If you were a bedwetter growing up did you know others who wet?

[stevewet]

I was a chronic nightly wetter growing up and back the I certainly wasn't the only one. Did you know others who wet the bed?

[AbabeBill]

For me, not really. Not during the time I was wetting the bed, 4-6, or 7. I don’t recall anyone, relatives, friends. But later, when I was a bit older, yes. Sometimes I over heard conversations between my mom, and others. My cousin, who was 2 years younger, got put back into diapers, (cloth diapers & plastic pants, it was the 60’s) after he started potty training at about 3. His mom started potty training, but a family incident with her brother required her attention away, so she stopped trying to potty train him. She thought it would be better, for babysitters to just change a diaper, if needs be, than for him to be confused with strangers trying to get him to use the potty. I remember, when he was 5, he would come over with my aunt, he was still in plastic training pants for accidents. He would have to go ask him mom, to help him get his pants down, so he could use the bathroom. He was somewhat self conscious, of still wearing the plastic training pants. When I saw him in the bathroom, his mom left the door open, he got self conscious, and said, I’ll be right out! I remember them being yellow plastic, with terry cloth lining. 

[Apache Raccoon]

No, but preadolescent bedwetting isn’t that uncommon so there’s a high chance I wasn’t the only one even if I didn’t know anything about it.

[Little Sherri]

Interesting question, and the answer, for me, is that while I must assuredly must have been in the acquaintance of other kids who wet the bed, since it's far from an uncommon problem, I didn't know of them, because it wasn't talked about. I lived in mortal fear of anyone finding out that I wet the bed, or that I wore diapers at night (this was in the 1980's, so the the pre pull-up era.) 

In contrast, I have a buddy with two sons, both of whom, until recently, wet the bed - the older one finally outgrew it, at 13 - and both of them wore pull-ups to bed, and for them, it was no big deal - no mortal fear, no real detectable embarrassment of any kind. The older kid's close friends knew about it, so he brought pull-ups to sleepovers as necessary, and didn't sweat it. The last time I was there, his younger son, who's 10, came down to say goodnight after brushing his teeth, in just a pull-up - as far as he was concerned, they were his pajamas. 

My younger daughter still wears pull-ups on occasion, and she's more in the middle of the spectrum between where I was (crippling embarrassment), and where my buddy's kids are (totally nonchalant). She has a couple of good friends who knows she wears them, one of whom also wears pull-ups when away from home base, but she definitely would not walk around in just a pull-up if anyone else were over at the house. 

[stevewet]

39 minutes ago, Little Sherri said:

Interesting question, and the answer, for me, is that while I must assuredly must have been in the acquaintance of other kids who wet the bed, since it's far from an uncommon problem, I didn't know of them, because it wasn't talked about. I lived in mortal fear of anyone finding out that I wet the bed, or that I wore diapers at night (this was in the 1980's, so the the pre pull-up era.) 

In contrast, I have a buddy with two sons, both of whom, until recently, wet the bed - the older one finally outgrew it, at 13 - and both of them wore pull-ups to bed, and for them, it was no big deal - no mortal fear, no real detectable embarrassment of any kind. The older kid's close friends knew about it, so he brought pull-ups to sleepovers as necessary, and didn't sweat it. The last time I was there, his younger son, who's 10, came down to say goodnight after brushing his teeth, in just a pull-up - as far as he was concerned, they were his pajamas. 

My younger daughter still wears pull-ups on occasion, and she's more in the middle of the spectrum between where I was (crippling embarrassment), and where my buddy's kids are (totally nonchalant). She has a couple of good friends who knows she wears them, one of whom also wears pull-ups when away from home base, but she definitely would not walk around in just a pull-up if anyone else were over at the house. 

It was common knowledge that I wet the bed growing up. Mothers mafia and my sister telling all her mates saw to that.

[Little Sherri]

24 minutes ago, stevewet said:

Mothers mafia

I love this. It's accurate. 

Yeah, I have no doubt that my aunts and some of my mom's friends knew, because we stayed at their house sometimes when I was a kid, and while it never occurred to me then, the following question occurred to me in adulthood, both with respect to travelling with young kids, and, travelling with a dog: where do you want us to throw out the diapers, and/or poop bags? If you're staying with someone who has a baby and a Diaper Genie, or if they have a dog and a dedicated dog poop can, then the answer is obvious, but when you stay with people whose kids are older, or who don't have a dog, you don't just fire either of those perishable packages into the bathroom garbage can unspoken. And I had a younger brother and an older sister, so, yeah, some people knew more than they should have, I'm sure of that. 

