Bedwetting Children and Sleep Quality at Home

Interesting article in the March edition of the Sleep Journal about bedwetting, which occurs in upto 15% of children and sometimes has no known cause. Parents of children who wet the bed often say that their child sleeps too deeply. But research does not support this when kids with and without bedwetting have sleep studies.

In an attempt to cope with the bedwetting, some parents wake up their child during the night or maneuver them to the potty to prevent accidents in the bed. The authors of this study suggest these awakenings could worsen bed wetting.

They measured the sleep in children with and without bedwetting over five continuous nights at home with a portable sleep monitor (actigraphy). The results showed that kids with bedwetting had more nighttime awakenings and were more tired in the morning. Of all the awakenings, 27% were to prevent bedwetting, 2% were by parent after bedwetting, 20% were by child after bedwetting, and 50% were unrelated to bedwetting.

The authors theorize that if bedwetting kids have more broken up sleep at home, they are more likely to be sleep-deprived. Being more sleep-deprived will make it harder to wake up to empty their bladders. Therefore, reduced sleep quality may play a role in the maintenance of bedwetting.