The Nutrition Connection to Bedwetting

July 13, 2024

For many families nighttime starts with cozy bedtime stories and ends earlier than anyone would like with another bedwetting accident. Most parents recognize that a common final leg of potty training is staying dry throughout the night, but for many children that's a big challenge.

According to the Mayo Clinic, bedwetting (also known as nocturnal enuresis or nighttime incontinence) is when a child is toilet trained during the day, but will wet the bed at night. Bedwetting before the age of 7 isn't too much of a concern since developmentally your child may still be working on nighttime bladder control.

Recent statistics show about 20 percent of 5-year-olds and 10 percent of 7-year-olds wet the bed. Along with the soggy sheets you'll often find an embarrassed little kiddo whose self-esteem may suffer after years of bedwetting.

Reasons For A Child's Bedwetting:

What can cause bedwetting? Some theories point to a small bladder or deep sleeping, which could both be reasons a child struggles with wetting the bed.

Reducing fluid intake earlier in the evening and developing bedtime routines to help empty their bladder can be solutions for dry nights.

As dietitians and nutritionists, we think there could also be certain foods or what a child drinks at the root cause of these wet nights, especially in older children.

With over 30 years of clinical experience at Nutritional Weight & Wellness, we have found that there is often an underlying nutrition connection—and nutrition solution - to help your kiddo stop wetting the bed.

The Brain & Bladder Connection

It's difficult for many parents to make the connection that their family's food choices may be affecting their child's bladder control.

We're talking simple, and often mindless, food choices—the candy sucker you pick up running errands or the regular dessert habit after mealtimes —foods like these irritate the brain which is really where the bladder control comes from.

The biggest food culprits for disrupting the brain are sugar, bread, damaged fats and refined oils, and food dyes. Think of that.

It's a possibility that when your kiddo eats one of the popular cereals in the morning (loaded with three of the worst culprits: sugar, refined fats and food dyes), he/she may have a problem in the middle of the night.

Making real food swaps for these highly processed, sugary foods can help children stay dry through the night because of the decrease in brain irritation.

Rather than a bowl of cereal or pop tarts and fruit juice for breakfast, try egg muffins or a strawberry protein smoothie.

Can Too Much Sugar Cause Bed Wetting?

To better understand just how prevalent these brain disrupter foods are, look at sugar alone. It's hidden, or in plain sight, in almost all foods and beverages marketed to children.

According to a study by the American Academy of Pediatrics, "On average, U.S. children consume 19 teaspoons of added sugar daily, largely from soda, fruit-flavored drinks, sports drinks, cakes and cookies.... "

To give you a visual on what that quantity looks like, 19 teaspoons is a little more than two 12 oz cans of regular soda.

The American Heart Association recommends the daily limit of added sugar be kept to 6 teaspoons for a child's diet.

The bottom line is that sugar, bread, flavored fizzy drinks, damaged fats and food dyes equals inflammation in the body. This also includes artificial sweeteners.

For some kids that inflammation creates brain stress and they may lose bladder control at night, others may have a hard time focusing in school or suffer from asthma attacks.

Too much sugar and inflammation can show up in a variety of symptoms and bedwetting is one of them.

Digestive Problems & Bedwetting

The 1978 book, Basics of Food Allergy, James C. Breneman, M.D. states that “Control of food allergy is effective in curbing bedwetting in four out of five patients…”

At Nutritional Weight & Wellness, we can attest that this is true, having seen many children in our counseling rooms who are constantly wetting the bed and also suffering from an undiagnosed food sensitivity.

Gluten is typically the most prevalent source of nighttime incontinence for children. Sensitivity to dairy products, eggs and other items can also cause bedwetting.

While it's hard to ignore a symptom like bedwetting (even if you don't know it's a symptom of something), it's very easy to miss other allergy indicators such as diarrhea and fatigue. Both can easily be attributed to other issues entirely.

Similarly, a child can't articulate that they feel a strange “brain fog,” so you may just think they're tired when it's really a reaction to gluten.

Here are two Dishing Up Nutrition podcasts on the topic; one on how to recognize a gluten sensitivity and another features ideas for dealing with food sensitivities.

Certain Foods To Avoid To Stop Bedwetting

Now that we've made the connection to a what a child eats or what a child drinks to nocturnal enuresis, also known as bedwetting, here are the foods to consider avoiding or reducing, which will ultimately benefit the whole family:

• Sugar
• Processed carbohydrates, especially those containing gluten, like bread, cereal, cookies, muffins, chips
• Refined fats, like canola oil, cottonseed oil, vegetable oil
• Food dyes
• Possible food sensitives, like gluten, dairy, or eggs
• Caffeine, which is a bladder irritant found in energy drinks, soda, carbonated drinks, iced teas, even chocolate

Rule Out Diabetes

If you're reducing fluids, avoiding brain and bladder irritants, eliminating food sensitivities, fixed your child's digestive problem, and you're still finding your child is wetting the bed and will pass urine frequently throughout the day, it might be beneficial to screen for diabetes.

Frequent urination can be one of the early signs of a type 1 diabetes diagnosis, because the body has to get rid of the extra sugar that's built up in the blood stream because the body isn't producing insulin properly.

Other symptoms for diabetes might be frequent thirst, persistent hunger, losing weight, fatigue, and family history of diabetes.

Screening for diabetes can be as simple as having your primary care provider doing a quick blood sugar check for your child and it's always a good idea to rule out a more serious underlying health condition.

Making Changes To Your Child's Diet To Stop Bed Wetting

To recap our discussion today on bedwetting (also called nocturnal enuresis), reduce fluid intake and work on positive toilet habits with your kiddo to help them relieve a full bladder at bedtime before sleep. If bedwetting continues to be a struggle, especially with older children, consider looking at nutrition.

Foods that irritate the brain or certain foods that kids are sensitive to can create neuroinflammation that impacts bladder control.

The dietary changes to make to help your child stay dry through the night may include:

• Reducing the sugar, bread, caffeine, bad fats, and food dyes.
• Keeping a food diary and bed wetting journal to pin point any food sensitivities. Experiment with with eliminating gluten first to see if that's the cause of wetting the bed.
• Replacing the sugary, processed foods with meals and snacks with real food carbohydrates like fruits and veggies.

We recognize that it's really hard work for parents to make these changes. It's not easy, but it's not impossible.

We've found that children, especially the older ones still suffering from bedwetting, are truly motivated to change their eating habits if that means they can go over to a sleepover without fear of wetting their friend's bed.

To get started, we'd recommend a meeting with a nutritionist to determine what foods are causing inflammation and what supplements could help their bodies heal. We can work together to get your family to sleep soundly, the whole night through.

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Online Class: Healthy Foods To Build Happy Focused Kids

Parents and caregivers: Discover a new way to feed your children so they perform at their best.

Learn More: Healthy Foods To Build Happy Focused Kids Online Class

 

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For more information on kids and nutrition, check out these resources:

LISTEN: Podcast: Common Concerns for Kids: Focus, Asthma and Bedwetting

LISTEN: Food Allergies: Keeping Kids Safe

READ: Dairy Intolerance: Causes, Symptoms, Solutions

READ: Balanced Nutrition For Focused Kids

 

References:

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/bed-wetting/symptoms-causes/syc-20366685

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK545181/

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/15075-bedwetting

AHA: Limit children’s sugar consumption to 6 teaspoons per day | AAP News | American Academy of Pediatrics