I told myself to stay calm

At first I took my son to the urologist. I wanted to know if everything was okay physically. I had no idea what was causing it. The urologist examined my son and said that there was no physical cause. After that I felt at a loss and didn't know what to do next. Then I went to a different urologist. But he also said there was no physical cause.

I started to think about why he might have this problem, and thought about my family. My husband's brother also wet the bed until he was grown up. I just happened to hear this by chance from my mother-in-law. A cousin of mine and my father's cousin also wet the bed. So I thought it might run in our family.

Then I tried out different things to put an end to the bedwetting. I tried to wake my son. He sleeps very deeply. An hour after he went to bed I wanted to wake him. But it was already too late.

Then I tried to have him drink less. I gave him hardly anything to drink in the afternoon. That was really tough for him in the summer, and I feel really bad about it now. In the evening, I reduced the amount he drank so much that he hardly had anything to drink. I thought if he drank less fluid he would have to pee less. But somehow he peed even more.

We also went to a child psychologist. My son felt very shy and uncomfortable during those sessions. It was unpleasant for him. And it didn’t help either, so we stopped going there.

The doctor told me that children who wet the bed can wear special underwear with an alarm in it. I tried that out. The alarm was pretty loud. Everybody in the house heard it and everybody was wide awake. We all slept badly because the first drop of urine set off the alarm. Only my son carried on sleeping. He always slept deeply. It was even very hard to wake him up. He just didn't notice. And the next day he couldn't remember anything.

My son was very shy. I noticed that he was very embarrassed about wetting the bed. Everything else in his life was okay. When he got older and went to school he always talked about “my illness.”

During holidays he often slept over at his friends. Nothing ever happened then. But I couldn't sleep most of the time. I was thinking about what might happen if he wet the bed there at his friend's place. I was afraid of what effect it might have on his friendships. I don’t think he worried about that at all.

We don't talk about it anymore nowadays. We communicate by eye contact and gestures. Sometimes he comes into the kitchen in the morning, and waits until his brothers and sisters are gone. Then he says, “When you have time, would you wash my pillowcase and my sheets?” And I say, “Yeah, okay.” We don't make a big deal out of it.

Sometimes it was hard. When I came home from work, I was sometimes very tired. From experience, I would always have spare bedding, especially in the winter when it’s hard to get things to dry. I didn't always wash his duvet and sheets on a hot cycle, but on a normal cycle right after they got wet. It used up a lot of electricity and water, which was expensive. I sometimes dried the mattress with a hairdryer and a steam cleaner. Using a steam cleaner is the best way to get rid of the smell. Things started running smoothly after a while.

In recent years it only takes a few drops on his bedclothes... and my son is already so disturbed by the smell. He always wanted everything to be washed. When he was small, the smell didn't bother him much. Now he won't put up with it at all. Everything has to be very clean.

I often asked myself what I was doing wrong. He was my fifth child, and all the other children were out of diapers at a younger age. I couldn’t understand why I had failed with him.

My pediatrician said that I wasn’t doing anything wrong. But I still told myself that I have to sort out the problem. I felt like I had to help him, and myself too. Especially when it came to coping with the laundry. That’s a problem for me as a mother. With all my children there’s always a lot of laundry.

Sometimes I felt very tired and just couldn't take it anymore, physically or emotionally. But then I looked at my other children and that helped. The fact that I love my children and they love me helped. That gave us all strength. We were and are always there for each other, and that helped us.

Talking to other mothers helped too. It made it easier for me. Sharing experiences with others who are affected might help other parents too.

Parents should never punish their children, not in any way. I think the best thing you can do is love and protect the child. Daily life can be tough sometimes. It’s stressful. You still have to try to be there even more for the child, so they know that they are loved and special.

My son’s father thought that the boy was to blame and that he should be punished. But I don’t think force and punishment help.