‘My son wet the bed for 8 years. Here’s what our reality looked like (and what eventually helped).’

In parenthood, you’re prepared for the sleepless nights in the early days.      

All-nighters with a newborn are a rite of passage, albeit an exhausting one (we definitely found in our house). What they don’t tell you is that the sleepless nights don’t just end with the baby days. 

They can and often do continue long after that, and in the case of extended bedwetting (or nocturnal enuresis to call it by its official name), can become quite the rite of passage for some parents of its own.

Like my husband and I. We supported our son through 8 tough years of bedwetting.

Firstly, some things I discovered: bedwetting is extremely common.

Up to 15% of 5 year old kids continue to wet the bed. With time, patience and solutions in place, it's a treatable condition, and it's usually from minor developmental delays impacting a child’s ability to hold their bladder for long periods at night. 

While we know that wetting the bed happens to a whole host of kids, it can be a tough experience for them (and their parents) dealing with confusion, embarrassment and continuous broken sleep.

Image: Supplied. 

We lived through the experience of bedwetting with our eldest child, our son. 

He struggled to stay dry at night throughout the early primary years, and it was a really tough thing to navigate with him for a long while. 

In his case, it was a combination of being an extremely deep sleeper, alongside having a smaller bladder and a struggle with bladder control. 

We spent many, many nights at the coalface of the bedwetting mountain, washing piles of bed linen and pyjamas. It was a long, exhausting road for all of us, and one that was surprisingly quite emotional for him and I. 

Exhaustion, lack of sleep, mental load, shame, guilt and a whole lot of patience needed. 

But at the heart of it all was him and his experience. We wanted to always ensure he felt supported and open to talk about it whenever he wanted to.

We showered our son in constant love and reassurance that what he was experiencing was nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed about, and something that had a light at the end. We just need to work towards it. 

We would see the other side of this soon if we just kept working on it together. 

Eventually, the bedwetting in our house became a thing of the past, but it was a slow process with plenty of lessons along the way. 

Here’s what helped us as a family.

1. Understanding (and sharing with our son) the cause

Understanding that bedwetting is a common and unintentional condition and that the majority of kids (around 97%) grow out of it by high school was hugely reassuring for both my husband and I and our son. 

We were able to explore the causes, gain an understanding of why it happens to the body and formulate a plan together with our son thanks to the knowledge we had. 

Learning the best ways to talk to our son about it for us was really important to get right. The support and tools here from Huggies DryNites helped immensely to be able to tell him the facts and frame it for him to understand, and feel comfortable with.

Normalising it made the process a whole lot less intimidating, and really importantly: gave my son back some of the power to accept his body. He was determined, and we were backing him every step of the way.

Image: Supplied. 

2. Finding support

We spoke to our family GP and were referred to a doctor who specialises in bedwetting behaviours to get a better understanding of how we could best tackle it. Interestingly, at our first appointment with the doctor, she advised waiting until our then 6-year-old was a little older, as there was a chance the bedwetting could resolve itself.

She assured us that she found treatment results were generally better in kids over 8 years old.

Though when this didn’t quite happen for us, we returned to see her after our son turned 8. 

With her guidance, we were able to get to the root cause of our son’s bed wetting and pull together a treatment plan that would address why exactly he was wetting the bed. This support was invaluable in helping us to achieve dry nights.

3. Choosing the right products

While we knew that eventually we’d no longer be woken by the very familiar cry of “Muuuuum I’ve wet the bed”, in the interim we needed effective solutions to SOS (save our sheets), make the nights more manageable and even allow for sleep overs with family and friends. 

Huggies DryNites Night Time Pants, which my son could wear under his PJs like normal knickers were an easy, comfy solution. 

DryNites allowed him to sleep in his usual snuggly sheets without any fear of wetness. We found them super absorbent with their leak-lock system, so they stayed dry for up to 12 hours meaning no overnight accidents. 

They came in larger sizes too (so thankful that they suit kids from ages 2 to 15 years old), meaning they fitted properly as he grew, and didn't make him feel like he was "too old" to be wearing them. He liked that they looked and felt like real undies.  

The result from this changed everything for us really: an uninterrupted night’s sleep, which was especially appreciated during the depths of winter. We used DryNites for almost 12 months until my son was ready to progress to a bedwetting alarm under the guidance of our doctor which eventually did the trick in helping us to achieve long-term results.

They really helped our son maintain his confidence and self-esteem as he worked towards dry nights during this tricky time.

4. Setting up a routine for night-time success

While we are all familiar with a bedtime routine for a baby or toddler, it’s something that often flies out the window as kids get older, and the afternoons and evenings become busier. 

We found that implementing a few tweaks to our bedtime routine helped our son to go to bed feeling confident; the groundwork in place for when we eventually moved to a bedwetting alarm.

Image: Supplied. 

What worked for us might be different to others' experiences and solutions of course. For us, we figured out a combination that seemed to work: we upped his water intake during the day as dehydration can actually make bedwetting worse, but cut out fluids after 6pm. We also made sure he wasn’t drinking anything sugary of an afternoon. 

We started a nightly wind down before bed, finishing up with a trip to the loo before lights out to fully empty his bladder before sleep.

Bedwetting is a common phase of childhood. It's a completely natural and an uncontrollable condition that will usually pass with time. 

In the meantime, Huggies DryNites helps kids do what they do best: be kids. Too often bedwetting impacts children's self esteem, confidence and they miss out on regular childhood experiences.

To help families navigate this stage, there's DryNites Night Time Pants, as well as helpful expert advice for  bedtime routines and communicating with your child.

Feature image: Supplied.

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