Who can remember peeing the bed at summer camp?

[iampadded]

My parents used to send me to the same summer camp for 3 weeks ever summer from the ages of 8-13. I probably did not stop wetting my bed nightly until about the age of 11 or so and thereafter it was still quite frequent.  So summer camp was always an adventure.  The good thing about  camp is that all of the mattresses in every cabin were protected with light weight zip in covers (since I suspect bedwetting "accidents" at camps are fairly frequent) so you were not automatically outed by the existence of one on your bed.  My parents sent me with an ample supply of pull-up diapers (goodnites until I was about 10 and some small adult diaper pull ups after that) and  a couple of pair of plastic pants.  The counselors were discrete and in the know and in the mornings I would leave my wet pull up and used plastic pants in a zip plastic bag inside my bed at the bottom and at night, clean plastic pants and a pull up would be waiting in a clean plastic bag which I would put on discretely while in bed.  I wet almost nightly during the 6 years at camp and this system worked to perfection.  I was aware of other bedwetters at camp during this time becasue they did not use plastic pants and their beds would be wet from time to time.

[Huggybutt]

1 hour ago, iampadded said:

My parents used to send me to the same summer camp for 3 weeks ever summer from the ages of 8-13. I probably did not stop wetting my bed nightly until about the age of 11 or so and thereafter it was still quite frequent.  So summer camp was always an adventure.  The good thing about  camp is that all of the mattresses in every cabin were protected with light weight zip in covers (since I suspect bedwetting "accidents" at camps are fairly frequent) so you were not automatically outed by the existence of one on your bed.  My parents sent me with an ample supply of pull-up diapers (goodnites until I was about 10 and some small adult diaper pull ups after that) and  a couple of pair of plastic pants.  The counselors were discrete and in the know and in the mornings I would leave my wet pull up and used plastic pants in a zip plastic bag inside my bed at the bottom and at night, clean plastic pants and a pull up would be waiting in a clean plastic bag which I would put on discretely while in bed.  I wet almost nightly during the 6 years at camp and this system worked to perfection.  I was aware of other bedwetters at camp during this time becasue they did not use plastic pants and their beds would be wet from time to time.

Summer camp, not the one I got heat stroke AND strep throat at in the same week, the other one.....age 9, I wet the bed in my cabin and the counselor put my mattress outside of the door to air out with a big stain on it for all passerbys to see. That's all I remember about that embarrassing event.

[Angela Bauer]

I only went to summer camp twice: when I was 8 for a week; when I was 9 for 2 weeks. My older sister, Penny, went to that same camp the summer I turned 7 and she was 12, just past puberty. Our folks picked that camp because they did not make a big deal about bedwetting. That was important because Penny resumed bedwetting at puberty, a couple of months before camp. She took with her a couple of rubber sheets, several vinyl panties and a suitcase full of flat gauze diapers. She pinned on her own diapers, pulled on a pair of vinyl panties and a shirt. During the day a staff person washed and dried all the diapers worn by the wetters. Each diaper had a name tag. In the late afternoon all who wore diapers sorted through the washed ones.

I had not resumed bedwetting normally either year I went to that camp along with Penny. I did not then know how to pin on my diaper. She did that for me. I figured since I was wearing a diaper and vinyl panties, what the heck! Instead of getting up in the dark to walk to an outhouse I just wet my diaper. This was good preparation for when I resumed bedwetting when I was 12.

[iampadded]

20 hours ago, huggybutt said:

Summer camp, not the one I got heat stroke AND strep throat at in the same week, the other one.....age 9, I wet the bed in my cabin and the counselor put my mattress outside of the door to air out with a big stain on it for all passerbys to see. That's all I remember about that embarrassing event.

Yes- A badge of honor at summer camp for those poor souls where it really was an unfortunate accident or they were living in denial.

17 hours ago, Angela Bauer said:

 During the day a staff person washed and dried all the diapers worn by the wetters. Each diaper had a name tag. In the late afternoon all who wore diapers sorted through the washed ones.

 

A yes- name tags, I forgot about those. Every piece of clothing at camp had to have a name tag sewed in. Never thought about cloth diapers.  In my day, disposables had been invented.  But cloth diapers with your name sewed in-identifying the user should it get misplaced-there is no coming back from.

[nonny]

Yup, at age 7, 8 and 9 I woke up in a cabin full of boys to discover I’d peed like a baby in my sleeping bag overnight.

