Bedwetting is a common occurrence that affects 5 - 6 million children, so if you are some bedwetting issues, don't worry, you are not alone. In fact we are featuring Bedwetting this month to help educate you on this common potty training dilemma!

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Bedwetting 101

There are two types of bed wetting or the term used by the medical profession is nocturnal enuresis (EN-YOU-REE-SIS).

Primary nocturnal enuresis is the term used when children have never achieved night time control and are wetting more than 2-3 times per month. Secondary nocturnal enuresis is when a child has been dry at night for 6 months and then begins to wet again.

Bed-wetting is not a mental or behavior problem. It doesn't happen because the child is too lazy to get out of bed to go to the bathroom. Most children who wet at night have primary nocturnal enuresis and research indicates that it can be a hereditary, although there are other reasons children wet at night like:

Their bodies have not transitioned to only needing to urinate during waking hours
Their signal from their brain to wake us up to go potty has not fully matured
They sleep too deeply to be awakened by this signal - this is referred to as "arousal dysfunction".
There is imbalance in the bladder muscles i.e. the muscle that contracts to squeeze the urine out is much stronger than the muscle that holds the urine in.
The bladder is too small to hold the normal amount of urine
And many more...You can find more reasons here

It is always a good idea to consult with your child's pediatrician or better yet, a pediatrician that is skilled in treating bed wetting. And maybe the most important thing is for your child to know that bed-wetting isn't his or her "fault." Punishing your child for wetting the bed will not solve the problem.

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Treatment Options

Now that you have a better understanding of bed wetting and reasons why bedwetting may occur, let's explore treatment options.

The goal of all the therapies is teach the child to wake up when the bladder if full and/or to decrease the need for night time urination.

There are a number of different behavioral therapies such as motivation programs with star charts, guided imagery and hypnosis.

Moisture alarms or Bed Wetting Alarms are the most common form of conditional therapy are considered to be safe and effective. The alarms are built to sense moisture and make a very loud noise, which should wake up the child, so that they get out of bed and go to the bathroom to finish urinating. If this is something you would like to explore, check out how to train your child to use a bed wetting alarm.

Generally speaking, your pediatrician may prescribe medication as a last resort. There are three types of prescription medicines and one homeopathic medicine that are generally used to treat bed wetting:

These medications will are ideal for situational use and work well to to control accidental wetting for short periods of time, such as when children are on overnight trips or at camp. In some cases, these medications are used along with other behavioral and conditional therapies to control bed wetting...

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