why does my 10 year old still wet the bed?

he's always had a problem with bedwetting,we've tried everything,star charts,stickers,rewards,medication from doctor(tablets and medicine) but he still wets the bed,any ideas??

First off, I am sure your doctor has also reassured you of this, but it is a very common problem. I would like to shine some light on some treatments, many of them old wives tales, and explain what has been scientifically proven to work and why.

First off, the most common old wives tale is to restrict liquids before bedtime. Please, do not do this. The kidneys produce urine that fills the bladder no matter how much you drink. This leads you to become dehydrated if you don't drink for a period of time. Children are especially vulnerable to dehydration, and it is potentially a serious condition. Think of it this way: If you drank 4 large glasses of water before going to sleep, would you wet YOUR bed? of course not. The issue isn't fluid intake, it is your son's developing body.

Secondly, "night rising" is an old-wives tale where you set and alarm in the middle of the night and wake your child up to take him to the bathroom. This has been studied scientifically, and has actually shown to make bed wetting WORSE.. The explanation the scientists who performed the study gave was that when you get your child up, he/she is still sleeping.. You walk them to the toilet, and command them to pee. What you have done is trained the child to pee while they are sleeping. If you have ever tried this, ask your son in the morning if he remembers getting up. I guarantee you he doesn't, because the truth is he was never awake.

Also, as you have tried, medication is often prescribed to children in your son's age group for wetting the bed. What the medication does it tell your son's kidneys to make urine more concentrated, decreasing the volume that he will produce. The do not stop his body from making pee, they just slow it down a bit. What happens is with most kids they still (for whatever reason) pee the urine that their body produces anyway, resulting in no results. In some children, it makes a small enough volume that they are able to hold it until morning, but it doesn't work for everyone. The medication is expensive, doesn't work for everyone, and has potentially serious side effects. For this reason many doctors refuse to prescribe it, while others only prescribe it for special occasions (sleepovers, camping trips, etc). It is your choice, but if it doesn't help I would suggest that you save your money and your son's health and stop using it. It does nothing to cure the problem, and as soon as he stops taking it things will be back to normal.

The only proven treatment to work with SOME kids is the bed wetting alarm. It is an alarm that has a sensor of some sort that usually attaches to your son's underwear or diaper, and goes off at the first drop of urine. The idea is that it disrupts his sleep patterns at the precise time his bladder becomes full. For this reason, it is more effective than the night waking, where a command is given and at an arbitrary time (not necessarily just before he wets). The alarms are expensive, and don't work with everyone. Even if they do work, expect 1-2 months of waking up in the middle of the night to a loud alarm. If it doesn't work after a while, stop trying it so you can both get your sleep and try again in a year or so.

Now, in reference to diapers. People have this stigma that they mean the wearer is a baby. This is only true if you reinforce that stigma. The truth is, people wear diapers at all ages for different medical conditions. The reason many parents have their children wear protection is that it allows the child to have a good night sleep (without waking up in a soaking wet bed that needs to be changed), cuts down on laundry, and most of all, lowers the impact of accidents on the child. Stress causes bed wetting in only a very small percentage of children, but studies show that when bed wetters are under stress they generally have more wet nights. For that and reasons of your son's self confidence, it is important to minimize the impact of accidents, and pull-ups/diapers help that to happen. Nobody has to know he had an accident, he can just dispose of the wet diaper and have a shower.

It is important for the same reason that your son doesn't see your frustration. It is damaging to his self esteem to know that he has upset you and he has no control over the situation. Bedwetting happens when he is asleep, and since he is unconscious when he wets he has no way to control it. It isn't a behaviour, so don't treat it like one. His body will develop in time to the point where he can stay dry all night, and in the meantime he needs to know that he is not alone and has a parent who is supportive of him and understands what he is going through. I wish you both the best of luck!

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