I remember hiding in bed one of those mornings until everyone went to breakfast and my counsellor came to find me, and then having to admit it. They were very nice and discreet about it, but a sleeping bag and pyjamas hung out on the line to dry all day told the whole camp some unfortunate kid had an accident, and word of mouth meant everyone immediately knew who. The last time I did it was after unlimited cups of hot chocolate at a campfire. So great at night, enjoying cup after cup… not great at all the next morning waking up in the results.

It was a great place, but with rustic, fairly gross outhouses. Lots of kids were scared of the dark, animals, spiders, etc. and a trip to the bathroom at night meant a brave little expedition facing all of that. I was a counsellor at the same camp later on and part of our orientation was about how common it is for the younger kids to have bathroom accidents, day and night, when they’re away from home. The camp doctor asked us if we’d ever wondered why there was a plastic cover on every mattress in camp.

[Angela Bauer]

1 hour ago, iampadded said:

Yes- A badge of honor at summer camp for those poor souls where it really was an unfortunate accident or they were living in denial.

A yes- name tags, I forgot about those. Every piece of clothing at camp had to have a name tag sewed in. Never thought about cloth diapers.  In my day, disposables had been invented.  But cloth diapers with your name sewed in-identifying the user should it get misplaced-there is no coming back from.

Hi Iampadded, I sure hope I did not bring up memories of name tags painful to you. In our family even as late as 1981 when I was 17 and leaving home for university, our mother opposed disposables. Many in the family hugged trees. According to history, US patent records and even Docror Spock's BABY AND CHILD CARE, at least one brand of disposable was produced prior to 1945. Apparently a grandfather high-placed in R&D at P&G decided on his own to perfect the disposable diaper concept. That was circa 1958 because he wanted to make changing his grand daughter easier. P&G first market Pampers in 1960 on a small scale. In those days people usually held disposables closed with the same safety pins used with cloth diapers.

During my youth Mom only bought a box of Pampers one time in the summer of 1972 when I was 8. My youngest sister developed runny poop on the drive home from vacation. We ran out of clean cloth diapers, so Mom bought the Pampers just north of Fresno. Those must have been old stock since they did not have sticky tabs, which Pampers introduced earlier in 1972. The tape was sold separately in small rolls. It was just after the family got home that Penny and I went to camp, me for the first time. It was quite the operation to sew on the name tags well enough they did not come loose in the washer. In 1973 we put name tags on more gauze diapers.

By the summer of 1973 Pampers with sticky tabs were sold everywhere. From then on sales of cotton diapers began to decline.

[iampadded]

I have no painful memories of name tags. Quite the contrary.  I had forgotten my mom sewing them (later sticking them when they came with peel and stick high tech glue) on everything when I was a kid, camp or not.  I think she stuck them on my plastic pants for camp so they could be properly sorted in the wash. Thank God the counselors discretely retrieved them from laundry and placed them inside the foot of my bed with a clean pull up nightly.  I was in cloth diapers at night until I was about 6. Later as a teen I had a couple of pair of velcro closing cloth diapers.  But since i left home, only disposables since I don't want to deal with the wash and storage.  I could not imagine cloth diapers at camp.  I think it would be very hard to keep that a secret for long.

28 minutes ago, nonny said:

Yup, at age 7, 8 and 9 I woke up in a cabin full of boys to discover I’d peed like a baby in my sleeping bag overnight.

I remember hiding in bed one of those mornings until everyone went to breakfast and my counsellor came to find me, and then having to admit it. They were very nice and discreet about it, but a sleeping bag and pyjamas hung out on the line to dry all day told the whole camp some unfortunate kid had an accident, and word of mouth meant everyone immediately knew who. The last time I did it was after unlimited cups of hot chocolate at a campfire. So great at night, enjoying cup after cup… not great at all the next morning waking up in the results.

It was a great place, but with rustic, fairly gross outhouses. Lots of kids were scared of the dark, animals, spiders, etc. and a trip to the bathroom at night meant facings all that. I was a counsellor at the same camp later on and part of our orientation was about how common it is for the younger kids to have bathroom accidents, day and night, when they’re away from home.

Exactly - for the under 9 or 10 crowd, bedwetting was not that unusual.  Perhaps not every night,  but over 14 days-many suffered and accident or two.  And I felt sorry for those kids, since for many it really was an accident-due to strange surroundings, scary stories, homesick, etc. and they neither expected it or came prepared for the result.  Thus their beds were stripped etc. and their pee soaked night clothes washed and hungout to dry. All of the beds in our cabin were protected with a plastic/vinyl encasement-so at least the mattresses did not have to go outside..  But I thought it was common enough that I often use the expression "like a 9 year old the first night of sleep away camp" to describe a bedwetting episode.