 

[rubbersheetmike]

8 hours ago, stevewet said:

I was a chronic nightly wetter growing up and back the I certainly wasn't the only one. Did you know others who wet the bed?

Back in the old days when I was growing up it was easy to tell where the bedwetters lived by driving around the neighborhood on my bike and looking at the laundry on the clotheslines.

[Gejoe]

I wasn't a bed wetter growing up, even though I wanted to, but I did know several kids that were. My friend John and his brother were chronic wetters but never tried to hide it. They just peed their beds nearly every night and had no problem having kids play in their room and seeing their wet beds. My younger cousin no blood relation wet until he was eight. Some friends up the street had plastic sheets on their beds, so obviously bed wetters. Older kid a few houses down smelled like pee every day, obviously a bed wetter. Of all the bed wetters ! knew only one wore diapers my friends brother but he always had wet pants. All the rest just peed their beds. 

[Drownedinp]

I wasn't a bedwetter growing up, my next door neighbor had a son my age and a daughter 1 years younger. About half a block away there were 2 brothers, one about 3 years older, than us the other was my age. That wet his bed  Next door to them there was a sister of a friend a few years older than us that wet her bed. That was 5 on our block that were bedwetters. Since then I had a friend that was a fostor kid, that had a younger fos tor brother that wet his bed. I worked with a lady that admitted that she had wet her bed until almost 18 years old. I wonder how many people I have known were bedwetters growing up.

[stevewet]

10 hours ago, Gejoe said:

I wasn't a bed wetter growing up, even though I wanted to, but I did know several kids that were. My friend John and his brother were chronic wetters but never tried to hide it. They just peed their beds nearly every night and had no problem having kids play in their room and seeing their wet beds. My younger cousin no blood relation wet until he was eight. Some friends up the street had plastic sheets on their beds, so obviously bed wetters. Older kid a few houses down smelled like pee every day, obviously a bed wetter. Of all the bed wetters ! knew only one wore diapers my friends brother but he always had wet pants. All the rest just peed their beds. 

I think you knew more bedwetters than I did.

[deewet]

While I was not a bedwetter growing up, one of my good friends' sisters were and she was only a year older than we were.  Her room did smell a bit like it if we got close enough to it. 

I did have an accident at school when out on playground in the early grades, not sure which one it was, but do remember the nuns took me up to a room to dry my clothes off on an old steam radiator and remember how that smelled like urine so I was certainly not the first one to use that room for that purpose. 

[stevewet]

15 hours ago, Gejoe said:

I wasn't a bed wetter growing up, even though I wanted to, but I did know several kids that were. My friend John and his brother were chronic wetters but never tried to hide it. They just peed their beds nearly every night and had no problem having kids play in their room and seeing their wet beds. My younger cousin no blood relation wet until he was eight. Some friends up the street had plastic sheets on their beds, so obviously bed wetters. Older kid a few houses down smelled like pee every day, obviously a bed wetter. Of all the bed wetters ! knew only one wore diapers my friends brother but he always had wet pants. All the rest just peed their beds. 

When I was growing up nappies for bedwetting were discouraged by our local district nurse. Only my cousin got to stay in nappies at night but he lived away from us. 

[Gejoe]

8 hours ago, stevewet said:

I think you knew more bedwetters than I did.

I pretty sure John's younger sister wet her bed also but when I was in their room once I didn't see anything that looked like she did. 

4 hours ago, stevewet said:

When I was growing up nappies for bedwetting were discouraged by our local district nurse. Only my cousin got to stay in nappies at night but he lived away from us. 

John's parents definitely didn't believe in using diapers, when we camping with them they both just peed their sleeping bags. In the morning their wet sleeping bags would be hanging on clothes line for use the next night.

[stevewet]

On 11/7/2023 at 6:48 PM, Gejoe said:

I pretty sure John's younger sister wet her bed also but when I was in their room once I didn't see anything that looked like she did. 

John's parents definitely didn't believe in using diapers, when we camping with them they both just peed their sleeping bags. In the morning their wet sleeping bags would be hanging on clothes line for use the next night.

In our area nappies were frowned upon by our district nurse. In her opinion nappies gave no incentive to become dry at night.

[Little Sherri]

2 hours ago, stevewet said:

In our area nappies were frowned upon by our district nurse. In her opinion nappies gave no incentive to become dry at night.

