While growing up as a baby, I started knowing the true color of my urine when my parents wanted to stop me from bed wetting, no doubt we all pass through bed wetting stage unless if you were a born robot, in that case urinating may be as simple and as easy as pressing a control button to open a door on a machine and excrete the waste product in you. No doubt you and I were not a born robot, so am glad the nature is fair to us all in this aspect.

Bed wetting age and time range

In one of my old school sets group which I belong to on Whats App, my higher secondary school set precisely since I went to two different secondary schools, the first one is a junior secondary school where I spent just three (3) years after which I sat for Joint competitive entrance examination into senior school of science and fortunately for me, I passed and got admitted to the higher school of science, although it used to be the best school in my state then but I do not know its current status as of now, so I spent another three (3) years in the senior secondary school to make it six years altogether, though in two different schools as stated earlier.

We usually have an interactive session period via Whats App once in a week, it is called Night show. The aim of the show is to make the group lively, so, a mate within the group will be selected and asked different questions, thus, one of the rampant questions which people used to ask that seems to go weird with me is How old are you when you stop bed wetting? and may be their responses of course.

This question usually triggers different reactions from selected members, after careful review of their responses, especially from females members. Sorry to all our mothers on the platform, It was revealed to me that majority of the female in the group stopped bed wetting between the age of 10-13 years old. Indeed this is in contrast with my family settings, our parents usually find a way of stopping us from bed wetting at most age of six (6) years old, so, we usually perceived it as abnormal for a child of at least age nine (9) and above to still be bed wetting.

To be fair with my female old mates, my further investigation outside the group revealed the fact that the most common range for most children who wet the bed is between the age of nine (9) to twelve (12) year-old and low percentage of kids continuing till their late teens.

Techniques to stop bed wetting

There are a lot of techniques being adopted to stop a child from bed wetting, especially when it seems the child is getting mature and bed wetting seems not stopping soon, no doubt, it can be embarrassing at times when you take your grown up child who supposed to have stopped bed wetting out and he could not hold his/her urine, thus, to be saved from such an embarrassment and traumatic issue like this, many parents out there have different mechanism they used to put in place to make sure their children and those put under their care stop bed wetting at the right time. Some of the techniques will be discussed below:

• Wearable alarm kits for your child to wear at night

There are varieties of urine alarm kits out there that provide one stop solution towards stopping bed wetting, a typical example is NewU Bed wetting Alarm Kits shown above, it works by first detect the first drop of child's urine, after which the alarm makes a loud sound, strong vibration and bright light to wake such a child up instantly, Once the child wakes up, he or she can then do the needful and go back to bed again till the next alarm if para venture. This will train the child to wake up within an interval in order to beat the alarm band.

• Applying DDAVP (desmopressin acetate)

Desmopressin acetate is an anti diuretic and anti hemorrhagic meditation that has been around since 1974 to treat bed wetting issue, although, DDAVP is also used to treat many other things like treatment of bleeding as a result of platelet dysfunction, it is used to improve thirst and urination resulting from head surgery or head trauma and central cranial diabetes insipidus. However there are some precautions to be considered when one is applying DDAVP to treat bed wetting, precaution like a child should not drink water an hour and eight (8) hours after a child takes the drug. Thus, it is advisable to seek your doctor's consent before taking DDAVP.

• Taking your child to the bathroom before bedtime

Most people apply this method since it requires no cost to be executed, while it may not treat bed wetting completely, it serves as a means to reduce it to minimal.

• By refraining your child from drinking too much fluid before bedtime

This is also easy to implement since it requires no cost, It may not also stop bed wetting completely but it may be a means towards achieving a solution to bed wetting challenges.

Final Thought!

Bed wetting, which is the process of releasing fluid waste product called urine by the children during their sleeping mode is far from being a disease, especially within the stated age bracket and no punishment of any form should be given to such a child. However, precautionary measures should be put in place to stop bed wetting before it goes out of hand and bring unnecessary embarrassment and trauma.

Thanks for reading through and I will like to read your honest response on this topic that is common not only to all the parents but the children also.

References

1. Bedwetting
2. DDAVP
3. What Causes Bedwetting?
4. Sleep Disorders: What Causes Bedwetting?
5. Overcome the challenge of bed wetting