Did you know that physical therapy can help your child’s bedwetting?
We are pediatric bladder and bowel physical therapists right here in Grand Rapids, Michigan and we help bedwetting!
At Purple Mountain Physical Therapy, here in Grand Rapids, Michigan, we specialize in pelvic health physical therapy and this includes pediatric bladder and bowel health. We offer both in-person treatment or remote consultations to guide parents and children towards being dry at not. Our pediatric bladder and bowel program includes a variety of physical therapy methods to help your child gain control of their bladder when sleeping. Everything we do for children is specific to pediatric developmental stages, age appropriate and includes the parent or guardian to help improve household support so you all can achieve the goals you set. Physical Therapy can help stop bedwetting. If you are interested in learning more about our physical therapy (either in-person at our PT clinic in Grand Rapids or via remote consult, if you qualify) to help your child’s bedwetting, call us at 616-516-4334 to speak with one of our knowledgable team members or contact us here and we will be in touch with you!
What does bladder and bowel physical therapy do for my child?
We help children learn about their bladder and bowel function, we use exercises and other interventions to enhance control. One helpful component of our treatment is rehabilitative ultrasound imaging. Using ultrasound, we can show the child and parent their bladder, pelvic floor muscles (and how to control them) and any constipation. Parents & kids have found this invaluable in learning how to better establish optimal bladder and bowel control. We guide and support parents and educate both parents & kids on optimal function, routines to stop bedwetting, how to effectively control the pelvic floor and bladder control muscles and more. If you would like more information about our pediatric bladder & bowel physical therapy to help stop bedwetting, reach out here.
All children who experience bedwetting will receive a physical therapy bladder and bowel evaluation, with the parent included, that fully analyzes bladder and bowel function, both daytime and nighttime.
During this evaluation we will discuss your child’s bladder and bowel habits, sleep routine, daytime routine, diet and physical activity levels. We also evaluate your child’s strength, coordination and core muscles because there are often impairments in these muscles, resulting in bladder or bowel control problems, such as bedwetting. We include a variety of questions regarding your child’s bladder and bowel function, such as:
- Toilet habits and behaviors
- Urinary habits, including frequency, urgency and stream.
- Fluid intake habits, types of fluid & volume
- Estimated daytime urinary output
- Estimated bedwetting volume lost.
- Urinary stream characteristics (does it stop and start, happen easily, split, etc)
- Your child’s sensation of their urinary urge
- Sleep quality, movements, habits, bedtime. Arousal during sleep.
- General nutrition intake, timing of meals, habits of breakfast, lunch and dinner, fiber intake, food preferences.
- Bowel habits including do you have daily bowel movements, does your child feel empty afterwards, is the volume of the stool reflecting the quantity of food ingested, timing, sensation of urge to defecate, straining, pain, bloating or other.
- Abdominal distension, abdominal wall weakness, abdominal pain or cramping.
- What you have tried that didn’t work to facilitate bladder and bowel control.
- Urinary tract infection history.
- Developmental milestones for motor and speech.
- Your child’s reaction to the urge to urinate or defecate.
- Toileting postures
- Your child’s physical activities and sports
- Any pertinent medical history. This could include anything, including: learning disabilities, congenital anorectal malformation, diabetes, spina bifida, down syndrome, autism, any developmental delay, anxiety, ADHD or any other condition.
To ask about cost and availability of our pediatric physical therapy for bedwetting and to speak with one of our knowledgable staff members, reach out to us at 616-516-4334 or contact us here. We offer treatment in-person in Grand Rapids, Michigan or via remote consultation for those who qualify
We have worked with countless children of all ages to provide physical therapy to stop bedwetting. Our goal is to fully support you and your child and provide trauma informed and developmentally appropriate care. Families tell us that the PT to stop their child’s bedwetting is therapeutic and uplifting.
