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Getting Bedwetting Under Control
An excerpt from Perfect Parenting, The Dictionary of 1,000 Parenting Tips
By Elizabeth Pantley
Make a plan: Your child is most likely embarrassed by this situation and really wants to control it. Empathize with his feelings, and offer to put together a plan to solve the problem. Some ideas are to limit fluids after dinner, use the toilet twice immediately prior to going to bed, keeping a night light on to light a clear pathway to the bathroom, using a plastic mattress cover, keeping clean pajamas and a sleeping bag near the bed for accidents. Allow the child to take responsibility for the problem by showing him how to change the bedding and launder the wet sheets. During this time, you may want to "double-make" the bed. Put on a clean sheet, cover with a plastic mattress cover, and then put another clean sheet on top. If an accident occurs, your child can simply peel off the wet sheet and mattress cover and have a fresh sheet ready to sleep on.
Use an alarm pad: If your child is older than 5, has no health-related issues causing the bedwetting, and clearly wants to eliminate the problem, talk to your doctor or hospital about purchasing a bed-wetting device. This is a pad that that is connected to a buzzer that wakes your child up at the start of an accident so that he can use the bathroom. Typically, after a few weeks of use, a child becomes used to waking up to a full bladder and will do so without the pad.
Don't obsess about it: Don't make bed-wetting a primary issue of the family. Take steps to control it and eliminate it, but don't focus too much energy on it. Try to be patient. It will take time and maturity for your child to get this part of growing up under control, but it will happen