Changing linens every time a child wets the bed is a huge hassle. These tips make it much easier for mom to handle a bedwetting child.
Your pediatrician may have assured you that your child will eventually outgrow their bedwetting issue, but how do you manage until that happens? Once your child outgrows pull-ups, or refuses to wear them, wet beds can seem to take over your life. It’s not something people tend to speak to about with their friends. (Not because it’s embarrassing or uncommon, but, rightfully, to protect their child’s privacy.)
Therefore, I’ll (anonymously) share these tips and tricks I learned over the course of two children’s experiences with bedwetting that transformed a daily frustration to a minor inconvenience.
These solutions are for help with the actual bed and clean up rather than solutions to help stop bedwetting itself. Your doctor may be able to help you with ideas for that.
- To protect the mattress, a high-quality mattress protector is a must. A mattress cannot be thrown into the washing machine, so you want to prevent it from ever getting wet in the first place. Although this layer does not need changing frequently, be sure to have a backup available.
- Put your regular fitted sheet on top of the protector.
- On top of the sheet place a bed mat. When my children were still wetting the bed several times a night, I used disposable ones like these goodnites Disposable Bed Mats or Parent’s Choice Disposable Bed Mats.
As soon as the midnight changes weren’t as frequent, I switched to washable bed mats. They are more economical, less noisy, and more comfortable for your child. This one comes in several sizes. Choose the size that will best meet your child’s needs to prevent the sheet from getting wet.
Once your child is having only occasional bedwetting incidences, put the mat under the sheet instead of on top. It will require the sheet to be changed along with the mat, but it will afford your child more comfort and privacy.
- The biggest favor I did for myself was switching from my regular duvets to comforters. The Amazon Basics Bed-in-a-Bag worked great for us. They come in lots of fun prints, wash beautifully, and are a perfect weight. As a bonus, they come with two pillowcases for the twin set, which is rare to find.
The hassle of having to strip and wash the duvet and the blanket each day was stressful and time-consuming. There were times I had to run the dryer 2 or 3 times until the blanket was dry. And that was besides the load of linen that had to be washed as well. The comforter allows you to fit the whole bed of bedding and linen in one load with a regular length dryer cycle. And there’s no duvet cover to pull on afterward. Game changer.
- Have a second set of all these items neatly stacked within easy reach of your child.
Once you have all this in place, a wet bed is simple to deal with it. Simply remove the wet mat (and sheet and mattress protector if necessary), pull on a new one, and switch to a dry blanket. By the time they are 7 or 8 years old, most children can do the changeover completely on their own. My children always knew they could knock on my door for help if they needed it, but they rarely did. In the morning, all the wet things, including pajamas, can fit into one load in the washing machine; mine has a comforter setting. Then toss it all into the dryer. It takes about 30 seconds to make the bed once it’s done.
- Wet linen can ruin the stain on a wood floor or stain a carpet. Put the dry parts underneath the wet parts to prevent this from happening.
How to Toilet Train a Child for the Nighttime, plus practical tips and steps to toilet train your toddler.
Bedwetting Does Not Mean a Child Can’t Go to Camp – advice from many of you with experience.
Thank you for this post!! I’ve been looking for these types of items, but did not find in the sea of amazon! I’m so grateful for this info!! Bought the linen set right away!
I highly recommend Therapee by Dr Sagie. It is a game changing program that you may want to consider, especially if your child has become self-conscious about his (super common!) bedwetting issue. The program involves the child in an exciting way, and is proven to work within 6-12 weeks. For more info, visit Bedwettingtherapy.com and email them with all your questions!
Don’t forget to ask them about shabbos mode and speak to your LOR regarding it.
How do you deal with the occasional wet mattress? Mine never come out clean again.
You can try this spray on your mattress. It really works!
https://www.target.com/p/clorox-urine-remover-for-stain-38-odor-32oz/-/A-50750825
Thank you for these tips and product links! Any suggestions of a high quality mattress protector?
This one is excellent . I have it on every bed in the house.
https://www.target.com/p/washable-memory-foam-fitted-mattress-pad-white-twin-sealy-posturepedic/-/A-16529349
The memory foam makes any bed extra comfy plus super easy to wash in machine. Do not put in dryer, needs time to air dry so I suggest keeping an extra one handy
I had 2 kids who were bedwetters until age 7.
I personally think that it is okay for them to discreetly wear a diaper to avoid all this mess and hassle that occurs nightly. Stripping the wet bed is as much a stigma and embarrassment as the wet diaper under pajamas.
When I thought all hope was lost I bought a bedwetting alarm on Amazon from the company “Cumizon”. It worked amazingly and cost about 40 dollars. My son who was literally soaking every night no matter what I tried was finally dry in about a week or two. Worked amazing for my daughter as well. Good luck to everybody dealing with this very common situation.
Your pediatrician can give you a pill for your child to take in camp to keep him dry
The bed in a bag from Target was such a simple change that changed my whole day. Thanks for the idea. We did Dr. Sagie’s program shortly after and BH BH have had great success. It took about 4 months. Wishing you all Hatzlocha.
Add baking soda or vinegar into the wash load to neutralize the smell.
I would double cover the mattress of my children who frequently wet the bed. They have plastic sheets that either go over the bed like a fitted sheet or ones that zip around the whole mattress. Those are easy to wipe down in the middle of the night with a Clorox wipe. The problem is that some of them rip easily and so the mattress would no longer be protected so check them frequently or make sure you get one that’s not too thin. Also make sure it’s the kind that you can wipe down. They have some mattress protectors that are waterproof but have a kind of soft woven material that would need to be laundered. We had one like that that zipped around the mattress and it was not fun in the middle of the night. As a second layer over that I would put a waterproof mattress pad. It’s like a regular mattress pad, so more comfortable for the child but the bottom layer is plastic so nothing gets through. It does need to be laundered so I would only have one per bed and use it until it got wet. And then after changing the sheets it wouldn’t go back on until the next change when it was clean. Also by having the plastic sheet underneath I didn’t have to wait until the mattress pad was clean in order to remake the bed.
Can you please send a link to the plastic sheet? thank you