My childhood as a bedwetter was initially a very unhappy and depressing one, but as time passed and circumstances changed, so did my handling of my bedwetting.
Apparently I was quick to potty train during the day and was out of daytime diapers by the age of 2, but nighttime wetting was a whole different story. Since I was born in the mid-60s the only cost-effective diapering option was cloth diapers and plastic pants, so my parents continued to use these until I was ready to go to our family's traditional boarding school at age 7. Although I wasn't keen on having to wear diapers to bed, I was even less keen on going to boarding school where my bedwetting problem was not going to be possible to hide. I think my parents thought that this would provide me some incentive to stop wetting the bed.
Upon arriving at boarding school, I was shown the lay of the land, which included a tour of the dorm rooms. None of the beds were made yet, as we brought our own sheets with us, but my bed did already have a thick plastic cover on it, unlike the rest of the beds in my dorm room. I remember gently sitting on that bed and praying it wouldn't make that tell tale crinkling sound when I sat on it, and being mortified when it not only did, but sounded louder than any I'd had on my bed before.
Then, to cap that off, in came the matron with a blue disposable underpad and informed me (and my parents) that was all they had for bedwetters and gave me instructions on what to do if I woke up wet in the morning. I was not to make my bed and leave the top sheet and blanket pulled down so the staff would know to change my sheets. What they didn't realize (or didn't care) was that I realized this would be my morning announcement to my dorm room buddies that I had wet the bed.
Needless to say, boarding school was unpleasant. As I was typically a nightly bedwetter, every morning was shameful for me and often (but not always) included teasing from my friends. I begged my parents to allow me to go to "normal" school, and after three years they succumbed.
Once home again, I continued to sleep in nothing but pajamas on a plastic covered mattress. Each morning I would awake cold and wet, often long before I needed to get up, as I was awoken due to the discomfort of sleeping in a cold, wet bed. Once awake, I'd take off my soaked pajamas and curl up on the floor next to my bed and try and get back to sleep, always trying to be careful that my parents wouldn't find me on the floor. I felt pathetic and didn't want them to know just how sorry a son I made.
At some point I was able to talk my mom into letting me have one of those fold-up cushion chairs in my room (the kind that unfold into a sort of mattress). Then when I woke up wet, I could unfold the chair and sleep on it instead of the floor. This worked great until the time I woke up and had wet the chair! My mom found the wet chair after it began to smell (I didn't want to tell her) and took me aside to question me about how it got wet. I spilled the beans about how I would sleep on it when I woke up wet and cold and how uncomfortable it was to try and sleep in a soaked bed. She asked me if I'd prefer wearing bedwetter pants to bed (as they didn't make GoodNites® back then), and I said I probably would. Soon after she bought some and for the first time since age 7, I woke up warm and dry!
My whole outlook on life changed! My room no longer smelled. I would sleep until ready to awake rather than waking early due to being cold and wet, and I felt more in control of my body. All I needed to do was put my wet pants into a diaper pail, and mom took care of the rest. Had GoodNites® been available, my life would have been even easier! I remember Mom occasionally complaining about having to wash my "diapers," and it made me feel awful! I so wanted to make them proud of me and felt that being in diapers at night was falling short of their expectations.
Disposable diapers were available by this time, but they still didn't make them for older kids, so I continued in cloth until I saw an ad in the Sears catalog for adult disposable diapers. I asked my mom if I could use them and she placed an order, and soon after I switched to disposables. Now I felt my mom was no longer bothered by my bedwetting!
Imagine how much easier my life as a child would have been had GoodNites® been around when I was a child. I know this seems like a shameful advertisement, but I felt compelled to write this so other parents with a bedwetter would perhaps better understand the feelings going through their child's head.
GoodNites®, like menstrual or incontinence products, allow a child to be in control of their body and handle their bedwetting with dignity and privacy. Oh how I wish I'd had them as a kid instead of having to wear a full, plastic-covered adult diaper which was impossible to hide from friends sleeping over! I'm certain that GoodNites® really do mean "good mornings" for thousands of bedwetters! And on behalf of them all, thank you Kimberly Clark for making them!
