WWYD - DSS

[crockpot29]

NC just in case

My DSS is 10 and spends every school holiday with us. When he comes he stays on a blowup bed in my DS room who is a teenager.

Since i've met DSS he has wet the bed. I continuously bring it up with DH but he brushes it off and says he will grow out of it. His mum complains that he wets the bed and her house stinks because he hides it.

I don't have a relationship with her so all questions go through DH but i have asked has she never brought him to DR's to get checked as to my knowledge this isn't normal.

I used to be quite strict with him and would stop drinks late evening and wake him to go toilet like i would when my children were younger but then i started to feel like a evil stepmother because they make him do what the fuck he wants.

TBH it's really starting to piss me off because i think it could be managed if his lazy parents wake him to go piss or put some consequences in place. Mum at home spoils him with gaming devices and when he comes here granted it's holiday but he spends 10 hours a day on them (ipad, switch, laptop) she sends them all - at home he also has gaming pc and playstation.

Just a rant really but what would you do?

Poor kid.

Thanks Dannii will look into the watch. Would it be like an alarm because i really don't mind getting up at 2-3am to make him go toilet

@Lorw

Hmm. My nephew always wet the bed up until 11 when he was taken to docs and found he had an impacted bowel, they sorted that out and overnight hed stopped wetting (he didn’t wet every night either). I’d defo take to docs. Good luck OP.

Thank you 🤝

Honestly, I have had a child who wet the bed until he started secondary.
The only thing that worked is time AND a it making feel guilty in any shape or form for something he can’t control.
When he went for his tend off the year Y6 trio, he used a pull up.

Otherwise we had layers of bedsheets, stack of pj available. If he wet the bed, which happens quite regularly until he was 11~12yo, he would just removed the top sheet and matress protector, change his pj, go back to bed.
No need for medication for life. And certainly no need for telling him off, make him feel he was wrong etc…

I suspect that your dss is just not ready physically. And that, if he vaguely wakes up feeling he has started to wee, he will try to hide it - BECAUSE he has been made to feel so wrong for his enuresis. Hence the hidding at mum and the putting the duvet around himself at your house.

Please please please get him referred to the Enuersis clinic. One of my sons was bedwetting until he was 15.

Waking him to wee does not work. His body was not producing the hormone that leads to night time bladder control. He was put on desmopressin to artificially produce the hormone. At various stages we reduced the medication to see if he was naturally producing it but he wasn't so back to square one. He was year 11 when he stopped.

The sort of things you describe DSS doing are because he is embarrassed and you get cross with him for bedwetting. Please don't.

I think if DH won't speak to his ex you must try and try to get her to get the GP referral at home. They will refer to an Eneuresis Clinic once they are 7 or older so this poor lad could have been referred 3 years back. Al is mot lost but he needs support not anger.

As for the visits to the GP, by any mean go for it!

But I would ask if the mum would be ready to give the medication or the alarm the GP might be prescribing.
If she isn’t, I suspect this would be counterproductive time and will make your dss feel even more crap about someting he can’t control.

@PeeAche

You specifically asked what I would do, so this is what I would do (I'm a step mother)

1. Tell my husband that the problem has got to be dealt with via a GP. When my stepdaughter had very nasty and painful slap cheek and needed a prescription, my husband took her to our GP and they saw her no problem. (My stepchildren also live a few hours away with their mum.)
2. Talk to my stepson and say "You're going to be in big school soon and we need to get the problem sorted out. I know you say it's just because you can't be bothered but we aren't so sure and we just want to get it checked because we love you and want to make sure everything is working properly." Your husband, at the very least, should have this chat with your SS. In my house, I would say it too.
3. Get him a proper bed. Trundle, bunk etc. I know he isn't there for more than about 20% of all the nights in a year but still.

Curious... is it you or your husband that is clearing up after the accidents? I think my husband would have dealt with this directly a few years ago. But that's because he'd be the one clearing away the piddle! 😅

Thank you. We definitely have both done point 2 previously.

Just walked down the high street with him and said what we going to do about it kid. For the first time he has said to ME he didn't feel it. This would match a pp experience about them not knowing and maybe the don't care bravado wake fake. Who knows

We both do the washing, spraying bed. Not really anyones duty in particular x

Only person I've seen vile is op the way she speaks about the lad is disgraceful.

Get a grip @Bananarama21. The OP (incidentally the only person seemingly trying to help him and also the one who cleans up after him) has said this of her stepson:

He is very comfortable here and around us and has asked if he could stay here longer on numerous occasions, so stop acting like it's horrid here and i'm the cause. I love him like he's my own child and he calls me a few times a week for chit chats.

She’s talking robustly about a situation that she’s obviously fed up to the back teeth of dealing with, especially when the kid’s parents are doing nothing to help.

Waking him during the night, having an alarm will NOT work.
It might give you the i pression that you are dojng something. It Igot give you the feeling it keeping things under control.
But it’s never going to replace the hormone that isn’t there.

I agree with @SeasonFinale there. What you are describing is behaviour linked to the fact he is embarrassed.

I’d remember that before doing anything, including taking him to the GP.

