Adolescent Bedwetting
Understanding Causes and Treatments for Enuresis
Bedwetting can cause tweens to not want to participate in sleepovers with friends. This in turn can make them feel isolated. There are some ways you can help.
Enuresis is the medical term for bedwetting. It is the condition that causes involuntary discharge of urine, especially at nighttime. Bedwetting in older children can especially be a problem when it starts to cause your child to feel isolated or embarrassed about sleeping over a friend's house or having to skip a slumber party for fear of wetting his bed. The condition is frustrating for the child, as well as his parents. So, are there any bedwetting solutions?
Causes of Bedwetting
The first step to a solution is to know exactly what cause this condition. There are over 5 million school-aged children in the U.S. alone who suffer from enuresis. It is most common in boys. Typical reasons that children who can normally control their bladder during the day, but have accidents at night are:
- They have small bladders.
- They have weak bladder muscles.
- They produce excessive amounts of urine that their bladder cannot hold all at once.
A normal scenario happens when the bladder is full, it sends a message to our brain that wakes us up in the middle of the night, and we get up to go to the bathroom. Children who are not receiving that signal are thought to be deep sleepers and will not know when their bladder is full, and thus not get up when necessary.
Bedwetting Alarms
Bedwetting alarms are thought to be one of the best-proven ways to help children gain control of their bladder at night. They work by sounding an alarm when the child begins to wet, thus helping the child get up to go to the bathroom. While this works, parents have been concerned about what happens when the alarm is taken away. So far, studies have shown that after about three to four months of wearing an alarm, a child naturally builds his own mechanism to wake up when his bladder is full.
Bedwetting Medications
The most popular medication prescribed by doctors for the treatment of enuresis is Desmopressin (or DDAVP). It is a rather expensive medication, and there have been many reported cases where once the medication was stopped, the bedwetting started again. The best thing to do is talk with your pediatrician or family doctor before deciding on any method of treatment.
Waiting it Out
Even with no treatment interventions, except for the use of protective underwear at night, children will generally outgrow bedwetting. It is important to be sensitive to your child's condition, as it is very frustrating to your child as well. Ways that you can help protect your child's self-esteem through this waiting period are:
- Never discuss the issue with another adult or child in front of the sufferer.
- Do not send your child in a store to buy his own protective underwear.
- Do not compare a younger sibling who is fully capable of getting up in the middle of the night to your older child who cannot. They have different bodies that function differently.
- Help your child by limiting liquids to about 2 hours before his normal bedtime.
- If you go to bed after your child, wake him up before you sleep, and have him use the bathroom.
