Nighttime Bed Wetting -- Regression

N.,

Did your son recently hit a growth spurt? Sometimes my boys go through a growth spurt and start wetting the bed for a while. I think maybe their body doesn't grow proportionally, but a system at a time, and the bladder grows a little behind the curve. I didn't put my kids in pull ups after they refused them. We just made sure to have changes of sheets until they outgrew it.

I also sometimes need to take my oldest son to the bathroom before I go to bed - around 10pm. This works well for him even though he is a zombie for the whole bathroom trip. This doesn't work on every kid, however. My younger son cries hysterically when we wake him in the middle of the night and can't calm down enough to pee. I think you just have to try it to see what works for each kid.

Good luck,
S.

It could be that something was physically wrong or he wasn't feeling well, or maybe just over-tired. That would explain the temper tantrums and sudden bedwetting. It could also be that he is just in such a deep sleep he doesn't realize he needs to go. It couldn't hurt to have him checked out by your pediatrician to rule out any physical ailment. Here is a great link to an article on kidshealth.com about bedwetting:
http://kidshealth.org/parent/general/sleep/enuresis.html#

We had the same thing happen-and then all of a sudden things clicked and we haven't had any more problems. We always take her to the bathroom right before she goes to bed, and then we get her up and take her again right before we go to bed. I pick her up and carry her in the bathroom, put her on the potty, she goes, I wash her hands and then she walks back to her bed and goes right back to sleep. She's barely awake when she goes, but she's able to go. I would try that before starting pull-ups. At one point we were having 3-4 overnight accidents a week, and I was having a hard time staying on top of laundry. She was almost 4, and I even asked my ped about it. He said to go ahead and put her in pull-ups if needed, because many kids still have accidents up until they are 5. I bought a big box, decided to start using them if she had another accident, and then never had to use them! Call it a magic box, or luck, I don't know! Anyway, I do think if you bring him to the bathroom right before bed he won't have to hold it as long and even if he sleeps very heavily he probably won't have an accident. If that still doesn't work, then consider the pull-ups. Good luck! I know it's frustrating!

growth spurt? When children grow, the bladder anatomy simply doesn't keep up sometimes, leading to accidents.

We started taking our son to a chiropractor recently for sinus/congestion issues and discovered that he had a subluxation in his lower back that helped contribute to his bed wetting (he is 8...bedwetting is a passed down thing for us too). Since he started being adjusted he has had just a few accidents at night. So from every night to less than once a week. Just the normal fall and crashes that a boy does can jar his spine enough to make the communication to his brain from his bladder fuzzy. Good Luck!