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There are two topics that I get emailed on all the time. One is raising daughters. The emotional struggles, the growing up struggles, the all about your big girl body talk struggles. The second one, and probably the one I am most baffled by, is moms who are embarrassed that they are still dealing with wetting the bed with their kids. Now, I don’t know where the shame came from with parents whose older children still have accidents, but there should not be any. I let go of feeling like I was doing something wrong a long time ago. I also encourage my daughters to not feel bad when it happens. I don’t ever punish when they have an accident. I just change the sheets, try to make sure we don’t have a lot of liquid before bed and watch for signs of change that might trigger an accident. Like travel or a change in schedule. It seems like every time we travel, we have an incident. So, I always pack GoodNites® Bedtime pants when I travel because I know it is going to happen. This, along with some other tips, helps me and my child Rest Easy Tonight knowing we won’t be messing up anyone else’s sheets.
Stay with the Bedtime Routine
It is so hard when you are traveling to stay on the same bedtime routine. With all of the excitement of family activities, amusement parks, road trips, flights and more, kid’s schedules tend to go out the window when traveling. A while ago, after having three little girls have three accidents in one night at a nice hotel, I learned that sticking as closely to a bedtime routine as possible when on the road is helpful in preventing accidents. Try to keep the same bedtime as at home. Try to stick to bath, teeth, bedtime stories, lights out. The more routine you are, the less tired kids are and the more likely they are to get up and go potty if they have to at night.
Take Your Child to the Bathroom Before you Go to Bed
I have a friend who has three kids. A boy and a set of twin girls, not may years apart in age. She, religiously, got up twice a night for over a year and a half and took her kids to the bathroom at night. She was beyond determined to have three kids who could wake themselves and go to the bathroom. While I admired her tenacity, after a month of doing the same thing, I was a tired, short tempered and I still had kids who had accidents. So I gave up. However, I do wake my kids and take them to the bathroom before I go to bed.
I, generally, go to bed about an hour after my kids. A while back I noticed that when they had accidents when we traveled, it was soon after they fell into a deep sleep. So I started getting them up right before I went to bed. It does seem to help and I still do it today.
Pack the Right Items
My children are clearly too old for diapers. But I found that, especially when I travel, I needed something for the nights when we could not keep up the bedtime routine or when I knew that they would be too tired or too scared in a strange hotel room to make it to the potty at night. So I always pack GoodNites® Bedtime pants. ALWAYS! With 5 layer protection, they offer protection without a bulky feel. They are soft and don’t have that crinkle noise that diapers do, allowing kids to feel confident that no one else will know they are wearing them under their pajamas. They are odor absorbing and protect boys and girls where they need it most. I have been buying them for years and, on the nights they need them, I never have a leak or an issue. They can be a real life saver for not only me, who does not have to get up at 3am to call a hotel clerk to bring clean sheets, but for my girls when they want to camp out in their cousins room and not have the embarrassment of an accident to deal with. Since 1 in 6 kids between the ages of 4-12 wet the bed, I am never shocked when moms tell me they buy them too for their older kids!
Turn off the TV
We all do it. We get back from a long day of fun on vacation, tuck the kids in and turn on the TV for them as we take a moment to organize ourselves without being bothered. While I totally do it too and understand it, I have noticed that that stimulation often leads to a later bedtime, a more uneasy sleep and sometimes accidents. I don’t do TV at night for my kids at home, so I try to stick with that at a hotel or a friend’s house too. If they do get into movie night, though, I am glad I have GoodNites® Bedtime pants as a back up safety net!
I say it to parents who email all the time. There is no shame in your child having accidents. It happens and no one is immune. I do have friends who have young kids who all sleep through the night without an issue. And I have one daughter who rarely has an accident and had not since age 4. But when I throw my kid’s routine’s off with a trip somewhere, I have to prepare for the chance that it could happen. So I try to be aware of what triggers an accident, usually a change in routine, and prepare for it. Which is kind of my job in all things parenting after all.
Where are you going this summer? Check out More Tips and Tricks to help your kids too!
My daughter is a bedwetter. Does the S / M size fits a 10 year old?
It depends on her weight. The package has the sizes and weight on them. My 10 year old is really small, only 48 lbs and super skinny so they do. But the large fits my stockier 8 year old better…
Do the normal disposable kind work better for you than the cloth kind with inserts? We used the inserts for a while but they’re hard to find in stores these days so we went back to the normal pull-up kind and they do just fine. What do you currently use?
How does your oldest feel that she still has nighttime accidents? How does she feel about wearing Goodnites? My son has issues and gives me some struggle with this.
I have serious issues with Goodnites….. the sizing parameters are complete crap. Not accurate at all. I have an 8 y/o daughter, shes VERY tall (4’7″) and weight 90lbs now. These sleep pants havnt fit her for the last year. Even though they say up to 125lbs. Utter bull. Worse then that, that’s the biggest they go. Beyond that you have to go to adult sizes, adult XS works, sort of, but they are nearly impossible to find. Though ironically they are quite a bit cheaper, which makes no sense. I’m just sad that my 8 year old can’t have the cute characters that are made to appeal to her, and soothe the sadness that comes with late bedwetting. Fix it goodnites. And CVS, for god’s sake, start carrying the adult extra small diapers for those of us who are stuck.