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Summer Camp and Bedwetting

Friday, June 18th, 2010

My 10 year old is leaving in a month for a week of summer camp. He really wants to go but I am worried because he wets 2 or 3 times a week. What should we do?

This is a common question this time of year. I am re-posting some suggestions that I wrote last year about this time. Parents wonder what to do??

First, if your child is currently using an alarm, we would not expect him or her to take it to camp with them. They can interrupt usage and restart when they come home.

Secondly, a back up plan should be in place, even for kids who wet intermittently. There are a few choices:

• Wear disposable pants, with a plan for putting them on discreetly and disposal in the morning. Disposables come in all sizes, even small through extra large adult sizes. If your child has outgrown traditional children’s pull-ups, there are still many options. Disposable male guards or women’s incontinence pads can be secured to regular underwear to catch a small amount of urine. Disposable underpads that lie on a sheet or in a sleeping bag have tape strips to hold them in place.

• Use washable bedtime pants to preserve dignity. These can be a nice back-up for kids who are dry most nights but want to make sure there is no leakage onto bedding.

• Waterproof sleeping bag liners fit into a regular sleeping bag. They provide a comfortable, waterproof surface for sleeping without raising questions from other campers.

• Mattress overlays can be used on top of a sheet or used inside a sleeping bag. The overlays can be discreetly pulled into place when your child is ready to go to sleep. The new blue cloud overlays are colorful and look like a regular piece of bedding.

• Make arrangements with the camp counselor to have toileting twice before bedtime and to continue a lifting routine if this is used successfully at home. (Lifting is when a caregiver walks the child to the bathroom at a designated time.)

• Medication, such as desmopressin, can be used temporarily to decrease the amount of urine produced that night. The correct dosage should be determined a week or two before camp begins. Only a small amount of liquid (2-4 ounces) should be ingested once this medication is used. It is best dosed shortly before actually going to sleep.

Lastly, make sure that your child knows that they are not alone and most camps are very helpful in discreetly handling any wetting episodes. Fluid of choice after dinner is water. Double voiding before going to sleep is helpful. Staying well hydrated during the day is helpful so the kids are not so thirsty later in the day.

New Product

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009

I’m excited to tell you about a new product we just started stocking. It’s a colorful, kid-friendly mattress overlay. This washable, waterproof overlay lies on top of the sheets, making it easy to do morning or middle-of-the-night clean up. Up until now, we just carried the basic white waterproof overlay. The new product looks great! It is patterned- a sky blue color with clouds on it. It could work for either a boy’s or girl’s room and would make it a little less conspicuous for kids who need a little waterproof protection. Any other children (or adults) would not know this special colorful pad was anything other than a bright addition to the existing bedding.

This pad could be used for any situation that required a little waterproof protection. Providing a play pad for baby, a cover for the furniture or the seat in the car are a few ideas that come to my mind.

Good Nites and Rubber Pants

Friday, September 11th, 2009

RO writes to ask about her 6 year old son who wears a disposable diaper like Goodnites to bed every night. He wets so much that they leak so she has him wear rubber pants over the top. She wonders if the rubber pants and pull-ups are preventing him from getting to night time dryness.

I am frequently asked this question, especially by parents who have more than one child in Good nites or other disposable underwear. Keeping children dry and sheets clean can be frustrating for parents so using disposable pull ups and plastic pants can certainly help with this. Until a child and their family are ready to move to the next step, this can be a huge time saver. Wearing Good Nites and other waterproof protection is certainly important in situations where laundry facilities are not handy or sleepover/ camp situations where being discreet is of utmost importance. It’s a great advantage to have these products available.

If you begin to notice that your child is waking up with a dry pull-up more often, trying a challenge of a couple of weeks without protection is recommended. During this time, using a mattress overlay, which is a waterproof pad that lies on top of the sheet, is prudent. Overlays are a fabulous product for decreasing laundry load and keeping children comfortable. If wetting occurs, you simply remove the overlay, replace it with a clean one, and have your child go back to a dry bed.

When your family is ready to take the next step toward dryness, a great time to transition to cloth underwear is when you begin using a bedwetting alarm. The bedwetting alarm senses the moisture from the underwear, alerting parents and child that wetting is occurring. A bedwetting alarm is an effective tool to help your child’s body make a change in the way it responds to a full bladder. If your son persists in having nightly wetting with the pull ups over the next few months or year, he is a great candidate for using a bedwetting alarm to help him get to dryness.

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