If you are new to this blog, all the best information about how we achieved dry nights and said goodbye to enuresis and all it's sleep issues is in the previous posts. Just start at the beginning!
Tonight I just wanted to share what all this has meant to us. First and foremost, we've learned that we are not among a handful of people facing this problem. Bedwetters are everywhere. Every age, sex, race, lifestyle. No one talks about it, but they're out there. Second, we have learned to be even more compassionate with our bed wetting child. When we are armed with something that really works, we are showing real love and care for our son. (Now, I don't want you to go getting the idea that this will work for everyone. Sometimes there are medical issues, etc.)
Third, and this one is really meaningful if you've been dealing with this problem for a long time, we don't have to wonder if the bed will be dry in the morning. In fact, most nights I don't even give it a second thought before I go to bed! I hope you can overcome bedwetting soon, too. It is such a wonderful feeling. If you could ask our son, be sure that he would agree
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
What time do we go to bed?
I'm not sure how relevant this is, but another thing that those expensive enuresis treatment people recommended was to make sure that our son had a fairly consistent bedtime of around 9:30pm. We have tried that, but our son still does not usually fall asleep until around 11 or 12. I could not say that the bedtime did not have any impact though, because it was just a part of a whole program that we instituted all at once. Who knows? Give it a try. Just don't be surprised if you find that your son or daughter does not fall asleep for hours even when you know that they are tired. What we did was to let him read a book by lamplight until he fell asleep. Hope this helps!
Monday, February 25, 2008
my blog just for fun
This blog has been very fun for me, and I'm gonna keep it up and going so that more people can continue to share what's working for them. The problem is that I've basically told you everything that has helped us so far. So I'll just keep posting other ideas that I get from here and there!
I just had to let you all know that I am keeping up another blog that is just for fun. I hope you'll visit me from time to time as I blog about my daily life as mother to 5 semisweet children!
http://momof6-lifeintheday.blogspot.com/
See you there, and don't forget to leave a comment so I know you've stopped by!
I just had to let you all know that I am keeping up another blog that is just for fun. I hope you'll visit me from time to time as I blog about my daily life as mother to 5 semisweet children!
http://momof6-lifeintheday.blogspot.com/
See you there, and don't forget to leave a comment so I know you've stopped by!
dietary changes
The company that we are paying $2000 for help with the enuresis problem hasn't mentioned any dietary changes yet, but one helpful mom, Charlene, has shared with me some information on this subject that she gleaned from a bedwetting book. The book is called Getting to Dry and their website is http://www.tryfordry.com/
This is a medically based organization, and they do recommend medications, which if you've read my previous posts you know that I'm opposed to. The thing that interested me about what Charlene is trying is that I whole-heartedly approve of the diet recommendations. I don't know how far these will go toward helping everyone because this is mostly the way we have eaten for our kids' entire lives. But these recommendations can only be good for our lives in more respects than just helping with dry beds!
Here's what Charlene had to say:
I don't know about you, but I look forward to hearing from Charlene soon!
This is a medically based organization, and they do recommend medications, which if you've read my previous posts you know that I'm opposed to. The thing that interested me about what Charlene is trying is that I whole-heartedly approve of the diet recommendations. I don't know how far these will go toward helping everyone because this is mostly the way we have eaten for our kids' entire lives. But these recommendations can only be good for our lives in more respects than just helping with dry beds!
Here's what Charlene had to say:
they suggest re-introduce foods one at a time to see if any have an impact. Foods to avoid are as follows: anything carbonated, anything with caffiene, artificail colors, citric acid/vitamin C, citrus fruits and melons, dairy (after noon hour, including milk cheese--even pizza, ice cream), sugary foods and candy. We don't eat alot of "junk" in our family so the biggest issue for us will be the fact that my daughter is a "milk maid" and controlling the "outside sugary foods" I will let you know in 2 weeks if I see an impact or not.
I don't know about you, but I look forward to hearing from Charlene soon!
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Should we medicate?
