Craig

Very true for me.

Thanks a whole bunch! Great stuff!

“Now you are probably still interested in how I have already almost reached OAB - I have already described this in my own blog here” I don’t see a link to your blog you mention about developing OAB. Where would I find it? Sounds very interesting. Thanks!

About $175 a month. Gotta stimulate the economy somehow.

Normal.

Hope you got the people you needed. It looks like a hot topic here with plenty of interest in what you are addressing. I have some familiarity with CBT, but no game-changing knowledge of unpotty training. So, I just don’t see how I could contribute much. I came by bedwetting by not stopping well after the age I should have, then deciding it was fun and exciting, and then encouraging it as I’ve covered in my other posts. Pushing things to a loss of daytime control is of more than a passing interest, but it would be nice to have a degree of assurance of success before starting, along with a plan to compare with the famous 12-Month plan, although just the process is fun. Good luck!

I’m a dummy about this stuff. I thought Kegel exercises and those machines were supposed to help cure or reduce incontinence?

That sums it up very well. In mu case, any discipline was verbal rather than forcing me to wear only pajamas to bed and consequently soaking everything above the plastic sheet. I think that was because the smell would go through the house and anger my father. So, it all was contained with various cloth diapering products and waterproof pants. The effects of that approach I’ve covered in previous posts. If disposable bedwetter pants or diapers would have been available, I’m sure they would have been used which would have made the whole thing a lot less of an issue and task.

Did my father’s hostile words and behavior regarding my bedwetting actually backfire on him and cause it to continue? Maybe. One way this might have happened was via the emotional turmoil he created predisposing me to continuing to wet the bed. The other was more active — I wanted to wet the bed to spite him. And I felt safe in diapers. Then, like I said, diapers became fun and there was no turning back. The question is whether I would have continued as a bedwetter without the hostility and without becoming a diaper lover? Maybe not. Most kids have grown out of this by age 12, right? I was actively pursuing diaper wearing and bedwetting by then. Then again, when I was in my teens I didn’t have to do anything to wet the bed most nights. It just happened. Like now. I can do obvious things to make it more frequent. But after all these years, I’m so accustomed to wetting my diapers while asleep, that I think it long ago became permanent if it wasn’t from the start. Okay, I’m rambling there. Time to bring this post to an end.

Yeah. Parents aren’t always the best at expressing frustrations. Dad was a very rigid man, which could be good sometimes, but not always, and he manufactured stress. “Real boys don’t wet the bed.” Well, how was that to be interpreted? Some boys do wet the bed, and not by choice. And is it then okay if girls wet the bed? Actually, I think bedwetting is more common in males. And vanishingly few do so on purpose. As those on this site who are trying to become real bedwetters know, it’s apparent that it’s not the easiest thing to develop. Like I said, I’m not sure how my bedwetting transformed from something I couldn’t stop into something I liked because it got me the diapers I was starting to crave. Along the way I’m sure I rebelled at my father’s belittling by doing things to make my bedwetting worse. Then it got fun, so it all worked out for the best in a weird sort of way.

Thanks for following up on my post! Best I recall, my parents were torn between (1) wet sheets and pajamas and hoping I’’d grow out of bedwetting on one hand, and (2) having me wear diapers with far less personal clean up time in the morning before school and with far less laundry but with risking the possibility diapers would cause bedwetting to persist. Both were tried. I hated waking up in a wet bed wearing wet pajamas — at least for a while. And I always hated washing so much of myself before going to school. I didn’t like getting up early anyway, and having to practically take a bath made it worse. Diapers obviously made the area to be cleaned so I didn’t smell like pee much smaller. Diapers won out, partly because of my father hating the smell from a wet bed, and partly because I complained about taking a bath or shower before starting the day. And partly out of resignation that bedwetting was persisting well beyond when it should have stopped, and would probably continue regardless of what I would or would not wear to bed. As I’ve said, by the time I hit 8 or so I started loving diapers and wetting them, so I made sure it did persist. Did entering puberty have anything to do with it? Probably. I know I started shaving occasionally around fifth grade, if that’s any indication. But since I’d already made my peace with bedwetting before that, maybe puberty just pushed things on a bit? Hope this makes some sense!

