My Son is 9 and wets the bed every night. He does not realize if I get him up out of bed to take him to bathroom in the middle of the night. He seems to be awake but does not remember going to the bathroom in the middle of the night even though he climbed out of the top bunk and walked to the bathroom himself. I know his problem is that he is a deep sleeper and stays in the stage 4 sleep longer than he should. I want to know what I can do to change his sleep pattern?
One of my children is such an incredibly deep sleeper that it is not unusual to find her sitting up in bed holding a conversation yet she will have absolutely no memory of the event in the morning. Researchers looking into the causes of nocturnal enuresis have found a link between bedwetting and children’s sleep patterns. The main problem faced by many of these children rests in their inability while asleep to recognize neurological messages sent by the bladder to the sleep arousal area of their brain to wake up and empty their bladder When we sleep at night, it’s normal to settle into a continuous four-stage sleep cycle. Children who wet the bed often experience a larger percentage of REM sleep making it difficult for the brain to tune into the bladder’s nighttime signals. REM sleep refers to the dream stage of sleep which explains why children often talk about the fact that they were having a dream of urinating while this is going on. Unfortunately “lifting” as a way of managing children’s bedwetting does very little to help the situation. This technique does not prevent bedwetting and may make the entire process more stressful for you and your son. The goal of many alarm-based treatments is to recondition the body or help shift children’s sleep patterns back into a normal cycle, so that the brain is in a more ‘alert’ state and can respond to messages sent from the bladder. At first the alarm will not wake a deep sleeper, so your son will initially need your help in order to wake-up and go to the toilet. Regardless of whether or not he has already wet it is essential that you wake him and get him to turn the alarm off himself as this is a key component of the training process. The time it takes for children to learn to wake on their own is quite variable, so it can at first be very challenging and exhausting for parents. It is essential that you draw on the support of a health professional before introducing this form of treatment as the more assistance you receive the greater the chances of a successful outcome. All the best!
Regards,
Dr Cathrine
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