Fundie Parenting Advice For Bedwetting

[figgypudding]

Oh my word, shoddy parenting like that is so sad and rage-inducing all at the same time. Those poor little kids. I mean, the parents said themselves that the boys knew the punishment was coming and didn't want to wet the bed, but they couldn't help it...so why on earth would you think it's a good idea to subject them to a horrible experience like that?? It's not the end of the world if you have to put them back in pull-ups for a while and just give their bladders some more time to develop and be able to make it through the night. Plus, the idea of making them hold it when they need to go is just insane, and a UTI waiting to happen.

My grandmother's method of dealing with bedwetting was similar, she would stick her kids into a bathtub filled with cold water, and one of my uncles ended up wetting the bed into his teenage years and having other sleep difficulties because of the trauma of it all.

[ADoyle90815]

My parents used a combination of an alarm clock to wake me up in the middle of the night and a buzzer that would go off if the bed was wet. The buzzer would go off at the first sign of moisture and wake me up. This helped to train me to get up and go when I had the urge to urinate. Both methods helped train me to not wet the bed.

Bedwetting is a medical condition. It should be treated with kindness and understanding. A child already feels shameful when they wet the bed and throwing them in a cold shower exasperates the problem. Not letting them go when they have the urge is counterproductive because you are teaching them to not listen to their bodies.

[Letgo]

My parents used a combination of an alarm clock to wake me up in the middle of the night and a buzzer that would go off if the bed was wet. The buzzer would go off at the first sign of moisture and wake me up. This helped to train me to get up and go when I had the urge to urinate. Both methods helped train me to not wet the bed.

[emmyfair]

My brother wet the bed and my Mom tortured him over it. The things she did and said were beyond crazy. He wet the bed all the way until he left home, and as soon as he moved out - bingo - the bed wetting stopped. Hmmm, wonder what the problem was?

My eldest son is five, and still wets the bed. My understanding is that in my little corner of the world, a specialist won't look at a boy who wets the bed with no ther issues till he's six or older - the bladder isn't developed enough to worry about until then. Making a kid hold their urine to stretch a bladder is the stupidest thing I've read today. Torture, that's all that is. For my son, I buy pull ups for at night, and it's not an issue at all, if he's wet or dry in the morning. He'll grow out of it when he's ready. He's been totally toilet trained during the day since he was two, so I'm not worried.

[Austin]

My cousin used that with one of her sons who wet the bed. It took a while but it worked. He was a very heavy sleeper and just never woke up at night.

We had friends years ago with a nine year old daughter who still wet the bed. They used some form of a pull up for older children. The parents could hear the 'thunk' each morning when she got up to go to the bathroom and shower. They accepted it and just waited for her to grow out of it. She eventually did and is now well adjusted and happy as a nearly 30 year old.

Shaming is not going to work. Don't people realize that these kids are NOT doing it on purpose? A cold shower for a little one makes me want to cry.

[CanadianHippie]

My grandmother, who is in her 90s, has struggled with insomnia all her life. She attributes it to being afraid to go to sleep when she was little because her mother shamed her whenever she went to bed. If that's really the source of the insomnia -- way to go mom for creating a lifelong problem in her child!

[mnb357]

One of my sons wet the bed until about age 8. I simply bought 2 mattress covers, and an extra set of plain white sheets. My doctor told me that the reason kids wet the bed is because their brains do not secrete anti-diuretic hormone in their sleep, until age 2 - 4, sometimes not until puberty. The WORSE thing you can do is shame a kid, because that causes nervousness, which impedes their ability to hit the level of sleep required to secrete ADH. I never, ever mentioned my son's bed wetting to him, besides asking if he needed me to change the sheets. It was NO BIG DEAL, and I overheard my son telling just that to my youngest son when he was 3, and woke up around 10 p.m., because the bed was wet.