This is the question that plagues so many of us. Can't the doctor just give us a pill that will make this all go away? The simple answer is no. There are some things that doctors have prescribed, but they don't work well in most children. They also have some serious side effects that may make them just as irritating as bedwetting itself.
Besides, as I hope you are already aware, quite often medications just cover up symptoms instead of dealing with the root problems. In the case of enuresis, pills and sprays are at best a way of avoiding the inconveniences that both child and parents face. They simply do not address the true cause, which is a sleep disorder.
I am very sympathetic toward the family as a unit. I have spent hours every week doing extra laundry ( I have 5 kids...that's 2 loads a day without wet bedsheets!), and I have spent lots of money on pull-ups. My husband and I have lost entire nights of sleep. Our son has faced embarrassment, sleeplessness, frustration. We understand the inconveniences.
But beyond the obvious symptoms of this sleep issue are the hidden yet equally troubling ones. Lack of focus, hyperactivity, diagnoses of ADD or ADHD, groggy mornings, cranky afternoons, poor grades, irrational fears, and more...it's like a bad gift that keeps on giving. And if you medicate the symptom of bedwetting, all of these free bonuses just keep right on coming. In fact, medicating for any of them may be unwise. You may lose the bedwetting and the attention problems, but the free gift is yours to keep: grogginess, bad attitude (how's your when you are sleep deprived?), tooth grinding, night terrors, sleep walking, etc.
Of course, the difficult decision of what's right for your family lies with you, but as for me and my house, we will serve up no pills! Besides, the things that we have been trying are really helping. Hurray for sleep!
Besides, as I hope you are already aware, quite often medications just cover up symptoms instead of dealing with the root problems. In the case of enuresis, pills and sprays are at best a way of avoiding the inconveniences that both child and parents face. They simply do not address the true cause, which is a sleep disorder.
I am very sympathetic toward the family as a unit. I have spent hours every week doing extra laundry ( I have 5 kids...that's 2 loads a day without wet bedsheets!), and I have spent lots of money on pull-ups. My husband and I have lost entire nights of sleep. Our son has faced embarrassment, sleeplessness, frustration. We understand the inconveniences.
But beyond the obvious symptoms of this sleep issue are the hidden yet equally troubling ones. Lack of focus, hyperactivity, diagnoses of ADD or ADHD, groggy mornings, cranky afternoons, poor grades, irrational fears, and more...it's like a bad gift that keeps on giving. And if you medicate the symptom of bedwetting, all of these free bonuses just keep right on coming. In fact, medicating for any of them may be unwise. You may lose the bedwetting and the attention problems, but the free gift is yours to keep: grogginess, bad attitude (how's your when you are sleep deprived?), tooth grinding, night terrors, sleep walking, etc.
Of course, the difficult decision of what's right for your family lies with you, but as for me and my house, we will serve up no pills! Besides, the things that we have been trying are really helping. Hurray for sleep!
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Early to bed...
One of the most difficult things for the parents of children who wet the bed to enforce is a bedtime. Part of the reason for that is the fact that enuretics usually figure out at some point that when they stay up late, they are less likely to wet the bed. It's not fail-proof, but there is enough of a correlation that the kids pick up on it. So they have a difficult time going to sleep. Many times parents misinterpret this as just a symptom of fighting sleep because most kids do that at some point in their lives (or, if they are like mine, they all fight it all the time). Remember, if your little night owl won't fall asleep until midnight even though you put him in bed at 8:00, punishments and even rewards are unlikely to help.
Our son had us at the end of our ropes when it came to bedtime. He would lie in bed, unable to make himself fall asleep, and dream up all kinds of things to be afraid of. And because he spent 4 or 5 hours agonizing over an illustration on the cover of a children's book (a condensed version of Dracula in one particular instance), he couldn't stop worrying over it even during the day. It was so bad at one point that he would not even walk into one of the bedrooms in broad daylight without someone accompanying him. My husband tried talking him out of it in his way; I tried talking him through it in my way. It wasn't until we were a couple of weeks into the $2000 enuresis clinic program that his seemingly irrational fears started to subside.
