This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of GoodNites®.

I wet the bed well into my fourth grade year.  Yes.  I did.  I’m not proud of it, it was frustrating for me and I’m fairly certain even more frustrating for my parents, but that’s the plain truth.

My parents tried everything. No liquids after 3 pm. Three or more trips to tinkle before bedtime even with the liquid cutoff.

My mom would wake me before she went to bed around 11 each night to use the bathroom.

And, more often than not, I’d dream of using the toilet and wake to hear the sounds of me wetting the bed.

It’s kind of a crummy thing to experience.

Obviously I couldn’t sleep at friends’ houses. I mean, there wasn’t much for protection in those days aside from REALLY noisy rubber sheets and my personal (least) favorite, rubber pants for over your underwear. There was no way for me to risk spending the night and having an accident on someone else’s mattress. I would have died of embarassment.

 

I think the sleepover thing was the hardest for me. And having to shower every day before school so I didn’t smell like urine.

I’m really quite lucky- as hard as all of that was I’m sure for my parents to contend with- especially just the added laundry so many days per week with them both working full time jobs- neither my mom nor my dad EVER made me feel badly about being an older bedwetter.  Not once.

There is actually a medical term for bedwetting- enuresis.

Some tips to help older bedwetters with enuresis:

Support-

Chances are pretty good your child is just as upset about this as you are, if not more. Chances are even greater they aren’t wetting the bed on purpose, so be supportive.  Be positive. Making them feel bad isn’t going to help the situation.

Time-

Not what you want to hear, but really, most kids do outgrow bedwetting.  Their bladder muscles may just need more time to develop and get stronger.  If they are particularly deep sleepers, that may also be part of the cause of the bedwetting.

Speaking of that bladder, work it!!

Specifically, working with your child to “hold it” a little bit longer during the day *may* help to allow their bladder to “hold it” until they wake up or until their bladder wakes them up.  (Talk to your doctor FIRST!!)

Bedwetting alarm- the alarm consists of a clip-on sensor probe that attaches to the outside of bed-clothing. It goes off when the child starts to wet the bed. The alarm wakes the child, who hopefully then gets up to go to the bathroom to finish and then go back to sleep. The idea of this is to condition the brain to understand when the bladder is ready for some action.

Wake and walk-

Wake your child a few times a night and bring them to use the bathroom.  That means less sleep for you, but hopefully both the pattern of waking them to go and actually going will also get their bladder in the habit of waking them to go as well.

Medication-

There are some medicines that can be prescribed.  I am not going to discuss them because I know nothing about them on a personal level, and I’m not comfortable doing so. There are medicines and they are prescribed so your doctor may discuss that option with you or a combination of options to help your older child stop bedwetting.

The most important thing: BE CONSISTENT.  If you aren’t getting them up to pee every single night, and trust me you guys, I know how loathe we parents are to get up out of a sleep to wake a sleeping chidl– but if you aren’t being consistent, it’s not going to help their bodies learn.  So whatever you go with, commit to it.

In the meantime, while you are going through whatever your plan of action is, I highly recommend using GoodNites absorbent Bed Mats.  I’m not saying that because I’ve partnered with them, I’m saying it because they make a great product. GoodNites simply provides a way for families to help manage bedwetting. It’s a lot easier to pull off a bed mat and replace it with a new one than changing a whole bed.

The bed mats are also GREAT for travel, so you and your child don’t have to stress about ruining Grama’s mattress in the guest room or  anything.  No one even has to know you are using the bedmats! The mats are SUPER absorbant (they hold as much liquid as the largest size of the GoodNites Overnights pants!!) and the 4 corners have really sticky tabs on them so they stay right in place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Check out the Better Nights Sweepstakes on Facebook!
The winner will receive a three-month supply of Bed Mats and a series of gift cards totaling $5,000 to reward their child with a complete bedroom set. Please see Official Rules for rules and requirements.

 

Join us for a GoodNites Twitter party on Thursday April 10, 2014 at 10:30am PST

Follow along with hashtag: #GNLightsOut

 

 

 

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of GoodNites®