Reply from stephanie, Child's Age 0 - 10/6/03 - IP#: 198.81.26.xxx   parbb-c1597

Sounds perfectly logical to me your 17-year-old daughter still wets her bed so you make her ware goodnights to bed. You don’t have to deal with wet bedding laundry or waking up wet in the middle of the night. When I was little mom put a diaper on me at night. Every child is normally trained in the somewhere between 2 ½ and 3 ½ years of age. All children still need a diaper at night right immediately being trained in the daytime. For some that may be for a few weeks and for some it may be a few months. For me weeks turned into months and months into years until at 8 years old I was still using a diaper at night. My mom never intended to keep me in a diaper at night for that long it was just always easier to put a diaper on me at bedtime to deal with the problem. Times when mom would not let me get up and go and I had go in my diaper or the times when we were away from home when I was 9 or 10 and I had to put on a diaper. The times when mom would say at bedtime in front of everyone Stephanie you need a diaper for bed. Mom did not intend to rob me of my dignity but that is the effect it had on me. For some reason she never considered that it might have a long lasting effect. Strange as it might seem parents at are ta times not tuned in their child’s feelings and they hurt without intending to. If your daughter is still wetting at 17 years It will have some effect on her self-esteem just what that effect will be is impossible to say. Forcing her to ware goodnights may seem like the easiest most practical way to deal with her bedwetting but it sends the message that there is no way she can become dry at night. At 17 years old she should be supported and encouraged to become dry at night. Stephanie