Health Tips for October 25

Health Tip: Children and Bedwetting

Millions of children wet the bed, especially those who have just been potty trained. Most the time, the child simply grows out of it.

The Nemours Foundation offers these suggestions on what to do when a child wets the bed:

• Be supportive and positive, and assure your child that there's nothing to be embarrassed about.
• Have your child go to the bathroom one last time right before bed each night.
• Offer plenty of fluids during the day, but cut back at night.
• Avoid giving your child any beverages that contain caffeine.
• Consider waking the child during the night for a bathroom break.
• Offer a motivational reward and plenty of praise when your child wakes up dry.

Health Tip: Why Your Child Is Wetting the Bed

Bed wetting is common in young children who are learning to control the need to urinate during sleep.

The American Academy of Family Physicians says bed-wetting isn't from naughty behavior or laziness. According to the academy, there may be a medical problem behind the bed-wetting child's behavior, such as:

• Having a family history of bed wetting.
• Having difficulty waking from sleep.
• Being under physical or emotional stress.
• Having a urinary tract infection.
• Experiencing slow development of the central nervous system.
• Having a hormonal imbalance.
• Having an abnormality that affects the spinal cord, the urethral valve in boys or the ureter in girls or boys.
• Having a small bladder.

Reducing fluids before bed and having your child go to the bathroom when starting the bedtime routine (and again just before sleep) will often help reduce bed-wetting, the academy advises.