17 different women, 36 crazy children, 0 babies in utero
Adventures, Advice and Questions from a group of Mormon women who met in Queens, NY and have now scattered all over the place.
 

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

Mommy, I peepeed in my underwear and pants

Calling all mothers of boys...who wet the bed! I need help. (And I need it now, so I'm cheating on the wait-a-week rule--sorry!) I have a 5 year old boy. He potty trained quickly at 3 1/2 and through the night almost immediately afterward. A 3-4 months after being trained all night he started regressing. Now at night we hear the thud of him getting out of bed and fear the dreaded statement: "Mommy, I peepeed in my underwear and pants."

He currently is getting up at least once to go to the bathroom every night. Glad he made it to the bathroom, right? Well, he wets his underwear (finishing in the potty) about...1/2 of the time. Then, often that "in the underwear" wetting spills over into the sheets. Ug. When he's in a loft bed with little sister underneath, it's a pain to strip (and somewhat re-make) the bed! Only once in a great while does he wet all the way--which is a relief, cuz those are really messy! And, he goes through phases of wetting or not. Once in a while we get a week where we don't have to change any sheets (just underwear/jammies once or twice) BUT, then we get a string of nights like this week where we've changed underwear every night for 4 nights and sheets twice (or has it been three times..). Yikes. And we though the new baby would be the one waking us up at night!

So, what to do! We've tried eliminating water before bed and there doesn't seem to be a correlation. He also goes to the bathroom right before bed and that too doesn't make a clear difference.

I know not to stress because this is normal for boys...but I just want to make it more bearable.

(See, we have to use the laundromat and it's tough to do it so often cuz I can't reasonably haul laundry there unless dh is home with the 3 kids or hauls it himself--and that means getting home from work a little early...yadda yadda yadda.)

Should he go backwards to "training underwear" (with the thick fabric crotch) to catch more urine so we're not changing sheets so much? Should he just go into pull-ups (which I've so happily avoided with all kids so far). Or nothing... just grin and bear it.

Anyone been through it? Any advice? Dh and I have reached our limit and decided something must change! We just don't know what.

posted by Katie @ 5/23/2006 08:18:00 PM   add to kirtsy


10 Comments:

  • My favorite potty training tip from when I was a nanny... buy several mattress protectors (my favorites are the ones that are just flat and sit on top of the bed) and several fitted sheets. Make the bed by layering a mattress protector, a fitted sheet, mattress protector, fitted sheet, mattress protector, fitted sheet, etc. Then when they pee in the night all you have to do is strip off the two wet layers throw them a blanket and go back to bed. It makes laundering much easier.

    I don't have any advice for making the training any easier other than limiting the water after meals and making sure that he visits the bathroom right before he goes to bed.
    posted by Anonymous Anonymous at 5/23/2006 09:16:00 PM  



  • Katie, I thought the same as anon. Check out this Bedwetting Store and these overlays. This for me would be the most economic solution as I "get" the whole schlepping situation. They even have an overlay that snaps underneath the mattress in case the pool of pee is bigger than the overlay.
    posted by Blogger Kage at 5/24/2006 04:36:00 AM  



  • Wetting the bed can usually be tied to either some type of trauma, or a medical reason. It just depends on how old he is --the fact that he's now 5 and regressing could be a sign of either of those.

    Have there been any big changes in his family life? Or social life? Is he scared to go to school? Finish school? (I sound like my pediatrician, geeze!). Things like that can trigger the "silent" trauma --wetting the bed may be a sign of something emotionally wrong.

    Or, it could be medical. I babysat for an 8 year old boy that wet the bed and wore kid's special underwear everynight. My sister wet the bed until she was 10. It wasn't because they were acting out or were having emotional trauma --they physically could not control themselves. If this is the case with your son, do what anonymous said --layers are good. :)

    But I would find the reason as to why first --not that I'm assuming you haven't tried to....
    posted by Blogger Cheryl at 5/24/2006 08:05:00 AM  



  • We did that for a while with my daughter, the constant laundry. Ugh. And we tried everything you have - cutting out water, making sure she goes potty, etc. It worked to wake her up to go potty, like someone else suggested. But if we didn't do it soon, enough - too late.

    Now, we just go to the GoodNites underwear, very similar to Pull-ups, but she doesn't feel like they're baby pants. And she's still wet pretty much every morning. (She just had her seventh birthday.) The doctor wasn't concerned about it, he just said she would grow out of it, especially since my husband wet the bed consistently until he was 12. So, genetically speaking, she has a history. She's just a super deep sleeper with a smaller bladder.

    Sometimes she wakes up to go to the bathroom, but not usually - she just sleeps right through it.

    So, while it might be physical or emotional, until you figure out the underlying cause, I would get these or Pullups or something, it's a lot cleaner and easier than washing sheets and blankets constantly.
    posted by Anonymous Anonymous at 5/24/2006 08:23:00 AM  



  • My four year old daughter was totally potty trained, night and all, by 3 year old. About 5 months ago, when baby #4 was born, she stopped being dry through the night. She now wears pullups at night and 5/7 nights a week, she wakes up with a dry diaper. But, boy am I glad for the nights when she doesn't- I hate changing sheets! We only go through 1 package of pullups every 2-3 months or so. I am sure someday soon, she'll be dry all night- I am not sweating it.
    On a funny note, yesterday in the car, after leaving the park, she said to me, "mom, I peed my pants when you were pushing me really high on the swing." I had to laugh. Funny girl!
    posted by Blogger Jules at 5/24/2006 08:37:00 AM  



  • We just finished potty training my 3 yr old son and he's great - no accidents, doesn't really need reminders to go to the bathroom. But we haven't yet tackled the night time, mainly because I don't think he's ready and we're not ready to deal with bed wetting. So he's in pull ups for bedtime...and I see no reason to push him for at least another few months.

    I like Anon tip about layering sheets and mattress protectors - I think we'll do that once we get closer to nightime underwear.
    posted by Blogger chloe at 5/24/2006 08:47:00 AM  



  • Imipramine is very good for curbing bed wetting. I can't remember the concept, but it's a good drug. Safe, I think. It totally worked for Jared.

    He wet the bed until he was, I think, 8 or 9, then imipramine put a stop to it, completely.
    posted by Blogger annegb at 5/24/2006 09:17:00 AM  



  • You might want to aslo have him tested for genetic reasons, or allergies, which have been linked to bed wetting.
    posted by Blogger Mary Siever at 5/24/2006 11:28:00 AM  



  • Yeah, I'm going to get more bed protector/covers and layer up. Love that idea. We'll see if we have to resort to overnights or something like that if laundering all this stuff is still too overwhelming. :) Thanks for the advice and info ladies--much appreciated.
    posted by Blogger Katie at 5/26/2006 10:04:00 AM  



  • A big problem. My son was a real challenge He is nearly 4 but still has accidents. He wears pullups when he goes to sleep. And lucky for me he does not like them so i promised him we would be able to get rid of them. So he tried harder. He couldn't stand them so we bought a sensor that tells as soon as it gets a tiny bit wet and it beeps a bit so he is now alot better. His accidents went from almost everyday to once maybe ever two-three weeks. It takes a lot of commitment to teach our kids to potty. Yes he needs to be corrected very soon.
    posted by Anonymous Anonymous at 11/09/2008 05:21:00 PM  



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