Sleeping Too Deeply

The primary cause of bedwetting is when the child sleeps too soundly to realize that her bladder is full.  When the bladder can’t hold any more urine, it releases it whether the child is awake or not.  In many cases, this is the sole cause of bedwetting.

Some parents have had success by waking their children up after they’ve slept for about two hours and sending them to the bathroom.  If your child doesn’t need to go after that short of a time, you could wait another hour or two.  Setting an alarm for your child will keep you from having to get up in the middle of the night.

Another solution to this problem is putting a bedwetting alarm on your child.  Bedwetting alarms have sensors that go in the child’s underpants to detect urine when it first starts coming out.  An alarm then sounds or vibrates to wake the child so she can go to the bathroom.  Once she or he has used the alarm for several weeks or months, your child may learn to wake up without it when their bladder is full.

Before you invest in an alarm, you could try not giving your child anything to drink for two hours before bedtime.  You can also make sure that she empties her bladder completely right before going to bed.  These precautions may be sufficient to prevent the bladder from becoming too full at night.

Bladder Too Small

Some children’s bladders are too small to hold urine through the night.  This can be often be solved with bladder stretching exercises.  To do these, your child will need to hold her urine for about 15 minutes longer than usual.  Each week, increase this time by 5 or 10 minutes.  This will stretch the bladder so that it can hold more urine, and it may put a stop to her bedwetting.

Food Sensitivities

Some foods can cause reactions in some children that result in bedwetting.  The most common food causes are caffeine, citrus fruits, certain food dyes, and carbonated beverages.  Eliminating these things from your child’s diet is worth trying.  If it doesn’t work, consider other causes.

Constipation

In some cases, constipation can cause bedwetting.  When the rectum is full, it leaves less room for the bladder to expand, causing a need to urinate more frequently.  This can result in bedwetting.

You can try extra fiber and liquids to help prevent constipation, but constipation that is severe enough to cause frequent bedwetting will likely need to be treated by a doctor.  Once it is cleared up, bedwetting may cease.

Other Medical Problems

There are some medical problems that can cause bedwetting.  If a child who has never had a problem with bedwetting suddenly starts, it is a good idea to take her in for a check-up.

Problems that could potentially cause bedwetting include diabetes, sleep disorders, neurological disorders, urinary tract infections, and anatomical abnormalities.  Occasionally, emotional problems can also contribute to bedwetting.  All of these things require treatment by a professional.

Low self-esteem can make life a lot less pleasurable.  It affects our confidence and our general outlook on life.  But what we may not realize is that building our self-esteem is up to us.

It’s easy to blame others for our self-esteem problems.  But while it’s true that the way that others treat us can have an effect on our self-esteem, we can find it within ourselves to rise above it.  They do call it “self” esteem for a reason, after all.

The best thing we can do when other people are negatively affecting our self-esteem is to stay away from them.  But doing that requires some self-esteem on our part, because we must feel that we are worthy of being treated well.  It can be a vicious cycle if we let it.

How Can I Improve My Self-Esteem ?

Those with very low self-esteem often do not feel motivated to change.  But improving your self-esteem requires some changes in your way of thinking.  Even a small step in the right direction is a start.

One way to get started working on your self-esteem is to make a list of the things you like about yourself.  It’s easy to say that there is nothing you like about yourself, but if you think about it, you’re bound to come up with something.  Are you good at tennis?  Do you make great lasagna?  Are you good at crafts?  If you try, you can probably come up with several things that you like about yourself.

Negativity toward one’s self is a big component of low self-esteem, but your list of things you like about yourself can help combat it.  Whenever you catch yourself thinking negative thoughts, take a look at your list or try to remember the things you wrote.  Making a habit of this will eventually result in more positive thoughts coming naturally.

Other Self-Esteem Boosters

Mastering new things can work wonders for our self-esteem.  Taking up a new hobby or enrolling in classes at the local college will give you less time to focus on the negative things you see in yourself.  These things will also give you a sense of accomplishment, which is great for your self-esteem.

Taking care of ourselves is also good for self-esteem.  Eating right, exercising, and getting enough sleep all help to boost our mood, improve our immune systems, get our bodies in better shape, and allow us to think more clearly.  They also make it easier for us to fight off stress.  These factors are all conducive to higher self-esteem.

Taking responsibility for our own self-esteem is the key to raising it.  If you feel good about yourself from within, it won’t make as much of a difference if others are negative toward you.  And that is what self-esteem is all about.