Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Monday, September 22, 2008 Bettye Ison asks

Q: Should you put overnites, etc on a 5 and 6 year old who does not wet every night, but quite often?

My 5 year old and 6 year old granddaughters wet the bed 2-3 nights a week.  The parents don't allow them to drink a lot at night and if they are picked up and taken to the bathroom in the middle of the night, they usually do not wet.  Should they be forced to wear goodnites, etc. or not??  I don't want to do anything that will cause them to regress to wetting all the time.  They were potty trained early and did really good for a long time, but now that they are older they wet more often??  When they stay with me, I always get them up around 3 a.m. and have them go to the bathroom right before bedtime (around 8:30).

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Answers (2)
7/ 7/09 9:16am

I agree with papa on this talk to your adult & help them

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9/23/08 6:33am

Bettye, In this "modern" age grandparents no longer can impose their ideas on our grandchildren as our grandparents did. You will have to address the issue with the parents. I faced a simmilar situation and sat down with my son and daughter-in-law and after a short while my daughter-in-law admitted she had been a bedwetter into her early teens and because of her embarasment of having to wear diapers did not want to recreate that same embarasment on the kids. I asked her if she still wet the bed if she would go without protection? She actually was taken back and didn't know what to say, then said she probably would. I am very private especially about my incontinence since my cancer surgery but looked her in the eye and said, I would never go to bed without protection, what an awful thing to wake up in such a mess. My son knows I have to wear protection 24/7 but apparently has kept the "secret" - much apprechiated by me and proud of him for it. We talked it through and she said it was probably the right choice, but I also told her it had to be something the children also agreed on. That took some tallking with them and what was the swing on it all was letting my grandkids know Papa had to wear diapers and explained why. It has gone well since. My advice is obvious - talk, talk, talk. The odds are either one or both parents were also bedwetters. That can help. But you CAN NOT impose your own feelings on either parents or grandkids. Papa

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