How to Encourage Older Children, Adolescents, and Teenagers to Wear Diapers to Bed and Other Issues

Ways Parents Can Encourage their Older Child,Teenager,or Adolescent to Wear Diapers to Bed ,How to be Discreet About Bed-wetting and Diaper Use,and Psychological Techniques a Person Can Use to Deal With the Stigma of Using Diapers for Bed-wetting

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  If the child,adolescent, or teenager is embarrassed about wearing the diapers and plastic pants to bed there are a number of different ways you can encourage them. First,you can stress how much more comfortable it will be waking up in a dry bed. Second,you can have them go to different online forums(with a younger child it's a good idea to supervise them while they are doing this) and talk to people suffering from similar conditions. There are many online forums dealing with bed-wetting and other incontinence issues. Sometimes it helps to have a sympathetic ear and to realize there are other people in the same boat.

   Third,you should tell them that there are a large number of adults that wet the bed and many of them also wear diapers to bed. If your budget permits I would order a large or extra large,adult size pair of plastic pants and/or diapers. By showing the youngster an actual adult size pair of plastic pants or diapers which is a size that is larger than what they would wear,it might help them feel better about wearing diapers to bed. By actually seeing an adult size it reinforces the fact that adults wear them to bed also. This will help them more psychologically as opposed to just seeing something on a web site.

   Fourth,you can explain to them that people have different needs in terms of managing their incontinence-that's why they have so many different styles of incontinence garments. There are different levels of incontinence-some wet more than others. You need to stress to the youngster that what works for one person might not be as effective for another. Fifth,emphasize to the child or teen that they are only wearing the diapers at night. Unlike during the day it is much easier to conceal the use of diapers at night.

   In some circumstances however it might be difficult to be discreet about the use of diapers particularly if the parents are using cloth diapers and plastic pants to manage the bed-wetting. I would like to digress for a moment and discuss this briefly. If the bed wetter has siblings it's inevitable that they're going to notice either diapers in the laundry or plastic pants hanging up to dry on the clothesline. Or if the bed wetter shares a room with a sibling it's impossible to hide the diaper use from their brother or sister. If this is the case it's imperative that the parents let the other children of the household know that any teasing about the bed-wetting or diapers and plastic pants will not be tolerated and will result in punishment.

   On a related note there is also the possibility of friends of either the bed wetter or sibling finding out about the bed-wetting when they come over to visit. There are some precautions that you can take to prevent this from happening. If the youngster uses cloth diapers and plastic pants you can put the diaper pail in the laundry room before the friends come over. And if you're worried about them accidentally discovering the diapers and plastic pants you can put them in a special bin(which you can purchase from Target or Walmart) and either label the bin “school papers”(or something similar) or take the bin out of the room before the friends come over and put it back after they leave. Plastic sheets can also be a concern due to the fact that some of them make a crinkling or rustling sound which can be discovered if friends sit on the bed. I have read and heard about this happening in some cases,however this can also be remedied. You can take the waterproof sheet off before the friends come over and put it back on again before going to bed or put extra cloth sheets over the protective sheet to muffle the sound of the plastic. It should be mentioned that while this is a possibility with some plastic sheets if the youngster has the bed covered with a rubber sheet this won't be a concern.