Parents, I have unbelievable news for you. By paying attention to just three factors you can reduce, manage, or even eliminate bedwetting altogether. You and your child will benefit from improved sleep and mornings that focus the day ahead, rather than on laundry or dirty diapers.

These main pillars that affect bedwetting are broken down simply as diet, exercise, and sleep. I'm not kidding. By focusing on diet, exercise, and sleep you can sway how many dry mornings you will have. This information is so crucial to the foundation of what plays out in the brain that by making adjustments to these factors you will heavily influence your child's bedwetting. So let's begin!

Diet

I will break it down for you as simple and fast as I possibly can. And simple is the operative word here. Eat simple foods. Processed foods clog up the digestive system, which creates an enlarged rectum. An enlarged rectum puts undue pressure on the bladder, reducing its overall capacity. When the bladder has this slight constant pressure applied to it the nerve endings that tingle – signaling the bladder is full and it's time to go pee – become desensitized. This contributes to the perfect recipe for bedwetting.

1. Reduced sensation in the bladder plus

2. Reduced capacity in the bladder plus

3. A sleeping child = Nighttime bedwetting

Reducing processed foods and replacing them with simple foods will nourish the digestive system and begin to slowly flush it in a gentle way. The easiest way to start this gentle flush is by exchanging processed snack foods with juicy fruits, that kids love anyway! Apples, oranges, pears, grapes, and watermelon, are all fruits that children love and will do wonders for their digestive system.

And if you ever wanted to know even more about how to tell if your child has a clogged digestive system - ask them not to flush when they go potty. By examining their stool you can discover not only how often they are going, but also the size and shape of their poop - EEEEEEWWW! But hear me out. If your child is only pooping once a day chances are they are at least slightly clogged. By referencing the Bristol stool chart you will also be able to tell if your child is constipated. Just do a Google search on this, I will refrain from putting cartoon pictures of child's poop in this post.

You're welcome. But if you do find that your child’s stool is showing you signs of constipation, then you bet they are also experiencing a clogged digestive system and enlarged rectum. Enough about poop, let's move on to our second pillar of bedwetting.

Exercise

Exercise is important in bedwetting because it helps to strengthen the muscles in the pelvic area, including the bladder and sphincter muscles, which are essential for controlling urination. Regular physical activity can also help to reduce stress and anxiety, which are common triggers for bedwetting.

Additionally, exercise can improve overall health and well-being, which can lead to better sleep quality and a more restful night's sleep. This can be particularly helpful for children who wet the bed, as they may be more likely to sleep through the night without waking up to go to the bathroom.

 But there is a caveat here. Lengthy exercise, especially in the evening hours can actually be a contributing factor to bedwetting. When a child gets their exercise in the earlier part of the day their body will naturally cause them to relax afterward to recover their energy. This lull in the mid-day in addition to a good meal helps the body and its recovery. When a child exerts a large amount of energy towards the later part of the day without a daytime rest & recovery session, the body will shut down in a deeper sleep state.

There's a portion of the brain that stays awake through the entire night with the sole job of ensuring we do not eliminate in our sleep. When you fall into a deeper sleep state, this portion of the brain also shuts down, allowing our children to wet the bed. Then why don't our kids poop in their sleep? Because pooping involves multiple muscular processes of contraction and sphincter relaxation, whereas urinating is a more simplified system of sphincter relaxation.

And finally my friends, the biggest impact pillar of them all...

Sleep

We've all heard the mandatory eight hours of sleep. Truth be told, your body needs a certain amount of sleep in order to recover the energy spent in the day, process what it's been through, and restore itself to its optimal level of energy in preparation for another big day. In addition, 90% of a child's growth happens in the time they are sleeping. To cover all this ground, a child needs upwards of 10 to 11 hours of sleep.

Getting an additional 30 minutes of sleep per day for one to two weeks can help the central nervous system recover itself to its perfect functional form. There’s nothing tough about this idea, except maybe the fight to get your kid to bed earlier!

The 12 main systems of the body all work together to hold us in homeostasis, a type of harmonic stability. On a cellular level, rest exercise and nutrition are the top level players that can make or break us. While bedwetting does not indicate a strong broken link, if we make sure these three areas are in top shape we have the best chance of reducing bedwetting.

