Doctors recommend them, friends have had success with them, but these things didn’t work for you: waking, restricting fluids, hypnosis, chiropractic, drugs, rewards… these do work 80% of the time, if the child is ready to ‘outgrow it’at that particular time, and all they need is a little attention. But these simple solutions don’t work when there are overlapping causes for the child’s bed wetting problam..

Wait to outgrow it: When they say “he’ll outgrow it” then they will be right 90% of the time. Unfortunately that doesn’t help the 10,000 kids in Ontario who don’t outgrow bedwetting by age eight, ten or fifteen. Meanwhile the child fears sleepovers, camp, college.

Restricting water: Restricting water sounds quite obvious, but it’s often misunderstood by children, so they develope constipation, which causes bed wetting. In that case, more water often helps.

Lifting: Taking a sleepy child to the toilet is probably teaching them to wet during sleep. It works for Mom, you get dry sheets, but it prolongs the real problem.

Alarms: Many of our clients have tried alarm clocks and bedwetting alarms; they commonly give up after a week or two. Any single method has a small chance of success because bedwetting always has two or three causes that must be addressed.

Drugs: DDAVP or Tofranil (Imipramine) can relieve bed wetting for a few days, but they only relieve the symptoms. If used for a week or two once every six months, DDAVP might coincide with a time when the child was going to outgrow it anyway, but extreme care should be taken to follow the directions and warnings. Ditropan can help for children over 13, if used in conjunction with other methods.

Medical Tests: Some doctors do further testing if a parent is insistent. In fact, all the experts agree that infection, disease, and physical causes are as infrequent as 1% amongst bed wetters. Ask yourself - if there is no wetting problem in daytime, can there be a medical problem present? See our “test” page to check for some of the common organic and pysical problems that can cause enuresis.

Things that actually do work:

If your child is under age six … and doesn’t wet during the day, then you can try simple remedies like water gulping, bladder attention, and guided imagery but first, answer the questions on our ‘medical self-test’ page to check the possibility of a medical problem.

After age six … more elaborate strategies are usually necessary. At this point the child has reached the age of reason, when he/she is probably involved emotionally in the bed wetting problem, and would be very motivated to fix it. Use a multi-modal approach like Drybed Training to fix the most common causes.

By Peter Grise, DryKids coach. See more at www.drykids.info

Do drugs really work for bed wetting?

The Mayo Clinic, on drugs most often used to treat bed wetting:

The drug desmopressin acetate (DDAVP) boosts levels of a natural hormone (anti-diuretic hormone, or ADH) that forces the body to make less urine at night. Side effects: The most serious is a seizure if the medication is accompanied by too many fluids. The antidepressant imipramine (Tofranil) may provide bed-wetting relief may also increase the amount of time a child can hold urine or reduce the amount of urine produced Caution is essential, however. An overdose could be fatal. Medication doesn’t cure the problem. Bed-wetting typically resumes when the medication is stopped.

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Doctors often prescribe DDVAP or Imipramine to help with bed wetting, and these can help if the child just needs a ‘holiday’ from wetting to get over it. I think there can be a ‘cycle of anxiety’ in which a child will go to bed unhappy and stressed out because he knows he’ll be wet again, this causes improper sleep which causes the bed wetting… and so on. So there is a role for drugs if you know the risks. Another drug that’s suggested in the doctor-supervised program Try for Dry is oxybutynin, which helps with daytime wetting and ‘nervous’ bladder.

See more at our site,  DryKids Ontario

In a survey of British teenagers, British Health learned that bed wetting was their second most traumatic memory, second only to parental divorce.

No, this isn’t about the TV. It’s about wetting the bed, and what kids can do to learn how to “hold it” till morning.

Parents tell me that their child sleeps very deeply, and ‘goes’ in huge volume. I bet them (and win every time) that after one of my lessons, their child will be waking up to ‘go’ within three nights, and that the sheets will never  get wet again. How is that possible?

The body normally produces a hormone called ‘vasopressin’ at night, to reduce the amount of urine by two thirds. And while you won’t find this in any book or article, I know from experience that by applying a series of changes surrounding their bed time, my little clients can quickly learn to sleep differently, more normally, so their sleep pattern gets an occasional light period. Using a technique called ‘guided imagery’ the child thinks through the process of sleeping, holding it, and waking up happy - a technique used often in sports and sales - and it works. They learn to wake up easily and ‘hold it’ all night.

Misconceptions about bed wetting are so numerous:  the chair of the Canadian Paediatric Society’s Community Paediatrics Committee Dr. Mark Feldman, in parentcentral.ca says “.. if they’re sleeping, they’re not going to get it… you can’t teach somebody something when they’re sleeping…”

Sorry doctor, that isn’t true. Talk to a few of my clients, whose parents are doctors.  Their kids were bed wettting to the age of eight, ten, twelve, every night, in huge volume. And they got better within days, and entirely dry in a few weeks.

So, to help your child over age 6, encourage them to work hard at changing their bad food habits, get more sleep, do bladder toning routines, and use an alarm to learn how to sleep more lightly. The usual problem is that a child lacks motivation or confidence and in that case, you need our help. www.drykids.info

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Peter Grise is the DryKids coach for the Metro Toronto area, his success rate is over 95% in helping kids to get dry. 

“I’m not a doctor or nurse, I’m a “kid whisperer” just like a ‘dog’ or ‘horse’ whisperer. I learned how to fix this one issue, learned from the best in the field, and what a rewarding job it is! Is there anything else I could do to make a real difference in many children’s lives, their self esteem, their happiness?”

Bed wetting (enuresis) is more common than the stats seem to indicate.  50% of teenagers polled and 50% of families polled say it was a major problem for them at one time.

I’ve been helping kids with this for years, and my little clients get dry in jig time, almost every time. Bed wetting is such a ‘secret’ that people don’t share the good remedies. They DO share the myths - everyone whose child responds to the normal, simple methods is an expert!  But if you’re here, you already know that restricting fluids and waking a child are methods that don’t always work. These things DO work for 80% of kids age 3-4 yrs, but if not, you should move on to a more elaborate method right away. That’s telling you that there’s a complication either physical, psychological, habit or dietary that is getting in the way.

• A high percentage of bed wetting boys have a younger sister
• Almost all have parents with sleep issues: snoring, wetting, tooth grinding, apnea etc.
• There are specific food products that interfere with children’s sleep
• If a child is dry in daytime but not at night, there isn’t likely and physical problem so a doctor can’t help with surgery or medication. And doctors usually admit that they are “hardware” guys but this is a “software” problem. They just aren’t trained for habit modification.

So..   what to do?  If your child is 5 or under, and doesn’t wet during the day, then you can try simple remedies like water gulping, bladder attention, and guided imagery but first, answer the questions on our ‘medical self-test’ page to check the possibility of a medical problem.Then start with these:

• Drink a big glass of water after school, and again after dinner
• Treat for constipation even if you don’t suspect it
• Talk about it at bed time, “hold it” or “think about your bladder tonight”
• Put the diaper on the bed, not the kid! Use ‘puppy training pads’ and duct tape them ON TOP of the sheets to keep the sheets dry