The evaluation and all treatment occurs between the parent, child and doctor of physical therapy. We include the child into any conversation so they understand the treatment and experience buy-in. If your child is too young or disabled to fully understand, we provide extensive parental support and can use a variety of methods to help your child improve bedwetting. We have worked with children of all ages, including adolescents and teens who have struggled with bedwetting for years. We offer a private, discreet and comfortable place to receive physical therapy for bedwetting.
Our knowledgable staff can answer all of your questions that you may have about physical therapy for bedwetting. To speak with a team member, call 616-516-4334 and you will learn more about our physical therapy to help your child’s bedwetting. You can also contact us here.
We use a variety of methods to improve your child’s bedwetting and overall bladder and bowel function. These include:
- Biofeedback & Rehabilitative Ultrasound Imaging: to help your child learn to release and tighten the bladder and bowel control muscles.
- Core strengthening for any child who has low tone, weak core or lower strength
- Breathing exercises
- Sensory training to improve your child’s understanding of what an urge to urinate and defecate feels like. Children often are completely unaware of the need to void.
- Exercises practicing toileting including breathing, how to open their passageway, how to relax, posture on the toilet (Or standing for boys, if preferred).
- Fiber and dietary suggestions to promote daily, healthy, soft bowel movements, without straining. We also will talk about digestion and chewing habits.
- Partnering with your pediatrician and advising you on protocols to facilitate a bowel clean-out. Often children who have bedwetting have constipation and a bowel clean-out is necessary to allow their bladder to function and hold urine at night. Parents come to us overwhelmed by the prospect of undertaking a bowel clean out program and we take the guesswork out of this. You can expect to receive considerable guidance and support about how to implement, modify, determine progress and manage a bowel clean out program. Many parents find this aspect of our pediatric bedwetting physical therapy program to be something that eases stress and provides considerable progress towards stopping bedwetting. Because we specialize in pediatric bladder and bowel physical therapy, you and your child will be working with a licensed physical therapist who knows how to guide you and your child towards success.
- Gentle manual therapy methods to the abdomen or low back to facilitate intestinal motility, awareness of their body and relief of muscular guarding.
Your child’s bedwetting physical therapy will be comprehensive and address daytime and nighttime bladder and bowel issues.
Quite often families come to us and are not aware of any daytime bladder issues and report their child has daily bowel movements. However, upon further inquiry we often find that children do, indeed, have non-optimal bladder and bowel daytime function. If we want to alleviate bedwetting, we must optimize daytime bladder and bowel function. We understand that you may be skeptical that physical therapy can help stop your child’s bedwetting, but our experience is guided in helping families just like yours.
Give us a call at 616-516-4334 if you would like to learn more about how we can help support your child’s bladder and bowel control, or reach out here.
Pediatric bedwetting physical therapy must always address constipation & daytime bladder habits!
A common contributor to bedwetting is constipation. You can imagine that in a small body, that a full rectum can squish the bladder and limit bladder capacity. When this happens, the bladder may empty involuntarily either at night with bedwetting or during the day. Our bedwetting physical therapy program will help identify if this is happening for your child and our therapy improves this. If you are interested in learning more about our physical therapy to help your child’s bedwetting, call us at 616-516-4334 to speak with one of our knowledgable team members or contact us here and we will be in touch with you!
PT for Bedwetting includes multiple methods that work together to enhance your child’s control.
You can expect exercises, biofeedback, coaching and external manual therapy methods to improve bladder and bowel awareness. Our treatment includes behavior modifications, dietary recommendations, pelvic floor retraining through exercises and gentle guidance, manual therapy (external only), and exercise to strengthen the core and hip musculature. We will give you at-home methods to improve constipation and daytime toileting habits. We provide gentle, hands-on manual therapy to help promote intestinal mobility. Additionally, we practice with your child effective toileting strategies, which includes not holding in your poop and listening to your body and knowing when to go to the toilet. To learn more about our physical therapy to help your child’s bedwetting, you can call us at 616-516-4334 and you will speak with a knowledgable staff member or you may contact us here.
In nearly all cases, when constipation and daytime voiding habits are optimized, we can stop bedwetting.
