You'd like a little help on how to prevent bedwetting. I can definitely help
you with that. And I've got a powerful resource for you that I'll offer right
at the end of our discussion. If you're wondering why I'm even talking about
this topic, I did my doctoral dissertation on bedwetting. I know more
about bedwetting than you ever wanted to know. And some of that knowledge is going
to be really helpful. I have to tell you a little story though. When I was doing
my doctoral research on bedwetting. And a very intensive study where I was I had a
lot of kids enrolled in this research project to determine some things about
bedwetting. And in the throes of this entire experience, my wife and I were
living in a little apartment while I was finishing my graduate school. And we woke
up one morning to a wet bed. And it was on my side. And how Vicki turned over to
me and she said, "Honey, you are taking this research way too seriously."
Well we had a water bed. And it had sprung a leak.
Honest to goodness. I can't even make this stuff up. But it was funny that that
happened during my doctoral research. I learned some important things in that
study. And what I learned has helped me to develop training programs that are so
effective because we identified the causes of bedwetting. And there's 2. I
want you to know about both of them at least in a summary form because that's
going to help us to figure out what we're going to do about it. The 2
causes of primary nocturnal enuresis, this is bed wetting where they haven't
been dry before. There's different kinds of bed wetting. We won't get into that in
this video. But in the kind where they're wetting the bed, the kids wet in the bed
and hasn't been dry before for a period of at least 6 months, that's what we're
talking about, okay? And the 2 causes are: Number 1, a
deficiency of antidiuretic hormone --ADH for short. This is a hormone that
normally dries us up at night. And that's why most of us don't have to get up and
go during the night. Then when people get older, that hormone reduces and so older
people might need to get up and go during the night. Or pregnant women. Okay,
all bets are off during pregnancy because your hormones are way out of whack. And
so it's normal for that as well. But for most people, you don't even have to get
up because this hormone takes care of the problem. The other cause... And you have
to have both by the way you'll see why in just a minute.
The other cause is deep sleeping. These kids are harder to wake up than other
kids who don't wet the bed. Now, all of the parents that I talked to in my
career already know that. Yeah, my kid is like impossible to wake up. But it had
never been demonstrated in the research and in the clinical literature until I
did my dissertation. And I published that in the Journal of children's healthcare.
It was the first time we had ever shown that, "Yeah, it is legitimately harder to
wake up these kids." Think about it. If you got enough hormone, you're not going to be
wetting the bed even if you're a deep sleeper. If you're a deep sleeper but you
got enough hormone, you're not going to be wet in the bed. Oh! So it takes both to
create bedwetting. Now, that's important. The hormone part, normally kids are gonna
grow out of this. Now, it's going to take a while for some of them. And there's a
small percentage of the population that are still wetting the bed even into
their teens. It's a small percentage. So, kids who are younger, there's a larger
percentage and it's not even abnormal until they're at least 5. So, that'll
give you a little bit of a feel for the demographics around this thing.
And the hormonal problem usually will work itself out over time.
This is the one that gives us some hope, okay? The deep sleeping part. Because
through classical conditioning, you can train the brain to respond differently.
And that's what the training program is all about. Let's start with the basics
though. We have to take some of the emotional intensity out of this thing.
Because quite honestly, this bugs people. It bugs the kids, it bothers the parents.
Okay, especially mom who's having to deal with the mess all the time, right? And the
smell and the cleanup. And it's a hassle. And you just wish it would end. We want
to remove some of the emotional intensity because what we need to do in
the training program is going to require everybody to be a little up, okay? A
little more positive. We want to establish some positive energy around
this whole thing. I've got some other videos here in the bedwetting playlist
that you can review some of the principles as well. And these principles
include shifting the responsibility to the child.
This happens best when mom, dad the caretakers in this home are calm and
positive. When you have some hope, you're going to feel more positive, okay? Sometimes
it's your desperation that tips you over. Trying to disengage that enough that you
can say, "You know what? We're going to handle this. It's going to be fine."
You're positive about it. Okay? Now, this shifts the responsibilities from your
shoulders back over to your child's shoulders. That's where it needs to be.
And kids who are 7, 8, 9 years old are old enough to do this training
program. When they're younger than that, it's a little more challenging. If you
have a really mature. 6 or even 5 year old maybe you can take this on. But
really it's for those kids who are a little older that they're going to have
the most success with what we're going to do. Shifting the responsibility
includes having that child take full responsibility for our objective. What's
our objective? Clean and dry. Clean and dry. That's what we're going for, right?
They get to be responsible for clean and dry. That means any time they're not, it's
their responsibility to get back to that particular condition. So they need to be
able to do the laundry and change the sheets and change their clothes and wash
their body. That's why we're going to wait until they're a little older. This
is not something that you're going to do with toddlers. This is not a potty
training program, okay? You get what I'm talking about. This is for that chronic
bedwetting. And their responsibility for the problem it's going to be a real key.
That will be facilitated by everyone staying positive and upbeat and
energetic about this. Now, when it's time... And you'll know when it's time because
you're going to be feeling good about it. And your kids going to be feeling good
about it. When it's time then you can initiate a specific training sequence.
The reason this works is because our brain can be trained to respond to
things differently Vicky and I learned this when we were early in our marriage.
And we moved into a little basement apartment next to the train tracks. The
trains would come through there and Rumble and shake that whole apartment. It
was loud. It was... I didn't know how we were going to sleep in this place. But what
happens? You get used to it. And as you get used to it, it doesn't
even wake you up anymore. Why? Because your brain tells you, "That's
not important. Just forget about that." I remember after our first son was born.
And Vicki would get up during the night to nurse him.
I remember commenting to her in that timeframe. I said, "Honey, I don't think the
trains are coming by anymore at night." And she's like, "Oh, yeah. They are." Because she
had been awakened she heard the trains come through while she was nursing the
baby. But we had completely become used to it and so it didn't wake us up
anymore. Well that same
principal suggests that maybe our brain can wake us up if we train it to respond
to the signals that are coming up from that full bladder. Because there's not
enough hormone. Yeah. That's where the hope is.
Can we train the brain to say, "This is important. Pay attention to it. Do
something about it. Yeah, we can. That's why the training program works. And
that's how it dovetails with the research that I did for my doctoral
dissertation. So, there's hope and you've got this. You feeling ready? Finallydry.info.
Finallydry.info. What I've got there is an e-book. It's only 10
bucks where you can download this ebook today and get started with that training
program. If you're not quite ready to pull the trigger on a training program,
then when you're ready, that will be your resource. You can
download it today and study up so that that will help you in your preparations.
I hope you found this helpful. If you did, share it with someone else that you know
is looking.
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