Some quick and easy tips to help your little people wake up dry and happy.
Through the ages, potty training has been one of the most difficult tasks of young parents. But it is possible to help your newly trained children to make it through the night nice and dry. Here’s how.
Change Your Mindset. Many parents fear that a bedwetting child is an unadjusted child. However, this is not true. In fact, very few children struggling with bedwetting are also dealing with emotional problems, and bedwetting is rarely a sign of rebellion or of kidney or bladder issues. What it may be a sign of is a sleep disorder, slow development of bladder control, or stress that shows up when sudden life changes force the child to focus his or her energies on something besides maintaining bladder control.
Since nearly 15 percent of all children ages 3 and older experience occasional bedwetting episodes, bedwetting should not be viewed as an extreme abnormality. By understanding the causes of bedwetting, parents can deal with their children with greater gentleness.
Be Bed Smart. In order to help your bedwetting child to change his or her wet ways, you’ll need to start by varying your child’s bedtime routine. Reduce the amount of liquids you provide your child an hour before bedtime, and have your child use the restroom before going to bed. These two steps will turn many potentially wet nights into dry nights of success! If they’re not, you may want to begin waking your child up once a night to use the restroom. It takes a little more effort on your part, but it’s better to wake up to keep your child dry than to wake up to change a wet bed.
Once your child has a dry night, be sure to praise him or her duly. If you consider how much time and energy you’ll save from not having to change bed sheets and give your child another bath in the middle of the night, it will be no problem to summon up some genuine enthusiasm. And when your child has a slump in his or her success, don’t get upset or punish your child. Let him or her know that it was a minor incident and one that doesn’t have to be repeated again any time soon.
Lean on Two. When a new mindset for you and some new bedtime habits for your child aren’t enough to put a stop to bedwetting, there are two more things to try out: time and medicine.
Most children who are potty trained but have problems staying dry at night will resolve their bedwetting ways if given a little time. If you feel your child is taking a little too long to teach his or her body how to refrain from urinating during sleep, talk with your child’s physician. In rare cases, children are prescribed anti-diuretic medications to help reduce the frequency of bedwetting.
With the tools needed to overcome bedwetting placed firmly in your hands, and a good deal of patience and understanding, your child should be enjoying nights of dryness in no time!
Bigger Problems
If your child is still wetting the bed despite all of your efforts, don’t get angry. Get educated. Since bedwetting can be a symptom of something bigger happening with your child, work with your child’s physician to get to the root of the problem.
Besides the easily treated issues that can cause bedwetting, other conditions that can result in bedwetting include the following:
- anatomical or structural abnormality in the muscles, nerves, or organs used in urination
- diabetes
- emotional issues
- injury, disease, or abnormalities of the body’s nervous system
- urinary tract infections
While these causes of bedwetting are possible for your children, they are rare. More than likely, your child will simply need more time and home remedies to defeat beat bedwetting. But if your child is affected by diabetes, urinary tract infections, or other serious conditions that can cause bedwetting, getting them diagnosed and treated properly will help your child stay dry at night and enjoy improved overall health.