We will advise you and develop a bedwetting treatment plan that includes a variety of interventions that have been shown in clinical studies to be important physical therapy treatment components to stop bedwetting.
Is bedwetting hereditary?
If a parent experienced bedwetting, we do know that you are more likely to have a child who experiencing nocturnal enuresis, also. However, we also have research that supports that constipation has been present in both parent and child. Parents, it is possible that your own bedwetting may have been triggered by constipation you were not even aware was present. Top clinical experts in the field of pediatric bedwetting consistently assert that constipation must be treated and is likely what has been “inherited” and that the bladder is sensitive to the stretched/full rectum. We can help your child eliminate their bedwetting by addressing constipation and all of the items noted above.
If you are interested in learning more about cost and availability for physical therapy to help your child’s bedwetting, call us at 616-516-4334 to speak with one of our knowledgable team members or contact us here and we will be in touch with you!
If you, as a parent, wet the bed until 6, 8, 12 years or older, it does not mean that your child will have to do the same! Treating the underlying constipation can cure bedwetting. As pediatric bladder & bowel physical therapists we know that many parents think that their child is not constipated. However, when we partner with you to discover and monitor your child’s bowel movement habits, kids and parents find it enlightening to realize that the bowels are not actually functioning as well as they thought.
Physical therapy to help stop bedwetting is provided in a safe, private treatment space in an uplifting environment that is developmentally appropriate.
We work closely with parents and children to create a safe and trusting partnership, so that you experience results, are supported and well cared for. Our approach with children who have bedwetting or any bladder & bowel control problem, is positive, encouraging and rewarding. To learn more about our pediatric physical therapy for bedwetting, reach out to us at 616-516-4334 or contact us here.
Pelvic floor muscle training helps your child learn to control these muscles and helps stop bedwetting.
The pelvic floor is responsible for holding pee and poop in and letting it out. Sometimes when children have developed bedwetting, constipation or urinary problems (such as incontinence, frequency, urgency or holding their pee too long), the pelvic floor muscles get confused and need to be retrained. The pelvic floor needs to relax in order to empty the bladder or the bowel, but for some kids this isn’t happening. Then, they go to bed and fully relax and the flood gates open with bedwetting! If the muscles are not functioning well during the day, it will impair the ability to control your bladder when sleeping. To learn more about our physical therapy to help your child’s bedwetting, contact us here.
Manual therapy to the abdomen or low back can be effective to help stop bedwetting and pediatric bladder & bowel problems!
Sometimes our treatment includes gentle, hands-on treatments that are directed to your child’s spine, abdomen, pelvis or legs. For example, when stool gets backed up in the rectum it is very common that peristalsis (the coordinated contractions of smooth muscle in your large intestine) gets disrupted. Manual therapy to the abdomen, lower back, and hips can help restore optimal digestion and improve posture to reduce constipation and also calm down an overactive bladder. We also use exercise that are fun and developmentally appropriate to promote posture, breathing mechanics, and mobility of abdominal tissue and the hips/pelvis.
We customize the physical therapy treatment program for your child’s bedwetting based on what we find in the evaluation, your child’s developmental level and tolerances or preferences and the parents’ goals. By taking this wholisitic and comprehensive approach physical therapy can stop bedwetting
Many times parents tell us that they have noticed that their child who wets the bed may not be as coordinated or strong as another child in family. But, other times, the bedwetting child is the most active and athletic kid in the household. For these reasons, we customize the treatments for each child.
- Our licensed physical therapist will assess your child’s pelvic floor muscle control, overall strength, posture, toileting postures & techniques, constipation, abdominal wall integrity, awareness of their bladder and bowel and more.
- We will give you suggestions and a framework for what to work on at home and we work to not overwhelm your household.
- Each appointment is private with the child, parent and licensed physical therapist. We progress your physical therapy at each visit, based on progress or setbacks that have been experienced.
- If your child needs a bowel clean out program, we will oversee this and provide you extensive support. Parents tell us that this is extraordinarily helpful.
