Bedwetting and Stress

Last Updated on March 18, 2024 by chummie

Moving, poor grades, divorce and separation of parents are some of the major causes of stress for a child. Emotional and psychological stress can cause a child to behave or act differently, which can lead to nighttime wetting. Many parents wonder if bedwetting and stress are interlinked. Well, most experts believe that while bedwetting and stress share a connection, stress is not the reason why a child will start bedwetting.  

Children wet their beds for various reasons that range from genetic to a small bladder that cannot hold the urine that they are producing to an immature bladder.

In most cases, experts believe it’s not the stress that causes a child to wet. Instead, it’s the behavior that the children engage in when under stress that causes them to wet. Stress can interfere with the body’s normal sleep patterns, and in many ways. One way is making our sleep less restful and more restless. An increase in restlessness can cause an increase in metabolism, which can cause an increase in the production of urine while sleeping. One of the typical behaviors is seeking comfort in food such as salty snacks. Eating too much salty food leads to fluid retention and if a child has small bladder, it is likely to result in bedwetting.

Stress can also result in a child drinking too much water at night or forgetting to urinate before bed time.  At times a stressful situation at home and school such as bullying or peer pressure, makes children sleep deprived and leads to wet beds. This is because most children who wet their beds are deep sleepers, and when these children are sleep deprived and completely exhausted, it results in even deeper sleep.

The connection between bedwetting and stress is not direct as stress doesn’t directly cause children to wet the bed. Instead, its bedwetting that causes stress that many children find difficult to cope with and engage in behavior that results in bedwetting.

If you feel that your child’s bedwetting and stress in their social and academic life is connected, it’s best to discuss the matter with your child and help in alleviating that stress. Sometimes just alleviating emotional stress can help in reducing the bedwetting accidents.

However, if bedwetting in itself is the cause for stress, it is best to find a way to treat it. There are many treatment options ranging from bedwetting alarms, medicines to motivational therapy.  One of the safest and long-term solutions with low relapse rate is bedwetting alarms. There are many types of alarms out there, if you need help finding the right one for your child take a quick look at our bedwetting alarm buyers guide or compare bedwetting alarms.  For deep sleepers it is best to go with a multiple tone alarm. Check out the Chummie Premium Bedwetting Alarm for deep sleepers which we recommend.