Why do kids wet the bed? I know a thing or 2 about that and I'll share it all
with you. I am so proud that I am an expert on bedwetting. I know that's weird.
But I am. I got to do so much work in this field early in my career. And I even
wrote my doctoral dissertation on the topic. I know some things about
bedwetting and I think as a parent, probably the most important place to
start is understanding that there are different categories of bedwetting.
There's primary and there secondary. There's nocturnal and there's diurnal.
Now, we combine those categories so that we have primary nocturnal enuresis.
We have secondary nocturnal enuresis. We have primary diurnal enuresis. And we've
got secondary diurnal enuresis. So what do these terms mean? First of all, I'm
saying enuresis. That just means wetting. It's an
elimination disorder. Meaning, how we eliminate the waste from our body, okay?
And there's number 1 and number 2. We're just talking about number 1
today. Wetting. That's what I mean when I say enuresis. Nocturnal, that means at
night. So, when we say bedwetting, that's nocturnal enuresis. Got it? Primary.
Primary simply means that there has never been a period of dryness. Haven't
ever been there. For more than... I think the diagnostic criteria say that it's
like 3 months, 5 months, 6 months. It depends on what type we're looking at.
But for a period of several months, we have never had that long of a period of
dryness. That's what primary means.
Secondary means, we have had a period of dryness but then we went back to the
wetting. Diurnal means daytime. Or basically night and day, okay? So, if it's
happening during the day, during waking hours and at night. Or if it's only
during the day, that's what we call diurnal. So, you got all the terms? Primary
and secondary. Diurnal and nocturnal. These are the different types of wetting.
It probably makes sense now to talk a little bit about development. Because
it's normal for a child to wet day or night. You know this because when your
kids are little, you put them in diapers. Why? Because they don't have the ability
to take care of the problem on their own. When we go through the potty training
with our kids, we hope that now they're not going to have accidents anymore. And
everything's going to be just peachy, right? Doesn't happen that way. Most of
the time, we have accidents. That's normal. And especially at nighttime. So you might
notice well my kids doing okay during the day but he's still wet in the bed at
night. Yeah. Very typical. To answer the question "Why do kids wet the bed?" It's
because that's how kids are built. It's what kids do.
For a while. There comes a time when we should be able to expect them to stay
dry. We don't even diagnose bedwetting. I mean, clinically speaking, until they're
a certain age or it's happened for a certain amount of time. And that age
typically is around 4, 5, 6 years old is when we're expecting them to stay
dry. Now, it's still pretty common for kids who are 5, 6, 7, 8 years old to still
wetting the bed occasionally. If this is your child, don't worry too much. I've
done a few other videos on bedwetting. In fact, there is a playlist here on the
channel about bedwetting. So if this is something you're dealing with, go to that
playlist and you'll get some additional input. We've also created an e-book with
a training program called finally dry. And you can find that at finallydry.info.
finallydry.info. There's some resources for you. Let's go back to the
question, "why do kids wet the bed?" Now, we've set up the developmental
expectation so you know. Even if my kid is 5, 6, 7, 8 years old,
still pretty normal. Now, if they're older than that,
yeah. We're outside of the norm and we're dealing with what we would clinically
diagnosed as bedwetting. Let's make a distinction now between the primary
causes of nocturnal (The nighttime) or diurnal, the daytime. And primary versus
secondary. Let's start with primary nocturnal enuresis. Kids have never been
dry for a significant period of time and it happens only at night. This is caused
by 2 things. Deep sleeping and a deficiency of a
hormone called ADH, Antidiuretic Hormone. You have to have both of those causes
for it to happen. Because if you're not a deep sleeper, you're going to get up and go
to the bathroom, right? And if you got enough of the hormone, you get dried up
anyway like most people who don't have to get up and go at all. Both causes are
necessary for primary nocturnal enuresis. When we're talking about secondary
enuresis, whether it's nocturnal or diurnal. Either one. The cause is often
associated with some kind of loss. There's usually more of a psychological
component, if it's secondary. Now, if it's primary, we haven't found any
clear connection to psychological causes. Kids probably doing okay psychologically.
But with secondary, there is often... Not always. But there is often some kind of
an experience of loss that precipitated the enuresis. It might be the death of
a family member. It might be a move that the family experienced. It might be the
loss of a pet. But typically, there is some element that has an emotional
component to it. And so we handle that differently. We typically treat it
differently. Diurnal, daytime wetting sometimes, not always, is associated with
some kind of physiological cause. So, there might be a urinary tract infection
or there might be something going on physically and physiologically. We want
to take a look at that and rule it out. There are other causes for diurnal that
could be associated with psychological factors as well. It gets more complicated
when we're dealing with secondary or diurnal enuresis. Primary nocturnal
enuresis is probably the most simple kind. And that's the kind that I focus on
in that treatment program I told you about. At finallydry.info. When we
can reasonably conclude that there are some other psychological or emotional
components, we want to make sure we're addressing those appropriately as part
of a treatment program. It doesn't help anyone to be shamed or
ridiculed or threatened. In fact, often this makes it worse. But out of
frustration, sometimes that's what parents do to try to address the problem.
We'll be forgiving of yourself because if you've become a little impatient
about your child's wetting problem, that's totally normal.
I mean, it's a hassle. Let's regroup, under stand the problem correctly so that we
can help our kids the most and approach it with calmness. There's a lot of things
that you can do about this. So hit the playlist for some of those other
resources and keep in mind that there's a lot of hope. I hope you picked up a
thing or two from all of that that you can find useful or helpful. On that
primary nocturnal enuresis? Really, the training program that we put together at
finallydry.info, it works.