Here’s a different way of answering your great question:. How would I classify my incontinence desires? Fun, lifelong persistent, and with some ups and downs, intense.

That sound familiar. Although, my point of entry to all of this was bedwetting that didn’t stop to wanting diapers and not wanting it to stop sometime between 8 and 10 I guess. I did see an add in a catalog for “incontinent pants” around that time that put the diaper desire into high gear. And so it stayed.

That’s interesting. No, I don’t think attention-seeking was an issue with me. Actually, I wanted a little less attention, at least regarding bedwetting. No siblings. I don’t recall talking to the pediatrician about it, but I would guess my parents did. I think I just really started to like diapers a whole bunch — found them exciting. Bedwetting then went from something I accepted and tolerated until maybe 8 or 9, to something I loved. I know that happened at least a couple years before I became a teen. Mind you, I was a kid so this was quite a few years back. It’s not like I recall all the details back then. But the progress went from thinking bedwetting was normal as a pre-schooler, to being informed it wasn’t and realizing something was wrong and suffering through efforts to fix the problem, to the stress created by my father, to everyone finally just accepting it, to me really liking it and doing the opposite to what one would do to try to stop it. Maybe wanting to spite my father for his making the situation worse by downing water before bed might have played a part? I don’t know. But I think it was the overall fascination with wearing and wetting diapers that was the main motivator. Still is. Anyway, that’s the best I remember it.

We’ve got a lot of stuff in common here: An angry, disgusted father insisting this must stop A mother trying to cope A year or two, off and on, of unsuccessful efforts to stop my bedwetting Parents torn between ending diapers to try to stop it, and my father’s anger at the smell of wet sheets and laundry A final resignation to the situation and providing diapers to reduce the smell and laundry and morning clean up My eventually discovering I loved diapers and bedwetting and determining to sabotage efforts to cure me. My use of what was provided for nighttime to experiment with during the day. Presto, here I am. I won the battle.

Yes, that’s very close to my experience except I was never out of them at night. Before I really started to love bedwetting, I think I just took it as just the way I was. It was inconvenient in that I had to get cleaned up in the morning before leaving for school. But I was used to it. I’m sure if I started wetting the bed all of a sudden in my early teens as something new, I would have had a different attitude — I guess? Never went to any sleepovers or camps, so that wasn’t an issue. My parents also gave up, but did so when I was is the early years of school. After all, what do you do after restricting fluids in the evening, watching the diet, etc? There were no meds to try back then. Or, at least I never tried any if there were prescription meds to help. When I started loving diapers, bedwetting became a great way to have them and wear them. I’m sure I would have sabotaged any efforts by my parents to cure me of bedwetting by secretly drinking a bunch of water before bed. Actually, I eventually starting doing that sometimes anyway after diaper wearing became fun. Interesting how some of the same themes appear in most of our stories and histories.

Maybe 4-5 nights per week I guess. As I’ve shared elsewhere, I never stopped wetting the bed as a kid, and not for lack of the usual efforts by parents to bring about dry nights. Then, shortly before I hit my teens, this diaper thing got fun and I didn’t want to stop. The problem — or opportunity, depending on how you view it — is that if you get your bedwetting controlled down to even only once per week, you don’t know what night that will be. So you wear diapers to bed every night just in case, and hope to wake up dry — or wet, if that’s what you want, and wet is what I wanted. There was a forum several years ago where parents would post ideas, success and failures, regarding efforts to get their kids to stop wetting the bed. I’m sure there are still a lot of those. Parents were becoming aware of our community when some found their kids starting to want diapers. The question they would debate was whether having their bedwetting kids wear diapers to bed was a gateway to the DL lifestyle/interest. Some were reluctant to use diapers out of fear they kids would get into ABDL. I don’t think a consensus was ever achieved. I’ve thought about my experiences. How would things have been different if I were not already wearing diapers to bed and wetting them years beyond when kids normally stay dry at night? I don’t know.