[Megalo]

I went to summer camp once between like 7th and 8th grade. I was weary of using outside facilities so I ended messing myself often. Once, I was sitting waiting for one of the meals and two other boys walked by then came back around to mention that I had shit myself. It was not an enjoyable experience for me.

[Alex Bridges]

I worked at a couple summer camps, and I saw some excellent examples of great camp counseling and shitty parenting.

The counselors with the cabin of 5 year olds dealt with wet beds, wet pants, and dirty underwear (sometimes found hidden under beds days later, because the place stunk so bad who could tell). That cabin started with three counselors (still not enough. Imagine having ten 5 year olds to look after) and they kept quitting. I think they had six pass through by the end of summer, and the only one who made it from the first to last day was an Iraq veteran from the invasion and surge years.

One cabin had a kid, in the 11-12 age range, who messed the bed multiple times a week. He didn’t have any special needs I was aware of. Counselors were great about it and got the other kids to be kind about it (in front of adults at least). I don’t think the parents sent him with pull-ups or diapers. Really, awful parenting, putting a kid in a situation like that. Obviously a case of sending the kid off to give the parents a break. The kid was there for two weeks and was miserable, though we tried to do what we could for him. Even without kids teasing him, which I’m sure happened when we weren’t looking. maybe I’m wrong, and the parents just wanted him to have a normal camp experience, or as close to it as possible, and maybe he did, too, but one solution could have been having him sleep in the infirmary.

Worst, however, and this still pisses me off, was when I worked at a camp where the parents of this one girl, about 10 years old, told camp administrators that she wet multiple times daily and to not let her change her pants or wash her sleeping bag. I mean, obviously the kid was on the spectrum, but she was high functioning and didn’t seem to have any developmental delay. Just to look at her, and even talk to her, you wouldn’t notice anything amiss except that she always wore jeans (it’s too hot for jeans in the summer here) and they were always wet. Maybe some behavior analysis told the parents to do that. Either way, it was wrong of the camp to go along with it. It was a scout-type camp, so cots instead of beds, and the only chairs were the plastic kind in the dining hall, so there was no camp property to damage, just a little girl’s sense of self-worth. I ended up quitting that job, not over that, but it pissed me off then, and it still does. Knowing what little I do about autism spectrum disorder and behavior analysis, it was probably the case that she liked the sensation of being wet, so whether the no changing rule was designed to embarrass her (she never seemed to be, or to pay her pants the slightest attention), or were hoping it would get so uncomfortable being wet she would stop.

I’m aware that we don’t know best just because we happen to be involved in this lifestyle, and maybe for some kids a diaper is such a terrible thing that anything else is better, but in those two instances, I can’t believe the kids wouldn’t have been happier, or at least more comfortable, in diapers. 

[JamieJamie]

Yea I did when I was in scouts.  I don't think it was that big of a deal back then. I just put the wet sleepwear in a baggie and move on. My sleeping bag was mostly synthetic so it dried quickly and would wash them in the washer when I get home from camp. I would wet like one or twice a week so it wasn't a lot to deal with. 

[Ryan1967]

I peed my bed at cub camp - each time wore a nappy and plastic pants, but not the only one - bedwetter tent/ cabin - not so bad the first time when I was the youngest, but the last time I went I was the oldest and still peeing my bed

[iampadded]

On 10/10/2019 at 9:49 AM, Ryan1967 said:

I peed my bed at cub camp - each time wore a nappy and plastic pants, but not the only one - bedwetter tent/ cabin - not so bad the first time when I was the youngest, but the last time I went I was the oldest and still peeing my bed

Yup-I know the feeling.  My last year at camp I was  a tall 13yr old and probably peed my bed 18 of the 21 days I was there.

[Floater]

Many times. Was not so bad as a 9 year old (lots of company) but at 13 or 14 pretty embarrasing.

[wetspot]

I do remember peeing the bed at camp several times. There was another boy in my cabin that year who also wet his sleeping bag at night. At 9 it wasn't a big deal but got to be embarrassing later.

The other thing was I didn't like the bathrooms at that camp. They were gross and kind of scary to be honest. More like outhouses and I hated that. I didn't like to use them and had accidents in my pants even during the day.