He can go to your doctors surgery just ring them and check.

@user1471530109

OP is he really sleeping in a blowup mattress? Is there really no other way the poor kid can have a proper bed?

This Why has he not got his own bed? Poor boy must feel pretty worthless on an air bed. Would you be happy for your own son have the same treatment?

@titchy

Bunk beds and trickle beds take up exactly the same floor space as the existing bed which your ds sleeps in. So 'no space' clearly isn't true.

Yep. If you've got room for your own ds to have a single bed, there is more than enough room for bunk beds or a truckle bed.

I'd struggle to be with such an I adequate parent if I was you op.

@SeasonFinale

Please please please get him referred to the Enuersis clinic. One of my sons was bedwetting until he was 15.

Waking him to wee does not work. His body was not producing the hormone that leads to night time bladder control. He was put on desmopressin to artificially produce the hormone. At various stages we reduced the medication to see if he was naturally producing it but he wasn't so back to square one. He was year 11 when he stopped.

The sort of things you describe DSS doing are because he is embarrassed and you get cross with him for bedwetting. Please don't.

I think if DH won't speak to his ex you must try and try to get her to get the GP referral at home. They will refer to an Eneuresis Clinic once they are 7 or older so this poor lad could have been referred 3 years back. Al is mot lost but he needs support not anger.

Thank you @SeasonFinale. I have never ever got cross with him. I would never make him feel like he doesn't want to come here or talk to me. I have definitely got pissed off with dad when he hasn't woke him up to go toilet (as i thought this was the solution).

I can't believe all the faux sympathy for a 10yr old on a blow up mattress a few times a year. He's 10 and isn't complaining about it. His dad's house is a house he visits, he doesn't live there fgs.

So one of the following is happening-
He's too lazy /doesn't care to get up
He's incontinent when sleeping
He doesn't feel the sensation/heavy sleeper
He's scared to get up

Punishment is not the answer whether it's a physical or psychological issue. He needs to see a doctor and be referred to the incontinence team who can support him appropriately. Also a rubber sheet would help and you can get a sensor which you attach to pjs and sets an alarm off if he starts to wee. My son was 7 before trained at night he literally did not feel himself weeing the alarm trained him to wake.

Calling posters wrenches is appalling they were offering valid advice.

Just walked down the high street with him and said what we going to do about it kid. For the first time he has said to ME he didn't feel it. This would match a pp experience about them not knowing and maybe the don't care bravado wake fake.

Yeah, he doesn't want to admit it's out of his control. (Who among us would at that age?) But it almost certainly is out of his control and he just needs his grown ups to acknowledge it and help him.
Good luck with getting home sorted out, OP.

Now if anyone can help me to get any of the children in my house to flush away their turds, that would be a Mumsnet miracle...

Bunk beds and trickle beds take up exactly the same floor space as the existing bed which your ds sleeps in. So 'no space' clearly isn't true

Trundle beds and blow up beds can be packed away. If I were to put a permament bed in the space where I use a blow up bed (used for DDs friends to sleepover) there would be no space to even walk around the room. They are removed first thing in the morning to gain the space back. I imagine the OP uses them for the same reason.

How does she not do everything? Dc stays with you a handful of times a year! Dh can't even make a gp appointment. 4 hours is not actually that bad even better when you are only doing it a handful of times a year yet mum still has to meet you of course she does everything!

Why are you not bad-mouthing the mother? She also "can't even make a gp appointment". How on earth can you claim she does everything?

@Bananarama21

Calling posters wrenches is appalling they were offering valid advice.

You're late to the party. Sure they were all being kind and helpful

I doubt he actually can't be bothered. Getting up to change his pyjamas and take his sheet off is more effort than just going to the toilet, so he's not saving himself any bother.

Things like putting the duvet between his legs sound like 'damage limitation' to me, not a sign that he's doing it deliberately. I did similar once when I had a bad bladder infection. I couldn't feel the need to urinate until I'd already started, so I was just trying not to destroy my mattress.

Don't punish him. Get his dad to take him to the doctors. In the mean time, look for waterproof mattress protectors and keep a spare set of bedding ready in case his bed needs changing at night.

@Olive19741205

Bunk beds and trickle beds take up exactly the same floor space as the existing bed which your ds sleeps in. So 'no space' clearly isn't true

Trundle beds and blow up beds can be packed away. If I were to put a permament bed in the space where I use a blow up bed (used for DDs friends to sleepover) there would be no space to even walk around the room. They are removed first thing in the morning to gain the space back. I imagine the OP uses them for the same reason.

Correct. They have to push it up to get on the wardrobe in the morning.

No explaining that to these MN. They all live in six bedroom mansions with perfect unbroken families

Your a peach aren't you honestly your attitude is utterly vile on here. Your dh isn't giving him the bare minimum of a bed, would you make your own child sleep on a blow up

My god. The things people look for to be 'outraged' about on here are hilarious. My kids/step-kids/friends for sleepvers) actually fight over who gets the (double) blow up bed. I've even slept on it a few times. They are very comfortable, what exactly is the problem with them?