Yes, while still in grade school. I was familiar with diapers from bedwetting. I know the thought had crossed my mind about what would happen if I needed them in the day, too, which I didn’t. At some point diapers became really fun and I started experimenting during the day, but only at home. Never got the guts to wear them to school or when out. That came later along with all the excitement I still experience.

Holy smokes! I wonder how many are trying this out right now? No need to reply….?

Wow. What an informative post. Anyone interested in joining the bedwetter team like some of us, or to go 24/7 like others, ought to give your comments a careful read and think. Thanks for writing that. I hope it helps some people.

What a well-written piece! Now, to pursue the quote above further: I think we agree that vasopressin secretion normally goes up while we are asleep as our body’s way of reducing urine production and thus the need to interrupt sleep to pee. In people where this doesn’t happen for whatever reason, and I could be one, the kidneys continue to produce urine just like while awake with a resulting increased number of trips to the bathroom or bedwetting incidents. Of course we’re not drinking anything while asleep, but I’ve read that urine production at night is also dependent in part on fluid consumption throughout the day. And possibly what we eat. Are you suggesting that the normal sleeptime reduction in urine production is one natural body function/system/behavior that can be “defeated” to borrow a term @Enthusi uses for actions to help promote incontinence? Other than drinking extra water, I don’t know what that would be. It would have to be safe. I’ve experimented many times with drinking extra water at bedtime, and I typically can tell my diaper in the morning is wetter as a result. By the way, I’m still a cloth/vinyl pants wearer at night. Recall that I never stopped wetting the bed completely, so I was used to wearing a diaper to bed and not thinking about it much figuring that was just the way I was, then started loving wearing “bedwetter pants” and the bulkiness to bed around fifth grade I think, and started drinking extra water after brushing my teeth before going to bed so as to hide from my parents what I was doing. As I grew into my teens, I really started to love wearing thick diapers to bed and waking up wet even more. I doubt I would have stopped wetting in my sleep anyway since there were times I didn’t drink anything before bed and still woke up wet. So, that’s the other question — since my doctor I had as a kid sort of blew it off other than some tests if I recall and diet changes, what causes me to wet the bed, something hard-wired differently? I admit my love of it and how I reinforced my “natural” bedwetting as described would have burned the habit in permanently, I guess. Doctors I’ve seen since becoming an adult know nothing about my bedwetting. I didn’t intend to write that much. It’s just intensely interesting. And if I can share something that helps someone achieve a bedwetting goal, that’s great!

Hopefully you’ll be pleasantly surprised!

I know there are hypnotic recordings to try to help kids stop bedwetting. Don’t know how they work. Never tried the things. But if they do work, I suppose the opposite effect can be achieved as well — probably with varying levels of effectiveness depending on the recording and the person?

It sounds like you make a good point. This progress from dry nights to consistent wet nights sounds like it’s not smooth. So people probably get discouraged. However, from what I’ve read, the first time you wake up wet when you went to bed dry, or work up clearly wetter than you were when you fell asleep — even if you don’t experience that for another week or more — know for sure that it is possible since you did it. I think all you have to do is stay with your program and you’ll get there — maybe in a couple of months or so — maybe in a year. So enjoy the journey. It sounds like you will get there eventually. And who knows? The longer it took you to achieve your goal, maybe the harder it is to retrain you so it will be more permanent?

You no doubt have a lot of people here who envy you. I think that’s the key to aspiring bedwetters Maybe stuff like going to bed already wet helps. Be sure you wear whatever you have to so leaks are no concern at all — very important and easy to do. Experiment around to figure out how much water you need to drink to wake up needing to pee. Pee without moving. Go back to sleep. Rinse and repeat each day and a habit will form — just don’t know when. But then I didn’t have to learn, but on the few occasions that I did wake up, that’s what I did. Fluid intake at bedtime for me makes no difference. Well, if I don’t drink anything I still we the bed. If I do drink a bunch of water, I wake up in the morning more soaked. You can too!