When Uma Poddar, a warden at Visva Bharti hostel in Shantiniketan made a class five student drink urine as a cure for bed-wetting 10 days ago, she invited national outrage. Her ‘solution’ was no different from that employed by a mother in New Jersey in 1940. Peggy O’Neill, popular American actor and director Michael Landon’s mum, would put out her son’s wet sheets on display at the window for all to see. Landon would run home every day in a frantic bid to remove the sheets before his classmates could spot them.
Punishing a bed-wetter is the most common mistake parents make, says Mumbai-based paediatric nephrologist Dr Pankaj Deshpande. “It’s not a lack of effort on part of the child that causes him to bed-wet. There are a number of factors at work that are beyond his control. The bladder needs to learn to contain the urine while the child is asleep. Just as you cannot teach someone language in a day, you can’t teach the child how to control his bladder in a night,” he argues.
While most children are believed to achieve bladder control by the age of five, 20 per cent kids continue to bed-wet even until they are 10 years old. Less than 10 per cent carry the behaviour into their teens. “It gets problematic not because it is a medical problem, but due to the embarrassment associated with it,” says Deshpande.
Also known as primary nocturnal enuresis, bedwetting has been linked to a variety of factors, including:
- Genetics: Most children who wet their bed have at least one parent with a similar history.
- Miscommunication between bladder and brain: Most children learn to respond to that click in the brain even when asleep when their bladder is full. If your child has an ‘accident’, remember it’s not his fault. If it becomes a regular occurrence, try figuring if there is any new stress that has entered his life.
- Bladder is functionally untrained: It is unable to recognise the amount of urine it could be holding. As a result, as soon as it receives intake from the kidneys, it feels full and loosens to eject urine.
- Anxiety at play: Often, kids who are stressed about their studies or are bullied at school tend to bed-wet. Sometimes, the birth of a sibling is also a reason. “When the older child senses being left out, he might withdraw into a shell, and end up seeking attention from his parents. Bedwetting could be a part of this process,” says psychiatrist Dr Harish Shetty.
Dealing with it
Deshpande asks if you’ve ever heard of a young, adult man or woman wetting the bed? “No, right? Parents need to understand that bedwetting does not last a lifetime. All you need to do is equip yourself so that you handle it correctly,” he says. Here’s how:
Don’t scold, it will make things worse!
Landon is said to have continued to wet his bed till he was 14. Clearly, his mother’s public humiliation didn’t work. “Shouting at your child will not make it stop. It might cause him to slip into depression, and even lose his appetite,” says Shetty. Six months ago, Mumbai-based psychologist Seema Hingorrany encountered an 11-year-old student of class five, whose mother, a Mumbai-based entrepreneur, would smack him each time he woke up on a soggy mattress. “The boy was obese, and his mother thought he was being lazy, refusing to wake up to pee. When I analysed the case, I realised it was his social phobia, inferiority complex and a fear of facing his peers at school, that was leading to wet nights,” says Hingorrany.
Teased with the moniker ‘motu’, he had grown into a recluse, and was seeking an outlet to express his anxiety. Hingorrany started with play therapy, asking him to pick up toys and assign them varied roles. “He connected with one of the heavy toys, and began narrating his own story and feelings through it. It took over four months for us to assure him that it was okay for him to express his inner self. Gradually, his bedwetting decreased,” says Hingorrany.
Use a reward programme or a star chart
Prepare a chart for the week and stick it on your refrigerator. Ask your kid to mark each day with a star sticker if he’s had a ‘dry’ night. Let him achieve a target of at least, one star per week. Continue it for two or three weeks and revise the target to more than one star. Reward your child with something he likes each time he meets the expectation.
Own up to it
If you are travelling and staying at a hotel or vacationing with friends, don’t be embarrassed to share the fact with them. “It’s not a medical problem. Carrying a waterproof overlay to throw over a mattress is a great idea,” says Shetty.
Strap on a funky watch
Several shopping portals retail vibrating watches that kids can wear to bed. It’s a great way to remind your child to void at fixed intervals (for eg, every two hours). It features an auto restart countdown mode that vibrates for 20 seconds at the interval you choose.
The famous did it too
American actor-director Michael Landon was known to bed-wet till he was 14. American president from 1933-1945, Franklin D Roosevelt, was also a bedwetting kid; as was television actress Suzanne Somers. “I was invited to a couple of slumber parties. I was dying to go, but what if I wet the bed at one of those fancy houses?” she wrote in her autobiography. She is said to have broken out of the behaviour by using an alarm.
Deshpande asks if you’ve ever heard of a young, adult man or woman wetting the bed? “No, right? Parents need to understand that bedwetting does not last a lifetime. All you need to do is equip yourself so that you handle it correctly,” he says. Here’s how:
Don’t scold, it will make things worse!
Landon is said to have continued to wet his bed till he was 14. Clearly, his mother’s public humiliation didn’t work. “Shouting at your child will not make it stop. It might cause him to slip into depression, and even lose his appetite,” says Shetty. Six months ago, Mumbai-based psychologist Seema Hingorrany encountered an 11-year-old student of class five, whose mother, a Mumbai-based entrepreneur, would smack him each time he woke up on a soggy mattress. “The boy was obese, and his mother thought he was being lazy, refusing to wake up to pee. When I analysed the case, I realised it was his social phobia, inferiority complex and a fear of facing his peers at school, that was leading to wet nights,” says Hingorrany.
Teased with the moniker ‘motu’, he had grown into a recluse, and was seeking an outlet to express his anxiety. Hingorrany started with play therapy, asking him to pick up toys and assign them varied roles. “He connected with one of the heavy toys, and began narrating his own story and feelings through it. It took over four months for us to assure him that it was okay for him to express his inner self. Gradually, his bedwetting decreased,” says Hingorrany.
Use a reward programme or a star chart
Prepare a chart for the week and stick it on your refrigerator. Ask your kid to mark each day with a star sticker if he’s had a ‘dry’ night. Let him achieve a target of at least, one star per week. Continue it for two or three weeks and revise the target to more than one star. Reward your child with something he likes each time he meets the expectation.
Own up to it
If you are travelling and staying at a hotel or vacationing with friends, don’t be embarrassed to share the fact with them. “It’s not a medical problem. Carrying a waterproof overlay to throw over a mattress is a great idea,” says Shetty.
Strap on a funky watch
Several shopping portals retail vibrating watches that kids can wear to bed. It’s a great way to remind your child to void at fixed intervals (for eg, every two hours). It features an auto restart countdown mode that vibrates for 20 seconds at the interval you choose.
The famous did it too
American actor-director Michael Landon was known to bed-wet till he was 14. American president from 1933-1945, Franklin D Roosevelt, was also a bedwetting kid; as was television actress Suzanne Somers. “I was invited to a couple of slumber parties. I was dying to go, but what if I wet the bed at one of those fancy houses?” she wrote in her autobiography. She is said to have broken out of the behaviour by using an alarm.
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