Parents also say that by working with our physical therapist to address their child’s bedwetting, they finally have clarity and less stress around the problems related to bladder control.
Kids come to PT happy and generally love the treatments, which include fun games and exercises designed to raise awareness of and control of the muscles needed to void. We have worked with kids of all ages, including young adults who are graduating high school and would like to cure their bedwetting before having a college roommate. These kids are not alone and the stigma associated with bedwetting is a difficult part of their youth. Our PT program for bedwetting helps your child learn the complicated things that are needed for the bladder to hold urine throughout the night.
If this sounds intriguing to you and you have questions about whether we may be able to help your child, call us at 616-516-4334 or contact us here and we will be in touch with you so you can talk with one of our knowledgable staff members.
Children with constipation, bedwetting or daytime wetting commonly have weakness in their hips and core musculature. By addressing these issues, our physical therapy can stop bedwetting
At Purple Mountain Physical therapy we develop individualized exercise programs that address your child’s specific deficits in a fun and engaging way so that their bedwetting can stop and their bladder and bowel control during the daytime can be optimized, as well! To learn more about our physical therapy to help your child’s bedwetting, contact us here.
Behavior modifications that can help stop bedwetting!
We will work with the parents and child to identify any habits that need to be improved. It is common that toileting behaviors are not ideal, leading to diurnal enuresis (wetting their pants during the day) or bedwetting (nocturnal enuresis). Often we find that children don’t like to use the toilet. We also identify that some kids sit on the toilet too long, hold their breath and strain. We are specialists at identifying and coaching your child to gain control of their bowel and bladder so bedwetting can stop, constipation resolves and urinary frequency, urgency and incontinence can also resolve.
If you are serious about getting support for your child so they can stop bedwetting, we are here to help you!
Bedwetting is common, but not normal and has known psychological stress on your child and your household. Bedwetting is often driven by constipation and improper daytime habits for the bladder. As pediatric pelvic physical therapists, we know how to effectively and positively help your child to learn how to use their bladder and bowel optimally. We also know how to teach a parent to support your child. This isn’t easy to overcome, but our specialized care brings clarity to a puzzling situation. Our licensed physical therapists specialize in pediatric bladder and bowel disorders. We love this work and have helped countless kids learn to control their bladder and bowel. We enjoy getting to know the children and their parents and seeing your child’s confidence and self esteem improve. We understand that bedwetting can be a stressful problem for the entire household and parents have told us that this physical therapy has been the best thing they have done for their child.
If you would like to talk to one of our team members about our pediatric bladder and bowel physical therapy for bedwetting, we are here to answer your questions. Call us at 616-516-4334 or contact us here and we will be in touch with you. We consider it an honor to work with you and your child and from the first phone call parents tell us that they finally feel relief at finding support and a path forward for their child.
Purple Mountain Physical Therapy is a specialty bladder and bowel control clinic located in Grand Rapids, MI. We offer specialized physical therapy to help children overcome toileting challenges and bedwetting. We also work with women and men who have pelvic floor dysfunction and bladder, bowel or pain related problems. We have advanced training and experience helping kids improve their bladder & bowel control using a combination of exercises, external treatments, biofeedback, bowel clean out programs, dietary recommendations and play based therapy. We partner with parents to help you know how to best help your child. Our doctors of physical therapy promise to give you our best! To learn more about our physical therapy to help your child’s bedwetting, call 616-516-4334 or contact us here.
Peace,
Dr. Maureen O’Keefe, DPT founder of Purple Mountain Physical Therapy and pelvic health physical therapist specialist. We are a PT clinic devoted to adults & children’s bladder and bowel challenges, including specialized physical therapy that can stop bedwetting and teach your child how to control their bladder and bowel. We also provide specialized treatment for adult pelvic health, pregancy & postpartum recovery, chronic TMJ pain and neck and back pain.
You may be interested in these other articles we have written:
Why is My Child’s Poop So Big?
Why Does My Ten Year Old Wet The Bed?
How Much Bedwetting is Normal?
When Can I Start Potty Training?