I also did some research into general sleep issues in children. It turns out that when children's sleep rhythms are out of whack (real technical terms here, I know), they just literally can't fall asleep until their internal clocks say to do so. Well, when our first son was born, my husband and I were both full time college students. We stayed up late and slept in nearly every day, and we would keep him up with us so that he wouldn't get up so early. Hindsight would be so much more effective if it came at the time ya' needed it, no? And then after college my husband would leave home for work at 6am and get back home between 7pm and 10pm. So if the kids were gonna get to see Daddy at all, they had to stay up late. We would go to the park at night and shine the van's headlights onto the playground just to be able to spend some time together. No wonder the boy's a nightowl.
So those professionals in all things bedwetting had some tips for us. First and foremost: never make a big deal about his irrational fears. Often what we fret about the most with our children will never get better until we let go and give them room to get past it. (That's from me, no charge, not the pros). Second: let him have his nightlight (even all the lights on, if that's what he wants). Third: practice patience and compassion. So for a while, we let our son have a very bright lamp on in his room. He also left the door open and had a bright light on in the hallway. He lay in the bed reading books until he was ready to sleep (yes, often still around midnight), and I just started easing back his rise and shine time. Today, without our prompting at all, he sleeps with the door closed and the lights off. More often than not, he goes to sleep within 30 minutes of bedtime (which the pros recommend to be between 9 and 10).
As a matter of fact, he's snoozing beautifully right now, and he's not wet the bed in a long time. God bless sleep!
Our son had us at the end of our ropes when it came to bedtime. He would lie in bed, unable to make himself fall asleep, and dream up all kinds of things to be afraid of. And because he spent 4 or 5 hours agonizing over an illustration on the cover of a children's book (a condensed version of Dracula in one particular instance), he couldn't stop worrying over it even during the day. It was so bad at one point that he would not even walk into one of the bedrooms in broad daylight without someone accompanying him. My husband tried talking him out of it in his way; I tried talking him through it in my way. It wasn't until we were a couple of weeks into the $2000 enuresis clinic program that his seemingly irrational fears started to subside.
I also did some research into general sleep issues in children. It turns out that when children's sleep rhythms are out of whack (real technical terms here, I know), they just literally can't fall asleep until their internal clocks say to do so. Well, when our first son was born, my husband and I were both full time college students. We stayed up late and slept in nearly every day, and we would keep him up with us so that he wouldn't get up so early. Hindsight would be so much more effective if it came at the time ya' needed it, no? And then after college my husband would leave home for work at 6am and get back home between 7pm and 10pm. So if the kids were gonna get to see Daddy at all, they had to stay up late. We would go to the park at night and shine the van's headlights onto the playground just to be able to spend some time together. No wonder the boy's a nightowl.
So those professionals in all things bedwetting had some tips for us. First and foremost: never make a big deal about his irrational fears. Often what we fret about the most with our children will never get better until we let go and give them room to get past it. (That's from me, no charge, not the pros). Second: let him have his nightlight (even all the lights on, if that's what he wants). Third: practice patience and compassion. So for a while, we let our son have a very bright lamp on in his room. He also left the door open and had a bright light on in the hallway. He lay in the bed reading books until he was ready to sleep (yes, often still around midnight), and I just started easing back his rise and shine time. Today, without our prompting at all, he sleeps with the door closed and the lights off. More often than not, he goes to sleep within 30 minutes of bedtime (which the pros recommend to be between 9 and 10).
As a matter of fact, he's snoozing beautifully right now, and he's not wet the bed in a long time. God bless sleep!
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Something new!
I just learned that the Bedwetting Help for Moms newsletter recommended that their readers visit my blog. Boy is the pressure on!
So I told you all in some previous posts that we were instructed to have our son drink as much water before bedtime as he could comfortably hold. If you haven't read those posts, you really might want to check them out. Well, there was another little trick that they told us at the same time that I forgot to mention. They suggested that we switch him entirely to distilled water to drink. Now I know that for some kids, drinking water might as well be drinking pee. Even my mom doesn't drink water and never has. She starts her morning with a diet soda (boy have we gone round and round on that one!).