Oftentimes when I follow up with parents who have implemented these ideas they report their child went from wetting every night to only wetting 2 -3 times per week. That’s HUGE!

It reduces what you're paying in diapers, it reduces what is heading to the landfill, AND it can boost your child's self-esteem by making them feel like they're growing up.

Now, this is by no means an exhaustive list of all the ways you can help reduce, manage, or even eliminate bedwetting. While we can't cover everything here, we can send you this article as well as ALL our strategies to improve your bedwetting situation.

Allow me to send you our comprehensive guide on bedwetting causes and control strategies, straight to your inbox, and I KNOW we can win more drier mornings in the week!

Nighttime Undies are an outstanding replacement for UnderJams or GoodNites. They are an all-in-one heavily padded, waterproof underwear developed for children to use overnight when they wet the bed or are night training.

Check Out How These Things Look Inside!

Nighttime Undies work for boys and girls. We’ve built in some simple adjustments you can use to self modify them accordion got your needs. Not all boys will need the front folded, but the option is there! Nighttime Undies also have a build in size adjustment in the waistband to help you get a good fit and let these undies last longer. This feature is not included in the Hero Undies.

Nighttime training pants should be very absorbent and accommodate whatever your child can put out without leaking, but still allow the child to feel wet. This helps create the brain/body connection necessary to work through nighttime potty training, and that's exactly what either pair of our bedwetting options do. That’s right, we offer TWO types of bedwetting undies, (because we da’ bomb.) If it helps you make your decision you can quickly understand the difference between the Nighttime Undies and the Hero Undies here. And if you're wondering if these will really work for you, consider this before you buy them :)

While the initial cost of cloth may seem pricey at first, when you truly compare the cost you’ll find in the long run Super Undies can save you a lot of money! You can get them cheaper by purchasing them in a package deal.

Studies show that as your child gets older it is important to embrace this area with workable and practical solutions. Kids need to know that they are being seen, heard and cared for. Ignoring bedwetting all together and quietly providing a disposable larger baby diaper can have lasting effects on a child’s self esteem. The truth is one in every four kids in a first grade classroom are still wetting the bed! By the time boys are 7, one in ten are still wetting the bed. This problem is bigger than you thought. Your kid is completely normal!

Here’s the kicker - It’s not even a problem. Trying everything under the sun to eliminate bedwetting shows kids that this IS a problem to fix, and causes them to feel powerless and broken.

A kids starts to think... what’s wrong with them? Why do they do this? The best way you can help your kiddo is to normalize it. Remove the baby diaper stigma by taking away the disposables. Give these kiddos their dignity back by providing them with a reusable cloth padded underwear that contains the wetness and just gets tossed in the laundry. A pair of super undies can last up to 3 years in size, but 6 years of regular use!  That means that by supplying your kiddo with 6 pairs of undies they will have a healthy rotation, colorful fun options to choose from every night, and no pressure to NOT wet anymore. Once you have Super Undies, no more money needs to be spent and no extra laundry is generated. Just throw your undies in with the load of towels you are already washing.

And here’s the best part - 15% of kids that switch from disposables to cloth show reduced bed wetting within the first 2 weeks of use, and THAT makes your kiddo feel MUCH better!

Let me be clear here. The majority of children are going to “nighttime train” themselves. There, that’s it! Easy, huh? But that doesn't sooth your soul, and there ARE some things you need to know, because you can definitely help your child with bedwetting. You can help the body learn, and you can help your child tune in to their own body, but ultimately the body has to figure this out for itself.

So what about the five million school-aged children in the U.S. who wet their bed? Yes, there is that. Chances that you will have a bedwetter are about 20 percent. One in five kids under the age of five will wet the bed. Four out of five won’t, so the majority will night train themselves. This leads me to my next point. I had three bedwetters, which means that twelve other children didn’t! My first son wet until he was five, my second son wet until he was eight, and my daughter wet until she was six. Neither parent had bedwetting issues in their youth. This is just typical. 

I'm surprised at how many people I consult with that tell me they've been to the doctors and never heard any advice from the professional sector like what I've given them. There are some basic, simple things that can help your child overcome bedwetting, or at least prime them for growing out of it, and I feel that it's very important for me to share this with you! 

