Sleepovers and Car Trips and Shared Beds, Oh My!
January 26, 2009
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Ann Douglas
PARENTCENTRAL.CA
It's 1975 and I'm hosting a sleepover in my parents' basement in Mississauga. It's 1 am and we're listening to the Captain and Tennille, eating junk food and downing gallons of pop. Someone gets a bowl of warm water and places it beside a party guest who has miraculously managed to zonk out under the piano bench. Then she lifts the sleeping girl's hand and places it in the bowl of water.
"This will make her wet her bed." Everyone laughs, including me. I have to join in or people might figure out why I dashed off to take a pill when no one was looking, and why I stopped drinking pop a couple of hours ago. It doesn't take any party trick to make me wet the bed. Now I'm worried that someone's going to dip my hand in the water once I fall asleep. I don't even know if that works, but I'll have to remember to keep both my hands tucked inside my sleeping bag, just in case.
Sleepovers can be the stuff of which sleepless nights are made if you're a kid who might wet the bed. I've been there and, true to genetic prediction, two of my four kids have struggled with bedwetting as well. How parents (both the sleepover parent and the child's own parent) handle sleepovers and other social occasions can either ease or crank up the anxiety factor for kids who are struggling with bedwetting. Here are some practical tips I'd like to pass along, based on my first-hand experiences as a kid who wet the bed through the middle school years and a parent of two children who followed a similar path.
SITUATION: SLEEPOVER PARTY
What Makes It Difficult: The child is away from the parent during what could potentially be a very embarrassing situation: wetting the bed at someone else's house and in front of other people.
What You Might Want to Try: Give the sleepover host parents a heads' up about the situation (in private, of course: out of earshot of your child and the other sleepover guests). Let the host parents know what strategies you and your child will be using to minimize the risk of bedwetting (including, if your doctor recommends it, the use of DDAVP – please link to key portions of text block below or run it as a drop quote or pick it up on CPS website] and talk about how the host parent should respond if your child wets his sleeping bag, becomes upset, or asks to go home in the middle of the night.
You might want to give your child an out. Let him know that he can call you to arrange a ride home from the sleepover at any time. That way, he can have fun with his friends during the party part, but skip the sleepover part.
SITUATION: TRAVELLING AS A FAMILY
What Makes It Difficult: The child will be sleeping somewhere other than her own bed and may have to share a bed with siblings or a parent (e.g., in a hotel or when visiting friends or relatives). There is the added worry about damaging the mattress at the hotel or the couch at Grandma's or dealing with added laundry when you're away from home.
What You Might Want to Try: Pack your hospital-grade mattress protector sheets as well as extra pajamas, towels, and Pull-ups or Goodnites (to minimize those trips to the laundromat). If siblings will be sharing a bed, create a middle-of-the-bed buffer zone using extra towels and mattress protector sheets to minimize the likelihood of the bedsharing sibling getting wet.
Use all the strategies that work for you at home (e.g., getting enough sleep, limiting caffeine and the pre-bedtime consumption of liquids, etc).
SITUATION: WETTING THE BOOSTER SEAT DURING NAPS
What Makes It Difficult: A child who is prone to bedwetting is likely to wet his booster seat as well (either while you're traveling by car at night or if he falls asleep in the car during nap time). When this happens, you need to get the car seat cleaned up and back in commission ASAP.
What You Might Want to Try: Encourage your child to make a trip to the bathroom before you hit the road. And schedule frequent roadside pitstops into your travel itinerary so your child can empty his smaller-than-adult bladder.
Slip your child into a pull up while you're on the road. Look for a booster seat that can be cleaned up easily.
When you're choosing a booster seat, try to find a model for which extra covers are readily available. That way, you can slip on a backup while your regular cover is in the wash.
Want more bedwetting help?
Peruse the rest of our bedwetting section
Bedwetting defined
Bedwetting treatments explained
Bedwetting: A self-esteem issue
Bedwetting causes — the modern parent's guide
Bedwetting drugs may cause serious side effects