Bed Wetting in Children: Nocturnal Enuresis, Symptoms and a Helpful Guide

Parents who have children who wet the bed, need not to worry so much or go looking for medical intervention since there are usually no physiological problems with the child. First it is good to have a basic understanding of bed wetting. Bed wetting is medically known as Enuresis and happens a lot in children below 10 years.
Common causes of bed-wetting
There are several causes of bed-wetting which are part of a natural child's development or an indication of a medical condition, like sated below:

• When a child goes to bed without emptying their bladder.
• Taking cold food before bed time and having too many drinks.
• Taking too many stimulants such as chocolate and cola a few hours before going to bed.
• A child can be suffering from vaginal or urinary tract infections.
• The child might have sleep disorders’ throwing the covers away and in the course gets cold.
• Some children suffer from diabetes, cell anemia, weak kidneys or bladder tone.
• Children experience psychological factors related to things such as changing schools, moving houses, being tired or a new baby.
• Being nutritionally deficient especially in calcium, silicon and magnesium.
• Some children have food allergies and intolerance.

Bed-wetting is a source of stress for anyone involved. The parents become frustrated or angry with the child’s reassurance after every incident of bed-wetting and the cost of maintaining the mattresses and beddings. On the other hand, the child may suffer from stress, low self-esteem, withdrawal, fear and other related problems. The child may also suffer from sleeplessness because they are embarrassed of themselves for bed-wetting.

What you can do to help

There are many positive things that you can be done to minimize, prevent and potentially eliminate your child's bed wetting.
First and foremost monitor your child's nightly eating and drinking patterns. The child should avoid taking too many fluids before bedtime. See to it that a child visits the toilet before retiring to sleep. Basically you can use causes that are outlined above as your guideline, just to see what the underlying problem might be.

You can also work on strengthening the child's bladder. The urethral sphincter is the muscle that is released to allow our urine to flow. It can be released both involuntarily and voluntarily. This muscle can be strengthened by regular exercise. You can do this by teaching your child how to recognize the sphincter muscle by having them stop the flow of urine midstream and then allowing the urine to flow again. Have them practice stopping the flow of urine during the several times during the day - so that they can recognize what using the sphincter feels like at night. Have your child practice using the sphincter muscle 8-10 times per day and then increase the number of times that they practice to 30-50. On each contraction of the muscle the child should try to hold the contraction for the count of 5-6 seconds. With time the necessary tone and control will be easy to do and eventually come naturally.

So stick with it, patience will be rewarded with a dry bed. While your family works through the phase give your household some piece of mind with some sort of waterproof bedding. Most waterproof sheets are noisy, plastic, uncomfortable and obviously 'pee sheets'. If you want a waterproof sheet for your bed-wetting that is comfortable, quite and nice looking try Brolly Sheets.