Do you know what I hate more than anything else?
Getting woken up in the middle of the night because one of my children has peed the bed.
All four of my children have been potty trained for some time now but staying dry during the night is another story. Even while wearing Pull Ups or night time underwear as we call them, my kids still pee the bed. Now, I understand that staying dry at night is difficult for young children as they are still growing and sometimes they don’t get the signals from the brain in the middle of the night that tell them to wake up and go pee on the potty.
I get it, I really do. I don’t get mad at my children but I do get annoyed at the situation. I am totally nice to the child.
I don’t like waking up in the middle of the night, I did my time with that when they were babies and now I am done. Besides wrestling with a bed in day light is bad enough but add darkness, a brain cloudy with sleep and clumsiness and you have a recipe for disaster or at the very least a stubbed toe.
But never fear, I have come up with a solution and its easy as one… two… three.
And I promise that it doesn’t involve any toe stubbing.
First, find the wet spot. Which sometimes in my house is a difficult thing since there are is so much potential for bed wetness.
Second, get a bath towel from the bathroom, fold it in half and then place it over the wet spot. Sometimes two towels might be needed if it is an extra large spot and the bladder of the child wetter was really, really full.
Third, pull the sheet up over the towel so that said child won’t have to sleep on an ‘itchy’ towel. Also this will keep the towel in place so that if you have a really active sleeper they won’t pull it off the wet spot and wake you up again to tell you about a wet bed.
And lastly, head back to bed and slip peacefully into dreamland.
So there you have it. Three easy steps to quickly clean up a wet bed in the middle of the night. And the best part about this whole processes is that in the morning the towel will have absorbed all the pee so the bed will be dry and you just have to wash the towel and can disregard stripping the bed.
Sure it may be a little gross but kids don’t care because they are gross little creatures to begin with.
And this is so much better than turning on the lights, finding new sheets, pulling apart the bed, stubbing toe, grunting and moaning which wakes up other kids, putting all kids back to sleep which includes a much needed drink of water which will guarantee you will be back with this problem in a couple of hours.
So yeah, use a towel.
I know you are going to thank me.
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{ 27 comments… read them below or add one }
We’ve used a towel before too. But pulling the sheet over it – ingenious! Thanks for sharing.
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Great minds think alike!!! I do the same exact thing!!!!
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I am going to go one step further than you….put 5 or so towels down before they go to bed and then if they wet the bed, just peel back a layer. This also works well when kids get the barfs. I know ALL about the barfs!
Sadie stayed dry at night after her surgery. Like instantly…so weird. It is like she just needed to get a little bigger.
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Awesome idea! I’ve used it before but not the sheet over top.
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Fantastic idea. I’ve done the towel thing, but not the sheet over it, so THANK YOU.
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We used to do the towel thing, too. Or blankets. Or hell, anything within reach.
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Jen Reply:
July 12th, 2011 at 8:50 pm
Yup. Anything to get me back to bed as soon as possible.
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LOVE it. Reminds me of “Big Daddy” with Adam Sandler, where he kept putting newspaper down to solve any child-related problems.
I do something similar, but in reverse – I have pre-laid plastic strips, towels, and sheet squares under my girl’s rear. She starts the night with two or three of these complex layers under her, and I strip them back one by one during the night, throwing them in the washing machine on my way back to bed. Then I just have to turn the machine on in the morning, and hey, all the work’s done.
Trying not to stress about the massive toilet training issues we’re having. After 5 and a half years, you want to smack people with dry kids.
So I LOVE this post!
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Jen Reply:
July 12th, 2011 at 8:51 pm
You are so brilliant.
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there is plastic sheet you can buy for this, and put it under the cotton sheet. it workd great.
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Maddie would probably be OK with this, but Kate would not. She’s be SO freaked out knowing she was sleeping on top of towels which were on top of pee.
But that’s just Kate’s personality.
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I DO THIS TOO!!!!!!!!!!! Haha! Changing sheets at 3 a.m. is not my idea of fun! Although sometimes I do change the sheets. Depends on how tired I am! LOL.
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Yep. Totally do this all the time!
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Jen Reply:
July 12th, 2011 at 8:51 pm
Glad to know that I am not alone in my parenting skills.
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We have bedwetters in our house but thankfully they don’t wake up in the middle of the night.
The best bedwetting tip I found was to put the thin plastic type mattress pads on their beds instead of waterproof mattress pads that have to be washed. The plastic type mattress pads look uncomfortable but kids don’t care. When they wet the bed you can wipe them down with a lysol wipe and your mattress is never uncovered. Since when you have bedwetters you are always behind on laundry it is inevitable that the waterproof mattress pad won’t be washed by the next night.
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Oh I’ve used the towel. I’m glad you gave this PSA to help other parents out there who may experience the same thing!
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I need to night train Bud, but I’m lazy. Like super lazy. Like I don’t want to get up and put a towel on the bed lazy. Baby Girl sleeps through it if she has an accident. Which is another issue altogether. How do I get her to wake up to actually go to the bathroom? And then not wake me up to tuck her back in.
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Jen Reply:
July 12th, 2011 at 8:52 pm
I am at a loss here. I have no idea.
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You know those hospital shucks (at least that’s what we called them when I was in nursing for the blink of an eye in college) – just tuck them under the sheets and you can toss them with the sheets into a plastic bag for laundry that you strategicly placed for easy access in the middle of the night – and just throw a spare blanket over the bed. Pee-B-Gone!
Thanks so much for your comment at SITS on my SITS Day! All those words of encouragement amazed me. SITS made a tiny-weeney mistake – my name is Maryleigh, not Melissa! Just thought I’d pass that along! Again, thanks for the sweet words!
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Jen Reply:
July 12th, 2011 at 8:53 pm
Oh that sucks that they got your name wrong but I am glad you had a good SITS day.
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we are having this problem, too. I feel so bad for Moose being woken up by his own pee.
How long will this last???? lol
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Wow.
I’m wowing because that was totally a thing when I was little!
Clearly we’re soul mates.
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I do the same thing for the wet spot in our bed.
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Jen Reply:
July 12th, 2011 at 8:54 pm
Now why didn’t I think about doing this in our bed?
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I’m going to have to remember that one. I can’t even get mine to want to try potty training, so she might be 16 before I need to…
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thanks for this. i’m getting ready to start potty training the 2 year old…aka more middle of the night wake ups.
and i just linked to this post in my latest post on my easy survival tips
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This gives me no excuse not to get rid of the nighttime pull ups. Love that you took pictures of the pay by play at 3 am.
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My Mom used the towel technique with me for a long time, so it’s really tried, tested and true! On another note, I believe that potty training is not related to bed wetting. I and my boys too, grew up in a country where disposable diapers were not available at the time, so having a one-year old fully potty trained child was not only a mom’s pride but very much a necessity. However, I was a bed wetter till I turned 7 while my boys never had this issue.
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Jen Reply:
July 12th, 2011 at 8:55 pm
I agree with you. I think that night time dryness will happen once they are mature enough.
I am not sweating it. Just buying more towels.
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This method has withstood the test of time at our house. No longer have any bedwetters (PTL!) so no need for it, but back in the day, it was well-utilized!
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Yup… totally done this… for all kinds of “wet spots”. Heh heh.
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I thank my lucky stars that the Little One does not wet his bed ever. One bullet dodged!
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I’ve been there too many times!
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Yes! Yes! Yes!! This is the missing piece! I had been doing the towel thing, but couldn’t figure out how to keep it from getting rumpled/falling off! THANK YOU!!!
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