How Can I Help My Child With Bedwetting?

Start with these tips to help reduce bedwetting

1. Pay attention to your child's activity level throughout the day

    More common then not you will notice that your child’s level of physical activity that day is directly related to wether they will wake up dry or not. You might have some dry days throughout the week, but if you spent all afternoon on a hot soccer field watching your star striker run their butt off, you can pretty much be guaranteed of a soaked mattress in the morning. Understanding this and bringing it to light can help your child not feel so bad about it happening. The brain literally falls into too deep a sleep to monitor its bathroom needs. It has much more important things to do… like growing that kid up, processing that amazing soccer game, and regulating all the hormones that have to fire off so the next stage of puberty isn’t delayed! There simply isn’t time for a bathroom break.

2. Make sure your kid gets extra sleep

   There’s nothing tough about this idea, except maybe the fight to get your kid to bed earlier! Kids in elementary school and toddlers with busy mornings don’t have a choice in when they wake up. Naps start to go away and exhaustion sets in at night. Older kids engage in sports and sweat until blissfully exhausted...

   As I mentioned earlier, there is a place in the brain that stays awake for the sole purpose of making sure you don’t eliminate in your sleep. When your body isn’t rested well enough, it is too deep in sleep to feel the signal of a full bladder. Nonetheless, the bladder must release. Getting thirty more minutes of sleep per night for a few weeks can be enough to restore your sleep tank and stop bedwetting. It is also a great indicator for if your kiddo is going to wet the bed tonight. Busy exhausted day? Yup, it's happening.  There are a ton of other reasons why sleep is important, so you might as well give it a shot.

3. Switch out your child's disposable diaper for a cloth option

   No 7 yr old kid wants to be associated with a plastic baby diaper. Consider switching your child’s nighttime disposable to a cloth option. By making this change, you are shifting what the mind is going through when the wetting actually happens. Kids can feel more wetness in cloth than in disposables, which is a huge advantage to a sleeping brain! It could even be powerful enough to...help wake them up.

   People have told me that after switching to cloth at night, their children just grew out of bedwetting in a few weeks. That is a relatively common occurrence and a few weeks is what it will take to re-program the brain/body connection. However, in the event this does not work, guess what? You have a cloth option that doesn’t cost you money every time you go to the store! Parents spend an average of $400 a year on nighttime disposable diapers. They are more expensive than regular diapers and they know you’re going to pay whatever their sticker price is. The price point per package is similar to diapers, but you get less and less quantity with each size you go up. With cloth, you can invest around $100 in three pairs of high-quality, high-absorbency underwear that can last two to three years. If your child continues to wet the bed that initial up-front cost could save you $1200. Certainly a well-worth investment.

4. Occasionally have your child sleep bare-butted

   When a child pees at night and the wetness is caught in the diaper, whether cloth or disposable, it is held close to the body. That limits the cause and effect feeling. If you want a real “wake up” effect, having nothing will give that to you! Sure, you have to diaper the bed instead. Sure, you have to wash a blanket in the morning. Sure, you need to budget time for a bath or shower the next day, but this is all temporary. Have your child sleep bottomless for two to three days straight to kick in that waking-brain sensation. Remember, you only have one opportunity each night (usually) for the learning moment to happen, so these methods are not a one-night solution. You will need repetition for the solution to take hold. After a few days, if you don’t see any improvement, just go back to diapers or cloth overnight underwear and give this a shot in another month or so.  

Share this rich information with your bedwetting kiddo. Let them know how incredibly common bedwetting is, and help them understand when they are more likely to wet (like on high energy days.) By teaching them to pay attention to their body they can actually begin to predict how their subconscious processes will behave, which is very empowering!

I truly hope this helps you and your child reduce, overcome and understand bedwetting. Want to listen to Laura's rant? She's got some good points!

Diapers are expensive, there is no doubt about it. If you are considering cloth as an alternative to disposables, cloth costs money – and disposables don’t stop costing money.  So what is the real difference between cloth diapers vs disposable diapers?

Let’s look at the cost of cloth diapers vs disposable diapers: