He is 8 years old and still wets the bed but now at night he takes it off. we ask him why and he says diapers are for babies and im not a baby we tried explaining to him there not diapers there just for his bed wetting but he didnt buy it. so he keeps taking them off finally my wife had it with changing the sheets everyday and told him he would have to change them now and yet he still didnt so since the bed was still wet he slept on the floor and he still refuses to change them. he recently presented us with an idea of wearing multiple pairs of underwear (briefs) to bed. he put on about 10 and they still fit under his pajamas and he said he was still comfortable. My wife was considering the idea and bought him a bunch of more underwear. Will this keep his sheets (for the most part) dry? and if it does should we let him do it.
Take him to a doctor to find out why he wets the bed, he may have an underdeveloped bladder. Explain to him that a lot of people wear something extra to bed to protect themselves and the bedding and bed. Buy a hospital type of bed pad to put under him at night. Make sure he doesn't drink after 6 pm and make sure he always goes to the bathroom before going to bed. ***** Keep checking on him during the night.... find out about what time he wets the bed, then you may be able to prevent it if you wake him and take him to the bathroom.
Letting him sleep in his own pee at eight years old seems a poor idea. Try buying him a mattress pad specifically for accidents. Is he using the bathroom before bed or not? I don't care if he doesn't have to go, he need to use it last thing before crawling under the covers. I used to skip it and wet the bed occasionally for WAY too long. edit: also, don't let him drink anything for an hour before bed, no matter how thirsty. He'll survive. About what Preston said... I believe it's true some of the time, but not all of the time. I was a prime example.
My son was also a bed wetter. He did stop just this year, at 8... just to give you hope. Anyway, they have good nights which are more like underwear. The multiple underwear will most likely end up giving him a rash with the moisture next to his body all night. When my son wanted to try to go in underwear, we used a $2 shower curtain liner to line the bed under his sheets to save the mattress. I also 'borrowed' pads, with permission, from my bed in the maternity ward. They are super soft cloth on one side, and soft plastic on the other. Very comfortable for him and convenient for me. I have a few of them, so I just had to wash the one pad and one pair of underwear instead of all the sheets. There are crib mattress covers that are similar, just to put under him. Having a few is important, though. Beach towels also work. My son only wore underwear and a warm shirt so I didn't have to wash the jammies, too. There are alarms to buy to help wake your son if he starts to wet. My son slept through them, but you might have more luck. No fluids three hours before bedtime... and try waking him when you go to bed... as late as you can make it. Good luck!
Your son is right, it's time to get rid of the diaper. As he's ready to get rid of the diaper, you have to get to the root of the problem. Causes of bedwetting are undue stress on the child because of the home environment. It can result from excessive babying on the part of one or both parents. Does your son still suck his thumb? Is he immature? I know a kid who lived in a haunted house who was so scared from his experiences there, he wet the bed until he was 21 and out of the house for good. He's now a Producer at CNN, so, yes, there are happy endings. Native Hawaiians call the condition; Lazy In The Head. If you clean up after your cherub, he will never learn to clean up after himself, and it goes beyond that. Talk to your pediatrician about it. There is a device you can get that is a mat that goes beneath the sheet which is wired to a clock which goes on the bedside table. When the boy urinates, it trips a circuit, triggering an alarm clock next to the bed. The drill is, the child hears the alarm, and must get up. He has to change the sheets by himself, his pajama bottoms, anything that's wet. The idea is to program the subconscious into holding on until it's wake-up time OR waking the child up to go to the toilet. After a week or two, the child gets tired of getting up and changing the bedclothes and clothing, the glass cieling is broken and bedwetting is a thing of the past. Give this a shot, and try and get to the source of what is making your child wetting the bed. You can begin by preventing the child from chugging a tumbler of liquid right before bed. Get him into the habit of brushing his teeth, then urinating before going to bed. It might be something that simple. A seasoned parent will argue you cannot expect an 8 year old to change the sheets. You have to take charge, not let him dictate anything to you and you have to get him up before you go to bed and make him urinate. Think about all of this, and ask your pediatrician. Good Luck.
It depends on how much he wets the bed, quanity. My little brother had this problem and we bought him the pull ups for bed. they kept the bed real dry but after a while he was on them for too long. After a couple of months we decided to get him checked by a doctor and he had a medical condition that caused to urinate uncontorably. I am sure your son is fine but if it goes on for too long I would get him checked. But those pull up these days look almost like real underwear, and are less work as far as laundry goes.
