CasK,
Incontinence management, for me, means that I must wear heavy washable diapers at night, in order to awaken in a dry bed the next morning. Learning where the absorbency needed to be, and how to pin them on in order to keep my bed dry took time and effort, and is not fail-safe, because I still wet through about once or twice a year. Bowel management is more complicated, but it can be learned also.Good luck.

I find that for me diaper use is best. If I wake up at night I tend to stay awake for an hour or so. As far as I can tell I wet several times a night. I hate waking up to a wet bed and it makes me really grumpy if I wake up soaking wet in the morning. It makes me kinda down and hard on myself. But I know that I am doing what is best for me and my family. So I kinda avoid waking myself up(alarm clocks were suggested to me) in order to keep a good out look on the situation and avoid sleep deprivation which is bad for me as far as my other health issues are concerned. I also have to wear hem during day because I have almost no warning that I am going to pee. So because I still live with my parents I respect my mothers wishes and try my best not to pee all over the house. Which is what I would do if in diapers. But hey if you want a diaper free life with wet clothes then by all means have at it.

Celticgirl,
Thank you for sharing, and I do understand your situation and respect your viewpoint. My personal situation is a bit different because I only wet the bed sporadically (many nights I wake up to go spontaneously with no outside interference, and this does not affect my sleep to an intolerable degree), and during the day I don't really have an issue other than needing to go more frequently, but I do have sufficient warning to get to a bathroom in plenty of time when my bladder is getting full.

At the end of the day, I personally find it more practical to wash pajamas and sheets an extra few times a month than to wear something to bed every night. If you would handle it differently in my situation that's fine. All I ask (for myself and others here in situations similar to mine) is respect for the way we choose to handle things, just as we respect the way you choose to handle things. :)

My son is almost 10 and he wets the bed 2-6 nights a week. we used to use the good night diapers but it has gotten so expensive for me that since I had another baby last year we decided to put a plastic sheet on his bed. now when he wets the bed he just washes his bedding in the morning. Getting wet at night never disturbs his sleep you can set a bomb off next to him when hes asleep and it wouldnt phase him. this seems to work best for our family

Amanda, thanks for sharing. That was the situation for me when I was a kid, ever since I was about 7-8 and my parents decided I was old enough to learn how to operate the washing machine. At first it seemed like a bit of a chore, but as I got older I eventually came to like it because I did not have to announce to anyone when I had wet the bed; as long as I took care of the laundry promptly, no one had to hear or know about it except me.

I also think that when I got older, the wet beds eventually helped me to start learning to wake up in response to being wet, which I think eventually helped me learn to wake up when my bladder was full before wetting. The companies who make things like Goodnites will deny that this makes any difference, of course, but then it is in their financial interest to keep kids wearing their product for as long as possible. I'm glad you have found a way that works for your family!

i wet regardless of protection and have found that its eaier to throw away a goodnite than to wash a whole bed

i would go without protection if i would just wake up at night even if it did mean sleep dprevation and the alarms wont wake me up either

i say kudos to however anyone logically copes with wetting their bed i myself am diapered 24/7 due to nerve and muscle damage and i live an enjoyable full life every day , but as i also said cope but also enjoy your life and good for you how ever you cope that why we are on this website to encourage and support one another

I only occasionally wear diapers and like yourself use a mattress protector normally and if I have an accident then I strip my bed, wash my covers and have a shower. However sometimes due to my condition and have to use diapers to stay dry under my clothes

As a kid at boarding-school it was no diapers but rubber-sheets only. Age 9-13 you washed your own sheets & hung them out; then till 18 school laundered them. After that, with every night a wet night, I used protection. Now I can sleep easy in a dry bed and wake with a smile!

as a kid i didnt wear diapers for my bedwetting they didnt even have goodnite or anything like that . i no one thing it sucked waking up cold wet and smelly. i spent many of nites trying to stay warm in bed laying on my blankets or towels fliping my mattress ect.it wasnt until i moved out i started to wear diapers .no more wet sheets blankets mattress ect i was able to sleep the whole nite my bed smelled at lot better and a whole lot of less laundry

I don't use diapers at home at all. But, I don't wet the bed as much as I used to. I have a special sheet under my sheets to protect the mattrace just in case I do. When I have a feeling I might wet I then also sleep on top of another one of those special sheets I have. When I go out and have to sleep next to someone else I do use them just to be safe.

My problem is deciding whether to use them during the day or not. I don't like to at all for many reasons but know sometimes I really have to. But I go through the same thing as some others feeling like I use it as a "crutch". I feel bad about it and feel like I'm being lazy but when I do use it around others I can keep my problem of needing to go to the bathroom so often to myself without drawing attention to it and bothering others.

@MeandMyFamily - Yes, thank you for sharing - that sounds very sensible, and a very good point! I've found that at night as well it's very possible, and easy, to use protection as a "crutch" - like you, I generally only use it when staying with someone else, but I've found that if I wake up at 3 am needing to use the bathroom and having a pull-up on, it is EXTREMELY tempting to just stay in bed, let my bladder empty in the pullup, and go back to sleep without having to get up. When I've done that in the past there's kind of a snowball effect too, so it becomes harder and harder to get out of bed when it happens the next night.

Is that true for anyone else too?

As regards bedwetting for my child , I tried out several options but finally my urologist asked to try out Chummie,a bedwetting alarm and it worked like a miracle by 6 weeks. You all can try it out

When bedwetting first started, I went about dealing with it the "natural" way much like you. That meant having a plastic sheet on my bed, changing/washing the sheets every morning after a wet night, showering and then remaking my bed at night. This was feasible because at first it wasn't a nightly occurrence but rather a few times a month that eventually grew worse and worse.

As my bedwetting grew into a nightly problem, diapers eventually became the way I now go about controlling the problem. Dealing with the wet sheets and clothes every day took a toll mentally and physically. Not to mention the loss of sleep from tossing and turning in a wet bed.

Now, I am not a fan of diapers at all and long for the day that I don't need them, but I have come to the (unfortunate) realization that they work in allowing me to sleep better throughout the night and help with cleanup and laundry. Eventually with wetting every night and college starting, something had to be done to help "control" the bedwetting.

I hope that soon my bedwetting will progress to a point where I'm not wetting every night and I can have the option of not using diapers at night and having dry nights mixed in. But at this current time its just not a practical possibility.