If there’s one thing parents learn, it’s that kids never stop throwing curveballs at you. Once my youngest child had started grade school and got over the transitional bumps, the family settled into a nice rhythm and life flowed smoothly along. Or so we thought…
Last year after everyone got Covid in December, my little boy – let’s call him Garfield – suddenly wet the bed one night. We were shocked and bewildered for the most part, but chalked it up to sleeping too late or just a one-off thing. But it happened again, and again, until it was a nightly event.
We looked online and tried following the advice on numerous sites: decrease water intake 4 hours before bed, no screens before bed, cut out artificial flavors and sugar, get the child on a pee schedule during the day, etc. But nothing worked.
Being in China, we even turned to Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) methods! Someone advised us to try turning up the heat and getting Garfield to wear socks to bed (he kicked them off in the middle of the night), even using a heating pad under his back to “warm the body”.
It didn’t help.
Then there were these herbal TCM sticker pads that promised to stop Garfield’s nightly bedwetting if stuck on his lower abdomen. What a hoot.
We got a bedwetting alarm, but I witnessed firsthand how Garfield slept right through it, even as it vibrated and sounded right in his face. This was the real issue behind the bedwetting, or enuresis as it is technically called, that he was sleeping so deeply, plus the fact that his body likely hadn’t developed adequate levels of the hormone that stops the bladder from producing urine at night.
So we saw a doctor, then another. But after physically examining and clearing Garfield of all possible physical ailments (diabetes, kidney issues, constipation etc), they couldn’t offer much more help than the websites. Their conclusion was; this is just another stage in Garfield’ growth and development and it too, will pass.
I couldn’t quite accept it! Just resign my child to wearing cloth diapers every night, and myself to washing pee-stained clothes and diapers every morning? I demanded a sleep study, medicine, anything that would stop the problem in its tracks and let us get back to normal. But the doctors refused, saying it wouldn’t solve the real issue, which only time could.
So there you have it, dear fellow parents. After months of struggling with bedwetting and potentially many more months ahead, I have learned the lesson that this, like so many other things, is beyond my control, and that I can only learn to cope with it the best I can, without letting it defeat our spirit or ruin the relationship.
Both doctors went out of their way to make sure that we as parents were not putting any blame or pressure on Garfield about wetting the bed, and we certainly hadn’t, though after being woken up by the most obnoxious sounding alarm ever for the third time that night, and having to rinse out pee-stained clothes at 4am, the temptation is there.
I guess this article should have been titled Bedwetting Is One of My Biggest Parenting Challenges since we really don’t know how much longer it will go for. But we have the knowledge, the coping strategies, and most of all, we have hope and love in our family; hope that this will get better, and love to tide us through until we get there.
Images: Pexels
