Would you consider this normal?(read inside)
Asked by
Tink (
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July 18th, 2009
from iPhone
My 13 almost 14 year old cousin still wets his bed.
Everyday!!!
He washes his sheets everyday too, but is this just me or is it weird?
His parents have told him he needs to stop doing that, but yet he still does it.
He says he “can’t control it”
Maybe he just can’t, but is this the only reason or is there some other problem?
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39 Answers
Thats not normal, he needs to look at his habits and see if he can change something.
Have him try not drinking anything after 7pm if he goes to bed at 9pm. That should help, he might just be going to bed full of water.
If it keeps up he might want to talk to a Doctor to try and fix whatever the issue is.
His parent don’t let him drink anything before he goes to bed
@Tink1113 when is the last time he drinks liquid then? He’s having something otherwise he would be drained.
No, it is obviously not common, but if your cousin says he can’t control it, there is no reason to doubt that. There can be a variety of reasons (I know a grown-up woman who pees in her sleep for the simple reason that she sleeps so heavily she doesn’t realise it). Has he tried asking a doctor?
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He needs to see a therapist/doctor…PRONTO!!!
It’s not his fault he still wets his bed…
@willbrawn Atleast an hour before.
@Jack79 Well he plays soccer, and they had him have a physical, should something have come up?
It could be something else, psychological for example. Doesn’t have to be related directly to urinating.
Has he always wet the bed, or did this start after a period of time when he wasn’t wetting the bed? It can be a sign of some stress that he can’t deal with.
If he’s never been able to stay dry at night, it’s probably something physical. If it were my child, I’d have discussed it with the pediatrician about nine years ago. They do make products for children who can’t stay dry at night. We use Underjams for our 5 year old son, who has never had a dry night. Our attempts to let him sleep in underwear were frustrating for all of us. At his age I don’t think it’s abnormal, but I will talk to the dr. about it at his next checkup.
All kids are different. My daughter started staying dry at night when she was 4, long after she’d been completely potty trained during the day. My youngest started staying dry all night almost as soon as he was in underwear (he was three). He wakes up when he has to go at night. Our five year old never wakes up—he’s known for sleeping through the loudest storms, the house alarm going off, fireworks from our crazy neighbors, etc. Still, I think 13 is an age to seek the help of a professional. If the kid can’t help it, he can’t help it. Maybe a doctor will be able to help.
Normal and abnormal may not be the right words to use in this situation – perhaps unusual might be a better term. And yes, that is unusual, but not terribly uncommon. In college I had a 12-year-old friend who did that (this sounds odd I know – he is the son of a cleaning woman I was good friends with, and he is, like, the coolest 12-year-old ever). I asked my psychoanalysis professor about this, and he said that it usually has something to do with childhood neuroses – see “Psychoanalytic Tendencies in Mental Hygiene in Switzerland, Especially in Enuresis” by Hans Christoffel ([1940] Psychoanalytic Review, 27:45–56).
Something that worked for my little brother was setting an alarm for halfway through his sleeping to get up and go to the bathroom.
Till then, for the love of god get some pull-ups or something for the boy so he doesn’t have to wash his sheets every frigging day!
He should certainly see the doctor specifically for the problem. Just because he had a physical for a sport and his doctor didn’t catch it, it doesn’t mean there isn’t anything medically wrong. He should go to his doctor and tell the doctor that he wets the bed every night. The doctor should be able to take it from there.
It isn’t normal, but it isn’t uncommon. Boys, especially ADD boys or those with other problems of that sort, often have what is termed an immature bladder. Sometimes age helps solve the problem, sometimes there are therapies that claim to help, but a very important solution is medication.
My son, who is bipolar, ADD and ODD, has taken Desmopressin (DDAVP) to help him out. You can combine this with one of several different forms of theraputic training, including educating his parents, using moisture alarms, dry bed training, exploring potential stressors in the boy’s life, and bladder stretching exercises. And for a while, there are Depends or even pull-ups if the boy is small enough.
It may not ever have been mentioned to a doctor, because admitting to wetting the bed is embarrassing.
I’ve always heard that there is something stressful in the life of a child that wets the bed! Perhaps the parents are having marital troubles? Or something else maybe? A friend of mine had a similar problem with her son. He was 12–13 years old and was havong bowel movements in his pants. Then she let him go live with his real dad and he quit. Come to find out her new husband was treating the poor child like crap, especially when his 12–13 year old son was around!
He has always wet his bed, more than his 7 year old brother.
His parents should take him to the doctor, they use to wake him up at midnight so he would go and that stopped for a while, but then he started again.
His parents don’t fight, they let him do everything he wants…he’s a spoiled brat.
They tried to make him wear grownup diapers but he’s too proud to wear them, and what’s even more embarrassing is that, when he sleeps over other peoples house he doesn’t always wet their bed. He does it more when he’s at home.
One of the biggest problems in getting someone to stop wetting the bed is that they have to want to stop wetting the bed. If they won’t do the work, all the medication and therapy in the world won’t help.
@Darwin I see he has no intention to stop, maybe intervention?
If he won’t help himself stop, he should be taught how to do his own laundry, and he should have to sleep on a plastic-covered mattress.
Oh they did make him sleep in one of those, thats his bed right now. And his mom or grandma does his laundry and they had been told not to but they also don’t listen.
I don’t think they see that he really does have a problem, the rest of the family does
what’s happening with the world being damn stubborn?!
Probably he will stop when he meets a girl who likes him enough to sleep with him.
@cyndihugs – Good! If he is so manipulative now, just think what he’ll be like when he gets older.
@Darwin don’t want to think about it!
i had the same problem. my mom stopped giving me things to drink after a certain hour. it helped me control it and stop.
Enurisis. 15% of the population has it, 15% get better by age of 5, then 15 and then some don’t get better. The normal process that triggers a signal to the brain for you to wake up to go to the bathroom doesn’t work. There are resources and medication available as a last resort.
I have a friend with a 12 y/o daughter who wets the bed. It is a medical issue and I believe she is or was on medication for it. I am sure there are other reasons for this behavior, but checking for a medical cause would be my first course of action.
I’ve known adults who wet the bed regularly. It’s a medical condition. Unfortunate, but it happens.
I worked in a doc’s office for 25 yrs and this is not normal nor is it manipulation. At his age he must be totally humiliated. There are some drugs on the market in the form of a nasal spray and probably more now, can’t recall the name of it, but it was very effective for these kids which, BTW, are usually males.
I wet the bed until I was 14. I did this because I couldn’t wake up when I had to pee. Now I wake up just fine now. It doesn’t matter how spoiled this boy is, if he legitimately wets the bed, leave him alone about it. It is shameful and embarrassing. My mother took me to the doctor at my request and the doctor said that this wasn’t unusual. She had known people who wet the bed until they were 18 or 19. Leave your cousin alone about it. Believe me, he is punishing himself enough about it without having his whole family treating him like he’s diseased.
We don’t treat him bad or anything, we just think it’s weird for him to do that. He’s not embarrassed to say he still does it
Is he a cereal killer? All the best cereal killers wet the bed into their teens.
@drClaw: I did kill a lot of cheerios in my day.
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