The Waiting Game

My oldest child, 1 of 3, turned 6 this summer and she has been waiting to have a sleep over.  I used the old carrot and stick trick, you get the sleep over after you have a dry pull up for 3 days.  We tried everything.  I cut off the water consumption a few hours before bed.  I got her up around midnight and set her on the potty.  To no avail.  The pull up was always wet.  We were both SUPER DUPER frustrated.

Then I had the idea to just let her sleep in panties.  She would realize the feeling after a few nights.  Nope.  No way.  It just caused more work for me.  I resigned myself to the idea that it would just be a long process.  No big deal.

When her 3 year old sister started waking up dry in the morning and asking to sleep in panties, it became a bigger deal.

I mentioned this problem to her doctor and he said that he could prescribe some medicine to help stop the night time wetting if we wanted to do so.  I declined as I did not think it necessary to medicate her for THAT problem.  We would just put off sleep overs for awhile.

After getting the food allergy results for my youngest, 3 of 3, I began to do a bit of research.  I read somewhere that food allergies can cause night time bed wetting.  Really?  That sounded like a bunch of hogwash to me but both my daughter and I were a bit desperate.

I had been thinking about the family getting the test anyway so off we went.

We finally got the test results and found out that she was mildly allergic to wheat/gluten, eggs and peanuts.  She had a few other mild allergies but the mentioned allergies were IgE reactions.  Simply put, her body has a response to these foods from the very first time of exposure.  And the gluten response, albeit mild, could be causing an autoimmune response in her body.  We don't exactly know.

So I immediately cut gluten from her diet.  It was just AMAZING.  The child has never had another night time bed wetting episode.  Ever.  For 6 weeks she has been able to drink as much as she wants before bed.  No more waking her up in the middle of the night.  No more sad little face wondering why she can't seem to stop.  Just a PROUD little face thrilled to finally feel like the big girl she is.

It seems like a small thing but the gluten or SOMETHING was interfering with the hormone process in her body.  It just makes me wonder what other small ways the gluten had begun to interfere with in her body.  And what would have happened over the long haul if it hadn't been removed.

I feel so thankful that 1 of 3 found relief and an answer so quickly.  We are all off of gluten and I can report that I feel much more energetic as well.  More to come.

So the waiting game is over and I should get to planning that sleep over!  By the way, I had permission from my daughter to share this story.  She said that she hopes it might help someone.