[EmmieJ]

Fuck those assholes! It's often a matter of a child's body (usually a boy's) not being mature enough to wake up on cue. The cold showers probably had nothing to do with muscle memory and everything to do with their children being so terrified of the punishment that they slept lightly (or not at all) so they'd be able to wake up more easily. But I suppose it's worth torturing your children to avoid having to buy pull-ups or rubber sheets.

[mnb357]

Mean ass mo-fo's.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Do these people realize that 99% of kids will outgrow the bedwetting issue, but that shaming is something that stays with a kid for life?

[fakepigtails73]

That is totally what I would have done if any of my kids had had that problem. Even with the waterproof mattress covers, the kid has the embarassment of wet sheets and all that, even if the parent doesn't shame (not to mention all the extra laundry). I would do the pull-ups and let the child resolve it themselves in their own time. I have found that with nearly any issue that the child cannot help, the less fuss that is made over it, the better.

[ladypuglover]

Yup...I don't have kids so I can't tell you any tips, but it is true that shaming never works with stuff like bed-wetting. All I can say from my childhood was that the only time I chronically peed in the bed was at 8 yrs-old, at summer camp. I was away for 3 weeks in Ontario (9 hrs away from my home), first time I was away by myself for such a long period of time, and to tope it off I could barely understand, let alone speak, the language. Gosh, I still remember the smell of my bunkbed; it's like I was on a hygiene strike or something! :whistle:

I don't remember where I read this, but is true that most children who wet their beds are boys?

[Little Miss Alien]

Do these people realize that 99% of kids will outgrow the bedwetting issue, but that shaming is something that stays with a kid for life?

[Kitchen Princess]

My father, my brother and myself all wet the bed until we were 13, 14 and 7. My parents mistreated my brother, and had him go through one of those bed wetting operations involving the urethra. I don't know much about it but it was the '60s so you can imagine. My brother was scarred for life for all of that--not just the procedure but they way he was treated.

My three sons have never been bed wetters. The eldest was dry at night at 10 months old. I think it's just the luck of the draw. My three grandsons are all bed wetters (the children of the oldest who was dry at 10 months). They wear pull-ups at night, and that's fine with me. When it comes up when I put them to bed, I tell them I wet the bed until I was in second grade, and encourage them that night dryness will happen for them at some point.

What is the point of making a big deal out of wearing pull-ups when it is likely from our family history that they could be teenagers before they are capable of stopping? I believe the people who claim some kind of success from shaming or whathaveyou, are just frightening their kids, and not allowing them to develop physically the way they should. It's not horrible that a child wets the bed, unless you insist on making them sleep in the puddle.

[snarkbillie]

I baby sat a boy who was 9 and still wet the bed. His parents had him on an alarm that went in his underwear and if the cloth got wet it would go off and startle him awake. They were very confused as to why it wasn't working and I pointed out that if I was asleep and that alarm went off I would probably piss myself too.

I convinced them to take him to the doctor and you know what they found out? His pee hole was too narrow and he wasn't fully emptying his bladder and thus a bit was staying in there and was leaking out in the night. I have no idea if that's common, but if your kid is old enough to sleep through the night and be dry and they aren't, maybe a doctor before abuse, just sayin'.

*not saying the alarm was abusive, it just seemed stupid to me. Obviously you're already pissing when it goes off so how does that help you to get up in time?!

[Wolfie]

One of my nephews is a solitary, taciturn young man who lives online. He is currently saving for another year of college by renting his old room at home and working most of the time. He can be extracted from his man cave on family occasions long enough to eat dinner; then he disappears again. This is all directly traceable to his problem of wetting himself until he was in his early teens. Medically there was nothing to do but wait. Emotionally, his parents gave him support and never blamed him for something he couldn't help, but they couldn't make up for his lack of sleepovers, Scout campouts, athletic tryouts, and so forth. So he just didn't develop socially. I shudder to think what state he would be in right now if they had punished him for having an incompletely developed bladder.

[Kitchen Princess]

I baby sat a boy who was 9 and still wet the bed. His parents had him on an alarm that went in his underwear and if the cloth got wet it would go off and startle him awake. They were very confused as to why it wasn't working and I pointed out that if I was asleep and that alarm went off I would probably piss myself too.

