Does Your Child Wet His Bed?

The extent to which the small child gains full control of his bladder depends in great measure on the mother's skill and on how she trains her child from his tenderest years. If the child is taken from his place regularly to answer nature's call after his meals, and once again at ten o'clock at night, and if the mother avoids getting flustered and making more fuss than necessary over every slip that happens by chance — in any case, most children remain dry through the night from a year and a half to two years of age. Be that as it may, it is easy for good habits to be turned upside down by any means that irritates that part of the body; and a clean child may soil his clothes if he is made to wait longer than necessary.

The chief cause of continual bed-wetting is, without doubt, the mismanagement of a matter that is at its outset entirely ordinary. The sensible mother accepts the ordinary thing and sees no need to make a fuss, realizing that her child will drop this habit if given a little time; and meanwhile she turns a blind eye to occasional slips. When the child grows accustomed to controlling himself at night, she should let a few words of praise and compliment reach his ear.

The child must keep his self-confidence. The mother should praise her small child after every night on which she finds his bed dry, reminding him of it, and should not rebuke him harshly on the nights when he wets his bed, telling him: all children do that when they are very small; even his father, when he was a small boy, did it — but he overcame that habit in a very short time. As soon as the child realizes that he is not wicked, his fear of wetting his bed will fade away, and then he will control himself.

The child should be taken quietly from his place during the day to urinate once every two hours and, with the passage of time, once every three hours. The child should also urinate after teatime, and once more before his sleep; and of course he must be wakened, very gently, to answer nature's call at ten o'clock at night as well. The child should not be allowed rough play just before bedtime, nor the reading or reciting to him of stories that stir the emotions, for dreams or nightmares lead to bed-wetting in most cases. It is useful for the child to take an extra sleep during the day, and to be allowed plenty of play and exercise in the open air. In short: do not, mother, be quick with accusations or make more fuss than necessary — and let your child live a happy life.