Behavioral Intervention for Bedwetting

Video Transcript

"My name is Dr. Randy Hyde. Amy and I are going to talk about how to behaviorally intervene with enuretic children. Amy: Randy, how many children do you think that you've seen over the years that have wetting problems, whether it be day or night? Randy: That's a hard one to, that's a hard one to estimate. Just simply because being a child psychologist and having a specialty with enuresis, it's thousands. I would have to say thousands. Amy: Wow, thousands? Randy: Yeah Amy: And how many of those children would you imagine, or you know, how many of those children can you remember being to see the pediatrician or the urologist? Randy: Most have their seen their pediatrician. That's usually the first step. Urologists, not so much. But people don't know where to go. Amy: Right. Randy: And so I've seen a lot go through those different programs. Some are effective some aren't. Amy: So in your opinion, what works the best? Randy: You know a behavioral approach, according to research, is the most effective. It takes a little a bit of work. Let me ask you a question, if you want to be good at something what do you have to do? Amy: Practice Randy: Yes, and that's what we teach kids to do. We put them in control. We put them in control of the depth of their sleep. And we have them practice skills that will help them to overcome nighttime and daytime wetting. Day time's really pretty easy. We can usually turn that around in a weekend. You know, sometimes it'll take a couple of weeks, but that's pretty easy and pretty straight forward. The night time can be a bit of a challenge. But we teach children how to overcome this both consciously and sub-consciously. I mean, even as a psychologist, it's weird it's amazing how it really works. But, it enuresis occurs in the fourth stage of sleep, the deepest stage. And that's where kids sleep walk. And so, you know, they can be walking and still be asleep. Well we take advantage of that and we just teach him what to do while they're sleeping. It's amazing it works so well."