But we're talking hope here. The hope that our kids can stay dry! Every parent has their own way of making the kids do what they don't want to do. Some of you may just hand them the cup and say "Here, drink this and don't give me any lip about it!" in your best drill sergeant voice. But if that's not you, then perhaps start out with adding a little to some 100% juice and gradually increasing the ratio of water to juice. Or if you have your own little tricks, feel free to email me and let me know so I can post them. I'll be glad to give you the name of the book that the high-paid enuresis professional gave us detailing the benefits of drinking distilled water....just as soon as I find it!
Come back soon, there's so much more!
So I told you all in some previous posts that we were instructed to have our son drink as much water before bedtime as he could comfortably hold. If you haven't read those posts, you really might want to check them out. Well, there was another little trick that they told us at the same time that I forgot to mention. They suggested that we switch him entirely to distilled water to drink. Now I know that for some kids, drinking water might as well be drinking pee. Even my mom doesn't drink water and never has. She starts her morning with a diet soda (boy have we gone round and round on that one!).
But we're talking hope here. The hope that our kids can stay dry! Every parent has their own way of making the kids do what they don't want to do. Some of you may just hand them the cup and say "Here, drink this and don't give me any lip about it!" in your best drill sergeant voice. But if that's not you, then perhaps start out with adding a little to some 100% juice and gradually increasing the ratio of water to juice. Or if you have your own little tricks, feel free to email me and let me know so I can post them. I'll be glad to give you the name of the book that the high-paid enuresis professional gave us detailing the benefits of drinking distilled water....just as soon as I find it!
Come back soon, there's so much more!
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
okay, I'm back!
For those of you who were keeping up with this blog, I'm so sorry. Life has a way of happening, as I'm sure you all know. My sister-in-law has come to live with us, the kids have a stomach bug, ya know, life.
When I left off, I was telling you how the professional enuresis people have us deal with waking our son up at night. Well, when the alarm goes off, mom and dad have to get up with him (well, at least one of us does, but usually we both do). At this point there are a couple of things to be careful to remember. 1) you parents are not fully awake and may be cranky, 2) your child is not fully awake and is likely to be cranky. This is normal and expected, so don't overreact, i.e., don't snatch the little darling up by the toenails and demand with your best drill sergeant voice that they turn off the alarm. Sometimes it helps me to rehearse this little phrase in my mind..."I am a calm and rational individual...I am a calm and rational individual..."
If your child does not wake up on his own from the blaring of the alarm, then you have to wake him up gently by rubbing a cool wet rag over his face and neck. When he is awake, he is to turn off the alarm (no, you can't do this for him even if the sound is splitting your head in two) and go to the bathroom. In the bathroom, because he is still probably not fully awake, he needs to splash his face with cold water. (side note: he has to do this even when he wakes up before wetting the bed). Then he gets to go to the toilet, even if he doesn't feel he needs to pee. Be firm in all of these things, and steel yourself for what comes next.
This next part is particularly difficult if your child is young. When he is done using the bathroom, then he gets to clean up his alarm pad. As a compassionate (and calm and rational) parent, you will probably have the urge to wrap the sleepy angel in a warm blanket and let him snooze on the floor while you do the dirty work. But the real point of all this is to break that messed up sleeping cycle so you take care of the problem, not just the symptoms. If your child is anything like ours, it will take him 5 times as long to do this as it would take for you to do it yourself. He also may keep falling back to sleep even while wiping the screens dry. Be strong, and remember that better days are ahead.
Now, I don't know how all this will work out for you if you already have one of those little alarms that fit in the underwear or panties. Our alarm consists of a vinyl pad with two mesh screens. We put a pillowcase over the top screen (or one over both screens if, like us, you have cheap, thin sheets). When the sheet gets wet, the moisture makes the screens contact and sets off the alarm. If you need any help with how this goes, just email me at nelle78@gmail.com. I can't promise that I can figure it all out, but I'd be glad to help if I can.
