When children are young, usually aged 7 and younger, the issue of bedwetting is very common, and parents often seek ways to help their child come over this stage of growing up. While it is frustrating and embarrassing, bedwetting has no connection whatsoever with psychological or physical issues. In 98% of the cases dealing with bedwetting, the child simply sleeps too deeply and is not able to recognize that he/she needs to use the bathroom.
Most times, bedwetting goes away without the use of anything. However, there are many ways to reduce and sometimes speed of the process of ending bedwetting. Here are a few that can be very helpful to parents:
* If your child has a set bedtime, make sure that two hours before this time comes that you do not give your child any liquid. Before this time, give your child as much liquid as he/she wants. This will help prevent dehydration and constipation that happen a lot with children. This will not alleviate your child of bedwetting, but it will reduce how many times your child wets the bed on average.
* Use Bathroom: Right before you put your child to bed you usually have them brush their teeth. Well as a part of the routine make sure that they also use the bathroom and empty their bladder. Even when they say they are done, have them try to squeeze out more, if more comes have them do it one more time. This is referred to as double voiding.
* Bladder Exercises: Some children just have a bladder that is too small. To help with this you have your child do bladder-stretching exercises. To do this you simply tell them when they feel the urge to urinate to wait for a little while longer, usually 10 minutes before going. Then slowly increase this over time. This will not happen overnight, it can take months to increase the size of the bladder.
* Visit the Doctor: Sometimes that can be a problem that causes your child to wet the bed. So you may want to check with your doctor just to make sure.
* Use an Alarm: You can purchase moisture pads for your child’s underwear that sense when your child begins to urinate. An alarm will sound or in some cases a vibration will alert and wake your child that he needs to go to the bathroom. Over time children can get used to getting up to urinate in the night when you use this method.
* If bedwetting just isn’t going away, try medication. There are many types of medicines today that can prevent your child from wetting the bed. These medications slow the production of urine and relax the bladder. Unfortunately, some of these medicines have side effects.
* Most importantly, when trying to stop your child from bedwetting, do not scold him/her. If you scold your child, he/she will just feel worse and will feel very ashamed that the problem is his/her fault. It’s not. Be supportive and keep trying.