Family rules for bedwetting as child

[tomchen]

As a child, 

What were the rules in your family when you wet the bed?

For me, I usually woke up after wetting, put a thick towel over the wet spot and put the wet pyjamas in the laundry. Then I went back to sleep.😴 

In the morning I had to confess the „accident“ to my mother and latest at breakfast all family knew.😳

While I was at school, my mother washed everything and the mattress stood on the balcony to dry.

In my room (I shared with my younger sister) usually I found my yellow plastic pants (snap on) on the blue mattress protector, with a pile of cloth diapers, waiting for my afternoon swaddling. 😔

This always was the worst moment. Being put back in diapers after I was „dry since months“ (usually it was maybe 4-6 weeks)🫣

 

🧏‍♀️First „rule“

I had to wear my diapers every night for a week.

After dinner I had to leave before my siblings and follow my mother „to get my baby pants on“, as my sister usually said.

I hated that and was ashamed.

 

🧏‍♀️Second „rule“

If the diaper was wet within the week, one week turned into two weeks in which I had to wake up dry to be allowed to sleep like a big boy again.

 

🧏‍♀️Third „rule“

I then had a plastic cover in my bed for two months.

 

🧏‍♀️Forth „rule“

If I was wet I had to wash out the diaper pants (plastic pants with buttons) after school and hang them up to dry with the diapers my mother had already washed.

This usually was in the garden (summer) or in the hallway outside the bathroom (winter). 

That way, everyone knew:

“Tom has wet his bed again”.

In the evening, my mother would get the diapers again and change me.

Sometimes if my parents where out for theatre or meeting friends, this happened even before dinner, before our babysitter arrived.
I remember I had to help set the table in some PJs over my thick padded bum. 
And after dinner watching a film with my siblings and the babysitter and feeling the diaper in my crotch,  poking out for everyone to see.

Strictly speaking, it was not a “rule”

but a “tradition” (introduced by my aunt who had some younger kids but also a boy two years older than me. She recommended this part of „potty training“ to my mother)

Potty training worked for all children in such a way that if you were dry during the day, the diaper was soon left off at night as well.

If the bed was wet, there was another week of diapers, or two if the diaper was wet.

But the younger siblings were careful not to treat me any differently.

Then my bed was often dry for two months and when it was wet I was given a diaper again. Later, when all the children were dry at night (I was already 12), it stayed that way for a year, or two for me.

 

Did your family had rules for your Bedwetting?

 

[foreverdl]

I had stopped bed wetting by age 10, but I shared my room with my brother and stepbrother, ad they had a king size mattress and box spring on the floor, and I think my dad figured used mattress was cheap, because that bed wasn't protected, and they both kept it soaked, and I Loved it the smell and then if you read my posts about that bed....

So my parents had no rules that I remember about wetting, the bed, I think they just figured they will grow out of it...

[Benji2000]

I didn't grow out of it so obviously the rules changed from when I was really young to when I was more grown up but the rules I basically always had were diapers and pjs on an hour before bedtime, that they had to stay on until my parents woke me up in the morning and tell my parents about any major leaks.

[CrookedRain]

We didn't have rules and still don't. But I always told my mom when it happened so she could change me and help me change the sheets if needed. I still tell her and have her change me every time it happens at her house, or while we're out together running errands or doing whatever.

[JamieJamie]

No rules.  well, I am not to wake up my parents if I wet my bed.  Mom and dad told me to just go to the bathroom to take off wet pajamas and underwear, put on dry ones, grab a bath towel and then cover the wet spot and go back to sleep.  I will then tell my parents in the morning about it and my mom takes care of the laundering with no issues.  

[undertheradar]

Ohh yeah there were definitely rules...  i remember when I was in. I think first grade mom decided that I was dry for a couple weeks at night.So we would try no diapers...  when I was given some really cool cartoon underpants, I think ninja turtles

 

Anyway, mom told me that as long as they stayed dry, I could.Wear them, but I'd be back in.Diapers at night, if they didn't stay dry...  three nights went by then on the fourth night.I woke up in the morning completely soaked...   she told me that it would be be back in diapers and that I would need two dry weeks in order to go back to underpants at night...  that would happen from time to time.And maybe I'd get a few weeks or a few months, even when I got older.  

 

My ninth grade year I ended up in the juvenile detention center.This is basically a jail for kids

 

As I was very stressed, I started having lots of accidents at night even a few during the day. So I had to wear the smallest adult diapers they had at the jail

 

After about three months of being there, I went to a group/foster home.  I had to wear thankrus to bed while I was there.And for a couple weeks, during the day since I was having accidents, then

 

The rule there was you needed to be dry for a month before you could wear underwear to bed...  i never got to wear underwear to bed at the foster home.lol 

 

That summer, when I came back to my mom's house, my brother, who was two years younger than me, asked if I was still wetting the bed?  I told him that I was.  He told me that our new stepdad would beat him in the mornings.If he wet his diaper....  in the beating would be even worse if he wasn't wearing a diaper and wet bed.  Based on that, I just decided to steal diapers from my younger brother, who was about the same size as me as I was a really small kid. And I would also steal them from the kids that my mom would babysit...  this worked really good for about a year.But at that point I had gotten too big, and I started buying goodnites

 

Somehow, my mom and stepad never figured it out, and I still have problems about twenty years later off and on

[WBxx]

Growing up a regular bed-wetter till age 9 my sheets were not changed during the night.  There were no dry pajamas.  There was no towel over the wet spot.  No, I had to quietly lay/sleep in the wetness till morning.  However, strange as it sounds, a side of me actually enjoyed the sensations and infantile implications of my early bedwetting.

[Kipzie]

No rules, other than to wear the adult diapers at night. I was 14, and even though I wanted GoodNites, I was too big for them. Didn’t last long though, only a few weeks.

[drynot]

I've told this story on here before...but I was fortunate enough to have parents who didn't see having a kid still in diapers as a bad thing like many parents did in the 70's and 80's.  I used baby diapers until I couldn't fit them anymore.  My mom bought me some pull on cloth diapers that worked...but I hated them.  Then I found adult diapers and never looked back....

I would say that the main reason why my folks kept me in diapers is that my mom didn't want to deal with the wet sheets and wet pajamas.  Which...I get.  I have had nights where the diaper didn't do much and soaked everything.  A big PITA....

Its been high end disposables ever since...

[hlcl]

@undertheradar I can understand why you were diapered when you were in the foster home.  It was to keep you dry and comfortable because stress can increase the risk of accidents. What kind of diapers did you wear? Did you change yourself or did someone check and change you? If you were wearing a diaper and you needed to pee did you  just wet your diaper or did you try to use the bathroom? If I worked in the foster home I would have used that time to work on your potty  skills. 

[BabyCaleb]

I wet the bed as a child. The only rule I had to follow was I had to wear pull-ups to bed. This wasn’t even really a hard rule. There were plenty of times where I ran out of pull-ups and it was too late to go get more. Those nights I had to risk soaking my sheets by sleeping in my underwear.

[SoggyRunner]

I didn’t wet the bed enough to need diapers at night, but did have a waterproof mattress pad on my bed until age 12 to protect from occasional incidents. If I woke up wet in the night, I would just change into dry PJs and put down a towel before going back to sleep until morning. I was a hard sleeper, though, and would usually not wake up until morning even if I wet during the night. The only real “rule” was to strip the wet sheets in the morning and bring them to the laundry room. The only time my parents would be upset with us for a wet bed was if you tried to hide it and didn’t take care of the wet sheets and clothes.