My sister thinks that my parents had the opposite philosophy - that, first of all, wearing diapers was a practical solution that negated the need to do laundry on a daily basis (as you'd have to do if you were relying solely on plastic sheets, for example), and, second, that being put into diapers at night brought on similar social pressures to having stained sheets billowing in the wind on a clothesline everyone could see.

I'd thought that their primary motivation was just the practicality of the approach, but she swears that they discussed their hopes that I would eventually "get tired of being the only kid still in diapers." Which, of course, I did - but, not wanting to wear them didn't translate into staying dry, because the bedwetting was an entirely involuntary action. But I grew up in a time that still had a hangover from the days when laziness or attention getting were were motives frequently ascribed to those of us whose bladders didn't mature on a conventional timeline. I think things are a lot better in that respect, these days - the proliferation of pull-ups and "pajama pants" and "bedtime underwear" has taken a lot of the stigma away, because obviously, bedwetting is not an uncommon condition, if it warrants an aisle 50 feet long in every supermarket and drugstore. 

[Little Sam]

43 minutes ago, Little Sherri said:

I'd thought that their primary motivation was just the practicality of the approach, but she swears that they discussed their hopes that I would eventually "get tired of being the only kid still in diapers." Which, of course, I did - but, not wanting to wear them didn't translate into staying dry, because the bedwetting was an entirely involuntary action. But I grew up in a time that still had a hangover from the days when laziness or attention getting were were motives frequently ascribed to those of us whose bladders didn't mature on a conventional timeline.

Gods, it amazes me just how okay it was considered for our parents to torture us for things they didn't like that were entirely beyond our control.

[MatthewDL]

I knew three other boys who were bed wetters.  The boy who lived directly across the street from me and was a year older then me, another boy who lived a couple blocks away and then some years later, I found out the son of my mom's friend was a bed wetter when I went to stay with them at their cabin on the lake.  My mom arranged sleep overs for me with the first two boys since our mom's all knew each other and talked.  I knew the boy across the street.  We played together often.  I was 5 or 6 and he was 6 or 7 at the time I slept over his house.  The other boy was autistic and he didn't talk much and didn't have any friends.  After I stayed over one time at his house, I told my mom I didn't want to stay over there again.  I feel bad about that today, because he had no friends, but I didn't know why he acted so oddly.  I was too young to understand. 

[rubbersheetmike]

On 11/6/2023 at 10:34 PM, Drownedinp said:

I wasn't a bedwetter growing up, my next door neighbor had a son my age and a daughter 1 years younger. About half a block away there were 2 brothers, one about 3 years older, than us the other was my age. That wet his bed  Next door to them there was a sister of a friend a few years older than us that wet her bed. That was 5 on our block that were bedwetters. Since then I had a friend that was a fostor kid, that had a younger fos tor brother that wet his bed. I worked with a lady that admitted that she had wet her bed until almost 18 years old. I wonder how many people I have known were bedwetters growing up.

We're fairly close in age so probably had much the same experiences. Back a few decades ago it was harder to hide bedwetting. There were few if any disposable products (that we knew of anyway) and I grew up in a fairly poor area so a lot of the wet bedding and pjs were just hung out on clotheslines for anybody to see. One of my more vivid memories was having to pick up a box of used clothes from a neighbors place that my mother was going to take to a church rummage sale. The neighbor's husband had died about a year earlier and she had two sons, one, 'Matt', a senior at my high school who I think was 16 and a couple years older than I was and the other who'd entered the military after he graduated at the end of the previous school year. When I got to the house I called through the screen door and Mrs. G., shouted from upstairs telling me to come in and that she'd be down in a minute. I was impatient so I bounded up the stairs and ran into a room with the door open at the top of the stairs. There were football and other sports posters on the walls so I figured it was Matt's room. But what caught my attention was the heavily peed single bed just to the left of the open door. I also noted the crumpled wet pjs that were partially pushed under the side of the bed on the tile floor and the folded clean bedding and pjs that had been neatly placed on the desk to the right of the door. When I looked at the wet bed the outline of the vinyl or rubber mattress protector was pretty obvious. The neatness of the otherwise wet bed was also interesting. The wet bedsheet was barely wrinkled, lying almost completely flat on top of the mattress cover which made me think Matt had to be a heavy sleeper who seldom moved in his sleep. When I heard Mrs. G. come out of a different bedroom I quickly walked back into the hallway and I think startled her. She told me the box for the rummage sale was in the kitchen so I followed her downstairs to get it. But whenever I saw Matt after that the first thing that came to mind was my discovery on that warm spring morning and I always got the feeling that he knew that I knew.

