We are two weeks into a bedwetting regression and I am tired in every sense of that word.
My oldest was doing so well. We had hit a really good groove — he was waking up, telling me he needed to go, or at minimum getting himself to the bathroom before anything happened. We had a system. The system worked. I was not changing sheets at 2am.
And then something shifted.
Back to back nights. Every night. Sheets, pads, the whole production. A mid-sleep child who has absolutely no awareness it’s happening until it’s already done.
I have done the research. I am doing all the things. Reduced fluids before bed — which triggers a meltdown because milk before bed is part of his routine and I am apparently dismantling his entire world by suggesting less of it. Extra potty trip at the very end of the routine, after books, after jammies — which gets met with we already went, we already did that, because I am now also messing with the sequence of events and that is not acceptable. Nighttime pads on the bed. A calm, shame-free response every time it happens — accidents happen buddy, we try again tomorrow — delivered through the specific fog of a parent who has been stripping wet sheets in the dark for fourteen consecutive nights.
I am doing everything right and I am still exhausted.
When I asked him about it he told me he doesn’t really wake up. He sleeps through it and doesn’t realize until after. Which means either he is sleeping so deeply that his body isn’t sending the signal in time — which honestly tracks because he has been wiped out since starting pre-K last week — or something else is going on that I can’t fully identify yet.
Pre-K is the most obvious trigger. He’s been excited about it, genuinely, but excited and stressed are not mutually exclusive. Starting something new takes energy. Processing something new takes energy even when you love it. And apparently that energy is coming out of the overnight bathroom awareness budget.
The circular logic of it is what gets me. Reduce fluids before bed — meltdown. Add a potty stop to the routine — pushback because the routine is sacred. Change anything — disruption. But don’t change anything — wet sheets. And now I’m sitting here wondering if introducing changes to support the regression is accidentally feeding the regression by creating new sources of stress in the one part of the day that’s supposed to be calm and predictable.
I know this is normal. I know four going on five is well within the window for this. I know it’s going to continue in some form for a while and that patience is the only real tool I have. I know all of that.
I also know I haven’t slept a full night in two weeks and I would like very much to sleep a full night.
If anyone has been through a regression like this — especially one that kicked off around a big transition — I need to hear what worked. What didn’t. What you tried that you wish you hadn’t. And whether there was a night where it just stopped, or whether it faded so gradually you barely noticed.
Because right now I am in it and the end feels very far away.
Bedwetting regression veterans — what do you know that I don’t? Drop it in the comments.
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