I convinced them to take him to the doctor and you know what they found out? His pee hole was too narrow and he wasn't fully emptying his bladder and thus a bit was staying in there and was leaking out in the night. I have no idea if that's common, but if your kid is old enough to sleep through the night and be dry and they aren't, maybe a doctor before abuse, just sayin'.

*not saying the alarm was abusive, it just seemed stupid to me. Obviously you're already pissing when it goes off so how does that help you to get up in time?!

[Kitchen Princess]

I have to disagree here. If every child who wet the bed until their teens really was studied, I think you'd find that most of them are perfectly normal socially as adults. My brother wet the bed until he was older, and he was horrible about sleep walking. I wouldn't doubt if he still was. I know I sleepwalk, not as much as when I was little- and I'm one of those who eats in my sleep. Apparently it's an eating disorder, but I don't have any weight problems, and only do it about once a month, so I don't worry. In spite of our sleeping disorders, we still were able to go to sleepovers, summer camp, ect. Even if my brother did one time walk into the shower where his friend's mom was taking a shower in his sleep. We weren't deprived of normal activities- chaperones/parents were just warned, and often at least one of our parents came along, but kept their distance.

[CanadianHippie]

I have to disagree here. If every child who wet the bed until their teens really was studied, I think you'd find that most of them are perfectly normal socially as adults. My brother wet the bed until he was older, and he was horrible about sleep walking. I wouldn't doubt if he still was. I know I sleepwalk, not as much as when I was little- and I'm one of those who eats in my sleep. Apparently it's an eating disorder, but I don't have any weight problems, and only do it about once a month, so I don't worry. In spite of our sleeping disorders, we still were able to go to sleepovers, summer camp, ect. Even if my brother did one time walk into the shower where his friend's mom was taking a shower in his sleep. We weren't deprived of normal activities- chaperones/parents were just warned, and often at least one of our parents came along, but kept their distance.

[snarkbillie]

Ya that whole pee-hole procedure thing...I'm not sure that's not a whackadoodle reason for bed wetting. I was only 6 or 7 when my brother had a procedure, and I'm pretty sure it involved the same thing. I'm going to have to look into that.

[Kitty]

I seem to have escaped a lot of the sleep problems in my family. My mother suffered from night terrors when she was younger, my sister occasionally sleepwalks. As for bed-wetting, I stopped around 7 or 8, many members of my family did it much longer than that. There's not really any shame in my family, probably because of that. Though one family member did wind up having surgery on her bladder, which wound up stopping the bedwetting.

[snarkbillie]

While I don't think wetting the bed was the cause of JI's nephews issues, I just have to point out, wetting the bed past age 12 is considered a warning sign of other issues.

[VVV]

One of my nephews is a solitary, taciturn young man who lives online. He is currently saving for another year of college by renting his old room at home and working most of the time. He can be extracted from his man cave on family occasions long enough to eat dinner; then he disappears again. This is all directly traceable to his problem of wetting himself until he was in his early teens. Medically there was nothing to do but wait. Emotionally, his parents gave him support and never blamed him for something he couldn't help, but they couldn't make up for his lack of sleepovers, Scout campouts, athletic tryouts, and so forth. So he just didn't develop socially. I shudder to think what state he would be in right now if they had punished him for having an incompletely developed bladder.

[Lunatic]

My almost 6 year old son still would wet the bed if we didn't wake him every night to pee. It's starting to get better though, sometimes if he pees right before sleeping, we'll risk it to see if he can make it through the night. Sometimes he does but sometimes not. We don't make a big deal out of it but sometimes his older brother will try to tease him. We ALWAYS reprimand him for teasing the younger son, it's not his fault!

I can't imagine shaming a child for something they can't control. I fail to see how cold showers would help with muscle control anyhow, they might as well just say that it's punishment for peeing the bed because it is.