When he wets, our son has to take the pillowcases off, wipe down both screens and the vinyl pad with a handtowel. Then he has to put clean pillowcases back on the screens, clean up the sheets if necessary (this usually has not been a problem even though he pees like a horse because the pillowcases and pad hold most of it), and change into another nightshirt. Oh, and the required sleep attire is a shirt with no bottoms at all. Not even underwear. If modesty is an issue for your child or the rest of the family, make sure the shirt is long enough to cover him up. Our son just sleeps in one of his daddy's t-shirts.
Okay, that's all I have time for today. I promise I will do better about this in the future. Honestly, I didn't know how many people were actually reading my blog. I feel so honored to be able to do what I can to help you all. My sister-in-law who is staying with us tells me that her 12 year old daughter has the same problems that my son does. She is going to be calling the dad to recommend he follow my blog and start trying all this. I can't wait to be able to tell you if it works for them!
PS. We have only had one wet night since my last post!
When I left off, I was telling you how the professional enuresis people have us deal with waking our son up at night. Well, when the alarm goes off, mom and dad have to get up with him (well, at least one of us does, but usually we both do). At this point there are a couple of things to be careful to remember. 1) you parents are not fully awake and may be cranky, 2) your child is not fully awake and is likely to be cranky. This is normal and expected, so don't overreact, i.e., don't snatch the little darling up by the toenails and demand with your best drill sergeant voice that they turn off the alarm. Sometimes it helps me to rehearse this little phrase in my mind..."I am a calm and rational individual...I am a calm and rational individual..."
If your child does not wake up on his own from the blaring of the alarm, then you have to wake him up gently by rubbing a cool wet rag over his face and neck. When he is awake, he is to turn off the alarm (no, you can't do this for him even if the sound is splitting your head in two) and go to the bathroom. In the bathroom, because he is still probably not fully awake, he needs to splash his face with cold water. (side note: he has to do this even when he wakes up before wetting the bed). Then he gets to go to the toilet, even if he doesn't feel he needs to pee. Be firm in all of these things, and steel yourself for what comes next.
This next part is particularly difficult if your child is young. When he is done using the bathroom, then he gets to clean up his alarm pad. As a compassionate (and calm and rational) parent, you will probably have the urge to wrap the sleepy angel in a warm blanket and let him snooze on the floor while you do the dirty work. But the real point of all this is to break that messed up sleeping cycle so you take care of the problem, not just the symptoms. If your child is anything like ours, it will take him 5 times as long to do this as it would take for you to do it yourself. He also may keep falling back to sleep even while wiping the screens dry. Be strong, and remember that better days are ahead.
Now, I don't know how all this will work out for you if you already have one of those little alarms that fit in the underwear or panties. Our alarm consists of a vinyl pad with two mesh screens. We put a pillowcase over the top screen (or one over both screens if, like us, you have cheap, thin sheets). When the sheet gets wet, the moisture makes the screens contact and sets off the alarm. If you need any help with how this goes, just email me at nelle78@gmail.com. I can't promise that I can figure it all out, but I'd be glad to help if I can.
When he wets, our son has to take the pillowcases off, wipe down both screens and the vinyl pad with a handtowel. Then he has to put clean pillowcases back on the screens, clean up the sheets if necessary (this usually has not been a problem even though he pees like a horse because the pillowcases and pad hold most of it), and change into another nightshirt. Oh, and the required sleep attire is a shirt with no bottoms at all. Not even underwear. If modesty is an issue for your child or the rest of the family, make sure the shirt is long enough to cover him up. Our son just sleeps in one of his daddy's t-shirts.
Okay, that's all I have time for today. I promise I will do better about this in the future. Honestly, I didn't know how many people were actually reading my blog. I feel so honored to be able to do what I can to help you all. My sister-in-law who is staying with us tells me that her 12 year old daughter has the same problems that my son does. She is going to be calling the dad to recommend he follow my blog and start trying all this. I can't wait to be able to tell you if it works for them!
PS. We have only had one wet night since my last post!
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