How to Help Your Child Cope With Bed-Wetting

Image courtesy: © Thinkstockphotos/ Getty images

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: