Reply from Jeffrey, Child's Age 13 and 15 - 1/31/02 - IP#: 131.96.240.39There have been some references on this site lately about "motivational" activities to encourage children to try harder to stop bedwetting. These include star chart calendars, signs, and rewards, and I'm sure there are others. There is a logic flaw in an assumption that has been offered with regard to these supposed motivational items: "they exist, therefore they must work." I consider that absurd, and I am convinced that whoever came up with these "try harder to stay dry" concepts certainly never experienced enuresis themselves, or they would know better. Of all the bedwetters, I will acknowledge that there may be a few who really are lazy, and who wake up and make a conscious decision to wet the bed rather than go to the trouble to get up and go to the toilet. But I am also convinced that such people are a tiny fraction of those who wet in their sleep. For these few people, star charts, rewards, sanctions, and other such gimmicks may very well work. But these deliberate bedwetters don't have enuresis. And for all the bedwetters who do have enuresis, bedwetting is something that is done in one's sleep, totally subconsciously. It is a sleep disorder. While the person sleeps, it is not possible for the brain to be thinking "oh, I really want to get that star on my chart tomorrow, so instead of wetting, I'll hold it, or I'll wake up." The whole reason why an enuretic wets in his sleep is because his brain has not yet started functioning to prevent urination while the person sleeps. No star chart or other motivational reward is going to change that. On a related topic, it has also been suggested that diapers may reduce a child's motivation to stop wetting. Same flaw in logic. Most three and four year olds who stop wetting in their sleep at that age were wearing diapers up until the time when they started being dry on their own, and their diapers didn't prevent them from achieving success. It is a known statistical fact that for kids who are still wetting in their sleep into their school years, with each additional year of age that passes, a percentage of those children will overcome their bedwetting without any intervention -- whether they are wearing diapers or not. When they do stop wetting, it is because the same brain signal finally starts working for them that usually happens when a child is three or four; it just takes these children longer for it to happen. I do believe that the alarm conditioning systems work for some children. But they don't work for others, and even for those that are successful, it may take repeated attempts with the alarm devices over several years. If the alarm doesn't work over a period of months, its continued use will cause a lot a stress, sense of failure, and lost sleep for both the child and his parents. When that happens, the alarm should be discontinued, and then maybe tried again two or three years later. In the meantime, diapers help the child to manage his sleepwetting in a way that makes it possible for him to sleep better and more comfortably. I know. I am a life-long bedwetter, but my parents discontinued my diapers when I was six in favor of star charts and rewards to "motivate me." That didn't work, and I had to put up with waking up in cold wet smelly sheets for years. My sons are also nightly sleepwetters. We didn't make the same mistake with them. |