak to school staff about trips. You don't want your child missing out because of this. I always found it was absolutely no problem both at school and cub camps. They very easily accommodated the issue!

You can definitely speak to the teacher though. We had the same issue and spoke with the teacher and she said you would be surprised how many kids are going through or do go through this.

They devised a "code " where if the bed was wet he was to leave his hoody on his pillow and they would know to get it washed and dried again without the other kids knowing.

Also to have a cup of water by the bed so he could pretend to others he had spilt it if he was wet.

My son was on desmopressin from 7 to 16. The school was so supportive on residential trips and didn't make him feel weird or abnormal at all.

With my 5yo daughter I thought she wasn't producing enough vasopressin yet, but I was wrong: having pull ups so old was definitely affecting her bladder and making it weaker. Get rid of pull ups ASAP.

The alarm didn't help us much, but after a month of nearly daily night accidents she started waking up when she had an accident (rather than sleeping through it). And soon after she started waking up to go to the toilet. 5 months later she rarely has accidents and her bladder muscles became stronger as she can usually hold it until morning (although probably once a week she still has to get up to use the toilet at 3ish am).

Wake up your son at 11pm to use the toilet for the first week. Properly wake him up. That really helped mine to last until morning a few times in the beginning. Good luck.

Don't worry about the school trip. Tell the teachers and they will help him deal with it.
I used to take Brownies (7-10) on residential trips and it wasn't uncommon to have a girl who needed pull ups overnight, or who had nighttime accidents.
He's not the first, and he won't be the last. He won't be in pull-ups when he's 16 - he'll get there.

The alarm worked for my 8yo as well, it took less than a week. The first 2-3 times he slept through and we had to wake him up but after that the sound would wake him up (at this point he was a
bit wet but not a full accident) and he would go to the loo. Then the alarm ran less often as he started waking up himself, a few occasional accidents but really not many.

Another here still going through this.

Out of 3 dc, all of them were dry by day well before age 3. Ds1 and ds3 - both reliably dry at night by age 6.

Ds2 - currently 14.5 and on desmomelts and has been for three years now. Every 3 months he comes off them to see what happens - and he's straight back to weeing at night. The alarm didn't do anything for him so it's just meds and they're about 95% reliable.

His consultant is fairly unperturbed by it and says it's extremely common, just one of those things - and in the majority of cases it will just stop, out of the blue, at some time before they're 17 🤷‍♀️

Practically op...buy this. They do it in single and double, it's less than £20 and it's worth it's weight in gold. It's a total mattress envelope, totally impenetrable even if you tipped a bucket of liquid over it. You never remove it after an accident, just take a spray cleaner to it and wipe it down. It has honestly made so much difference to us, no more ruined mattresses, no more washing mattress covers in the machine - just normal bedding to be washed.

Eva-Dry Waterproof Wipeable Matress Cover/Single - MHS amzn.eu/d/fOeWxOE

We have been working on getting DD7 dry at night since she was 3! Daytime drinking of water, double wee before bed are the constants for us. We’ve tried 3 different alarms and the one we’re currently using seems to be the most effective. Desmospressin reduces the amount of wee that’s generated by kidneys during the night (this didn’t help us) the alarm trains the brain to wake body up to go to the loo when the bladder is full.

The alarm we are using now (Rodger) has a vibration pad to help wake her up as she is a very, very heavy sleeper. We are having more success with this than anything else we’ve tried.

I think DD has ADHD (I’ve just been diagnosed) and getting her to drink during the day is a daily challenge. We’ve got her a alarm watch to give her reminders and told school to help keep the habit going.

Good luck OP!

Our dd was 9 when we tackled it, soaking wet every night. The doctor advised us to wake her when we went to bed, and again during the night if necessary. The idea was that if that didn't work an alarm was the next step. It took about 3 or 4 months but it worked, after a few weeks she couldn't go at the first wake up so we dropped to one, then at some point she just stopped needing to go.

Thank you for all the suggestions, tips and advice.

We've tried the alarm for 3 nights now, the first night he was dry all night (typical 🤦🏻‍♀️), the second he weed quite a lot but got up with the alarm, and last night he started to wee but got up quickly and managed to get to the loo with just a little bit escaping first.
Both nights, the alarm has gone off at 6.30-6.45am so it looks like he can hold it for the majority of the night before he starts weeing.

The continence team has sent an email to the GP again re: "first line treatments" but have basically just said try the alarm for 3 months.

I'll give it a go for a good few weeks (10.5 weeks until the school trip) and see how we're getting on, then contact the GP to see about Desmopressin if we're still struggling.

Yes Desmopressin is the medication given, vasopressin is the hormone that naturally kicks in when they stop wetting the bed. I'm going to request it if the alarm doesn't work - fingers crossed it does! 🤞

He has cow's milk but doesn't really like milk anyway so rarely has it.

He stumbles bleary-eyed into the bathroom straight away after waking up, so not a case of holding it in 😆

That's great - fingers crossed it continues! 🤞