What To Do When Your Kid Who’s Beyond The Potty Training Years Still Wets The Bed
Your role here is less about “fixing” and more about being a calming force for comfort.
Bedwetting in older kids is more common than you may realize. According to the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, as many as 20% of kids ages 5 to 7 wet their beds from time to time, and while that number does shrink as they move into their tween years, bedwetting still happens. While it is absolutely nothing for you or your kid to be ashamed of, there are definitely some things you can do to help, from having encouraging conversations to keeping them comfortable in bed with Ninjamas. With a little extra compassion and care, you can ensure your kids remain confident until the day they put their bedwetting to bed for good.
Assure Them This Is Normal
It’s important to know right off the bat that your kiddo is not consciously choosing to wet their bed. They too would like to sleep through until morning, wake up dry, greet you with a wide grin at breakfastime, and be ready to start each day with joy, energy, and confidence. The thing is, bedwetting — even approaching the tween years — is a totally normal part of growing up. Your role here is less about “fixing” and more about easing their fears and being a calming force for comfort should they happen to wake up wet. Reinforce your love for them, assure your kiddo that you're a team and teams work together relentlessly to solve issues, and that together, you will absolutely figure this out. In the meantime, outfit your kid in cool Ninjamas, for stealthy all-night leak protection with OdorMask technology, so they can wake up feeling awesome every single day.
Ditch the Bulk
Traditional bedtime pants can wreak havoc on a kid's self-esteem, in large part because they are so darn bulky. Children's training pants look and feel like diapers, and no kid wants to feel (or see) that bulk during the day or at night. And most importantly, no kid wants to be seen to be wearing anything other than regular underwear. Growing up is hard enough, and wetting the bed beyond the years of life when most people expect that to have stopped makes it even harder. With Ninjamas Nighttime Underwear’s cool big-kid designs, however, your kid will be able to live their nighttime life with confidence, whether it’s an ordinary school night or they’re partying it up with their best buds at a sleepover.
Taper The Beverages At Night
All the liquid is coming from somewhere, right? No matter how old you are, when you take on too many liquids too close to bedtime, a restful, dry night of sleep becomes more elusive. While you might sleepily rise and do your business in the dead of night, your kiddo may struggle to do the same — and that’s absolutely not their fault. One way to help them is to taper their beverage intake from dinnertime until it’s time for lights out. With less in their bladder as they drift off to dreamland, the urge to go will be lessened too, and this may just start to train their bodies to hold it in until morning.
Consider The Stress in Their Young Lives
Finally, because stress can bring about cases of bedwetting in older kids, consider any changes, whether big or small, that may have occurred recently or may be ongoing in their lives. Have you moved? Did your child have to switch schools? Have they witnessed a change in their parents’ relationship or experienced a death in the family? All of these events may be impacting your kid and causing bedwetting to occur. From supplying them with Ninjamas Nighttime Underwear to being a patient ally and a great listener, you can help smooth the edges of any stress any changes may be causing for them.
Keep in mind that what impacts your kid may not be a big, loud, or dramatic event in your eyes, but rather a subtle challenge that feels monumental to them. By being cognizant of the many different ways stress impacts kids, you may be able to help comfort them, which in turn could help them wake up dry more often.
The reality of bedwetting is that most kids will eventually grow out of it. Still, with patience, understanding, and a little stealthy support from Ninjamas, you can make this tricky phase of your kid’s life a little less complicated. That said, if the issue persists, contact your child’s pediatrician for a deeper examination of what may be at the root of their bedwetting.
