My son is 12 and still wets the bed!

Today’s story is kindly shared with us from a mum who lives in Cornwall.

My son is 12 – well almost twelve.  12 in a month and he still wets the bed!

He was almost 9 years old before I thought I should actually see a health professional about this problem.  I don’t know why it took me so long to make that decision?

Perhaps I thought it was normal or maybe I was so busy getting on with the day-to-day occurrences of family life, that within the confines of our home it never felt any different.

He wet the bed – I changed the bed and washed the bedding. The same pattern happened every night, nothing ever changed, so I didn’t think to change my outlook either.  I knew it was happening of course, because of all the middle of the night bed changes and mountains of dirty laundry.  Some days, I struggled to keep up with the sheer volume of pyjama bottoms getting wet and dry again for use later that night.

Of course, over the years I tried what I had thought was appropriate measures to reduce the risk of bedwetting.  I cut back on his drinks in the evening, I woke him up in the night to take him to the toilet and on occasions I did yell and ridicule him for being lazy!!

But the strange thing is I never actually questioned why it was happening.  I never ‘Googled’ it and I certainly never asked friends for advice.  However, the most shocking thing is I never took him to the doctors – that is until he hit 9 years old.

At 9 he started going on Scout camps and it was becoming a problem hiding the truth from his friends there.  So I thought enough is enough, I need to see what is happening and why because no-matter what I try he is still wetting the bed.

The doctor was understanding and asked why I had taken so long to seek help!  He placed my sons name on a waiting list to see an ERIC trained nurse at our local clinic.  At almost the same time I purchased a Malem Bedwetting Alarm from the ERIC website.

It took nearly a year for my son to be offered an appointment at the clinic and in that time the alarm went off every night.  Every night it woke me up in the next bedroom but it never managed to wake up my son!!  During the waiting period his bedwetting did improve slightly with the odd dry or damp night, but certainly not enough to remove his name from the waiting list.

When we eventually saw the nurse, she clearly explained the reasons why some children still continue to wet the bed when most have grown out of it.  We learned that for every class of 30 children aged 7 there will be two in that class who wet at night. Most importantly she explained that  my ‘tried and failed’ methods were because they were not promoting the use of my sons bladder in the correct way – reducing drinks, waking him in the night etc was the opposite of what I should be doing.

We walked away with charts, stickers, plenty of leaflets and follow up appointments.  But most of all, we walked away with reassurance that he was not alone.  As it later turned out, there are indeed other children in his year at primary school that still wet the bed.  The reason I know this?   Because I began to open up to other parents; the more I talked to them, the more parents I found that either have children who wet the bed, or they did themselves when they were a child.

My son is 12 soon.  We first went to see the doctor when he was 9, we saw the nurse when he was 10 and yes now and again, but not very often now, he wets the bed.  But I don’t mind because I now understand why and that he isn’t the only one.

We are really pleased to hear that things are getting easier to deal with at home and that you had the courage to share your story with us.  We know lots of parents are having similar experiences to you and our helpful leaflets are available here http://www.eric.org.uk/Bedwetting/leaflets_bedwetting

How do you cope with mountains of laundry or sleepovers?  If you have a story to share we would love to hear from you too!!