[ken2988]

It was bad enough that my family, including my younger brother and sister, knew about my bed wetting to almost 12 years of age, but there is no way that I would have mentioned it to anyone at school or any of my friends. Even while I would never say anything, my sister (5 years younger) did on occasion mention it to her friend when they visited or stayed over and notice wet sheets near the washing machine. That was a very embarrassing time in my life.

[stevewet]

On 1/2/2024 at 12:39 AM, ken2988 said:

It was bad enough that my family, including my younger brother and sister, knew about my bed wetting to almost 12 years of age, but there is no way that I would have mentioned it to anyone at school or any of my friends. Even while I would never say anything, my sister (5 years younger) did on occasion mention it to her friend when they visited or stayed over and notice wet sheets near the washing machine. That was a very embarrassing time in my life.

My sister used to find it a great source of amusement that her older brother wet his bed and made sure it was no secret.

[ken2988]

9 hours ago, stevewet said:

My sister used to find it a great source of amusement that her older brother wet his bed and made sure it was no secret.

Did you have a similar situation where she was a lot younger, or were you almost the same age?

[stevewet]

13 hours ago, ken2988 said:

Did you have a similar situation where she was a lot younger, or were you almost the same age?

My sister is 3 years younger than me. It was mostly when I was in my teens and still wetting most nights when she used to tell everyone I still wet the bed,

[ken2988]

10 hours ago, stevewet said:

My sister is 3 years younger than me. It was mostly when I was in my teens and still wetting most nights when she used to tell everyone I still wet the bed,

That was very similar for me.  She made sure she showed her friends the wet sheets whenever she had the chance.  She would also come into my room with her friends when I was still sleeping or in bed and point out that I was wet.

My mom first just let me wet the bed and would wash the sheets (rubber sheet over the mattress), but in the last 2 years of my wetting the bed she got a job and started to put me into diapers because she didn't have the time to wash my sheets. Being put into diapers after dinner really sucked since I was in the diapers for a few hours before bed time, and my sister was really good at pointing out to her friends that I was wearing diapers.

[stevewet]

On 1/11/2024 at 9:23 PM, ken2988 said:

That was very similar for me.  She made sure she showed her friends the wet sheets whenever she had the chance.  She would also come into my room with her friends when I was still sleeping or in bed and point out that I was wet.

My mom first just let me wet the bed and would wash the sheets (rubber sheet over the mattress), but in the last 2 years of my wetting the bed she got a job and started to put me into diapers because she didn't have the time to wash my sheets. Being put into diapers after dinner really sucked since I was in the diapers for a few hours before bed time, and my sister was really good at pointing out to her friends that I was wearing diapers.

I don't know if her friends saw my wet bed but the certainly heard the wrinkly plastic mattress cover. 

On 1/2/2024 at 12:39 AM, ken2988 said:

It was bad enough that my family, including my younger brother and sister, knew about my bed wetting to almost 12 years of age, but there is no way that I would have mentioned it to anyone at school or any of my friends. Even while I would never say anything, my sister (5 years younger) did on occasion mention it to her friend when they visited or stayed over and notice wet sheets near the washing machine. That was a very embarrassing time in my life.

It was never any secret that I was a bedwetter. Both my sister and the mother's mafia made sure of that. I wasn't the only bedwetter in our street. 

[rubbersheetmike]

On 1/11/2024 at 4:23 PM, ken2988 said:

That was very similar for me.  She made sure she showed her friends the wet sheets whenever she had the chance.  She would also come into my room with her friends when I was still sleeping or in bed and point out that I was wet.

My mom first just let me wet the bed and would wash the sheets (rubber sheet over the mattress), but in the last 2 years of my wetting the bed she got a job and started to put me into diapers because she didn't have the time to wash my sheets. Being put into diapers after dinner really sucked since I was in the diapers for a few hours before bed time, and my sister was really good at pointing out to her friends that I was wearing diapers.

Why were you put in diapers hours before bedtime? I grew up in a big family where there were four bedwetters including me. One of my sisters who didnt wet the bed used to be very vocal about my and my older brother's bedwetting with her friends and others in the neighborhood. And back then moms including mine often talked about it with other moms in the neighborhood so I was aware of several other bedwetters just by overhearing my mom talk on the phone. And back then few used diapers for overage bedwetting and a lot of people in my area didnt have automatic washers and dryers so I could tell where wetters lived just by driving around on my bike and looking at the laundry on the clotheslines.