J-William Posted July 4, 2013 Posted July 4, 2013 Hi guys! I've been meaning to share this for a while, but had some resistance to doing so. My daughter is 21 months old, and over the last two months she's become completely potty trained and doesn't need a diaper at night anymore... these are great! she's growing up, it's super! the problem, if I can call it that, is that my history is quite different... I don't know at what age I stopped wetting the bed, perhaps I did when I was very young, but then started again when I got older. What I do know is that I wet the bed quite frequently until the age of ten at least (maybe as late as twelve). So by this time I was sleeping on a very gross mattress, I was wetting the bed very infrequently, but my father said that they'd get a new matress when I stopped wetting the bed. I liked playing with fire as a kid. So some time later I was playing with a lighter and found that the lint inside the mattress smoldered in a fascinating way. (Did I mention that the matress had holes in the side where I could reach in a pull out lint? well it did.) After playing for a while at pulling out the lint and burning it I got more adventurous and burned lint still attached. lo and behold it got out of control and pretty soon the whole mattress was smoldering on the inside. After a few weeks of sleeping on the box springs and stern lectures about playing with fire I had a new mattress... strangely enough I don't think I wet the bed after that. Now, the comparison between my parents and my wife and I as parents is very much damning for my parents. My parents were neglectful, and authoritarian. They didn't hug or encourage much personal contact, they made a video of me sitting and crying by myself when I was less than a year old. They thought it was funny or something, and always used to joke about how difficult I was as a baby. On the authoritarian side, they would frequently yell, spank me and threaten me with spanking. We don't spank, yell, threaten, or let our daughter sit by herself and cry, we also hug all the time and make sure our daughter feels loved. Given what I've read about bed wetting, the cause is either physiological, disease or stress. Since I didn't have any diseases or physical problem it is clear to me that the stress of living with my parents was the cause, I also sometimes wet my pants at school, and school was extremely stressful as well... Reading the online resources I found about bed-wetting was very frustrating, because while most of them list stress as a possible cause not a single one talks about the stress of abuse or neglect. They only mention safe things like the stress of moving, or the stress of divorce. How the most obvious and prevalent cause of childhood stress would not be mentioned boggles my mind. These sites should be encouraging parents to stop hitting and neglecting their kids and talk to their kids about what's stressful in their life.
ribuck Posted July 5, 2013 Posted July 5, 2013 Given what I've read about bed wetting, the cause is either physiological, disease or stress. If the bed wetting is regular (i.e. most nights) there is another possible cause. If the child has always been put to bed in an ultra-absorbent diaper, their body has never experienced the wet feeling (which is necessary so that their body to learn not to wet the bed). If that's the cause, a bed-wetting alarm (which wakes the child when they wet the bed) will allow the child to become dry at night within a few weeks. I would hate for a child to be treated as if they were suffering psychological problems, disease or stress, if it is just that their body hasn't received the sensory input that is necessary for the normal functioning of their body.
FreedomPhilosophy Posted July 5, 2013 Posted July 5, 2013 I'm not sure about psychiatric diagnoses but I'm dubious. Bedwetting can have physical trigers, for example consuming dairy products:
ribuck Posted July 5, 2013 Posted July 5, 2013 Bedwetting can have physical trigers, for example consuming dairy products Or caffeine, certainly.
Dave Bockman Posted July 5, 2013 Posted July 5, 2013 what was the worst traumatic experience you went through on that mattress?
J-William Posted July 5, 2013 Author Posted July 5, 2013 what was the worst traumatic experience you went through on that mattress? The answer that comes to mind most readily would be my parents spanking me. It was humiliating and awful.
STer Posted July 5, 2013 Posted July 5, 2013 Reading the online resources I found about bed-wetting was very frustrating, because while most of them list stress as a possible cause not a single one talks about the stress of abuse or neglect. They only mention safe things like the stress of moving, or the stress of divorce. How the most obvious and prevalent cause of childhood stress would not be mentioned boggles my mind. These sites should be encouraging parents to stop hitting and neglecting their kids and talk to their kids about what's stressful in their life. I was surprised to read this so I just googled bedwetting and abuse and got lots of results. Did you try that?
Dave Bockman Posted July 6, 2013 Posted July 6, 2013 I think that the importance of the fact that you wet the bed, tried to set fire and burn your bed, and when you succeeded and got a new bed, and then the bed-wetting stopped, is important. what was the worst traumatic experience you went through on that mattress? The answer that comes to mind most readily would be my parents spanking me. It was humiliating and awful.
J-William Posted July 6, 2013 Author Posted July 6, 2013 I was surprised to read this so I just googled bedwetting and abuse and got lots of results. Did you try that? Yeah, I did that but was still dissapointed by the results.
STer Posted July 6, 2013 Posted July 6, 2013 I was surprised to read this so I just googled bedwetting and abuse and got lots of results. Did you try that? Yeah, I did that but was still dissapointed by the results. Hmm. Well what were you looking for? I saw a ton of articles making a very clear link between bedwetting and abuse. What more were you hoping to find?
J-William Posted July 6, 2013 Author Posted July 6, 2013 I think that the importance of the fact that you wet the bed, tried to set fire and burn your bed, and when you succeeded and got a new bed, and then the bed-wetting stopped, is important. yeah, I have a hard time remembering if it stopped before that or stopped at that time. The new mattress I used until high school, so I know I wasn't wetting the bed after I got it. The unreality of it is what makes it hard... you see if my parents had noticed that I wasn't wetting the bed anymore after that and said "hmm I guess we should have gotten a new bed sooner". then it would have made the experience more real, and I'd probably remember it, but instead it's just lost down the memory hole.
tasmlab Posted July 11, 2013 Posted July 11, 2013 Congratulations on getting your 21 month old potty trained and esp. through the night. That is very young! (I know this isn't the main point)
J-William Posted July 19, 2013 Author Posted July 19, 2013 Congratulations on getting your 21 month old potty trained and esp. through the night. That is very young! (I know this isn't the main point) It's not terribly uncommon in China for children to be potty trained quite young (diapers have only recently become more popular.)
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