How does our body know/learn not to wet the bed when we’re sleeping?
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This is one thing I’m dealing with currently with two of my kids. The answer is ‘we don’t know, they will, or should, grow out of it’.
Wetting the bed after 9 or 10 could be an indication of a disorder or disease. We don’t know the mechanism that causes us to learn not to pee the bed other than potentially growth and development of the body. If we knew then there wouldn’t be such a big market for large children night diapers.
As an infant our bladders just fill and release. As we grow and our bladder increases in size and the muscles controlling it get stronger we learn to control that impulse.
At night, two things happen. One is we release a hormone called vasopressin that suppresses the formation of urine during sleep. Instead that liquid gets reabsorbed into the bloodstream and less goes into the bladder.
And secondly as our bladder fills, it sends a signal to the brain. The brain sends a signal back to the bladder telling it to relax so it can fill with more urine. As it fills that message to the brain *should* eventually result in us waking up so we can eliminate appropriately.
With kids with bed wetting issues, they often have issues with either not producing enough of the hormone, not getting that signal to wake up, or other issues.
When you fall asleep, your mind switches from the conscious to the subconscious. Your subconscious self is like a pet or an animal that you need to train/domesticate – at least if the objective is not wetting the bed.
People who sleep walk are a great example of when the subconscious is biting off more than it can chew.
I once dreamed about a bed you can just let loose in
Somewhat absorbing it in a not messy and self cleaning way
And I still believe that would be quite a wonderful thing to have
I don’t think I ever woke up to pee ever, is that normal?
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