1 – Contact the Hotel in Advance
You don’t know if you don’t ask. Let the hotel know about your needs and see if they can accommodate them. Elsewhere I have done an extensive post on how to contact a hotel in advance (see Contacting the Hotel In Advance, and I’ve talked a bit about this in my post on My Usual Procedures for Staying in a Hotel), so I will keep this section brief. Simply put, ask whether it is through the impersonal and almost anonymous e-mail, the slightly less impersonal phone call, or the embarrassing but necessary in person request at check-in.
My pro-tip that makes making embarrassing requests easier is use third person pronouns. So instead of saying “I wet the bed” say “the guest has a concern over bedwetting.” Or avoid the explanation entirely, simply ask for what you need and don’t say why you need it, it is none of their business after all.
2 – Use Protection and Dispose of it Responsibly
When travelling I always bring protection to wear. I have a number of different incontinence products/adult diapers that I may bring along with me. I do not have a usual brand or type that I wear and I have worn a large number of brands over the years, starting with Goodnites when I was a teen, Depends Fitted Briefs when I outgrew these, and I occasionally experiment with different brands as new improvements and changes are made. I will do other posts exploring and reviewing different bedwetting solutions, as I find many of the options out there tend to leak when used by side-sleepers like myself. I was relying on Tena Flex Super for a while, and more recently have started using MoliCare ‘Soft Cloth Super Briefs,’ both of which I find work really well when worn with a tight fitting cover over top to hold them in place. Both of which are also cloth-backed so they can be worn more discreetly while flying (see my posts on flying 1, 2, 3). I try to bring enough diapers for one for every night of my stay, plus one extra just in case.
If I am unable to ensure that my mattress will be protected, I may also being disposable bed mats to put down. I use Goodnites Bed Mats, as they are the most reliable and pack flat and light, but there are plenty of others on the market, and I’ll try to test these out in the future. I usually only bring one or two as these are just in case of leaks. There are also re-usable bed mats, but these are not generally practical when travelling, given the paucity of laundry facilities.
Given the bed mats and diapers, my luggage is often pretty bulky. If I am travelling for more than three or four days, I have been known to gamble with the number of products I bring, hoping for one or two dry nights. The one good thing with packing bulky is that as these are disposable products, it means I have more room for shopping/souvenirs on the way home.
After making sure the mattress is protected, I will try my best to follow my usual pre-bedtime routine, even when on the road. This means limiting fluids before bed time and not drinking as much caffeine. As I’ve noted in another post, this isn’t always possible, and the success or failure of my efforts to stick to this regime tends to have a direct impact on whether or not I can expect to wake up dry.
If I do wet the bed during the night, I will of course shower in the morning and dispose of the wet diaper as well as I can. I try to be courteous to housekeeping and roll up my wet diaper in a tight ball, and then put it in the trash in a tied up garbage bag. I’ve noticed that not all places have bags in their trash bins (particularly after my visit to the Delta Bow Valley Hotel in Calgary), so I have taken to bringing my own bags as a result.
3 – Remove Soiled Bedclothes
In the unfortunate situation where your sheets do get wet, make the life of hard-worked housekeeping staff easier by stripping the bed yourself, and putting all linens in the bathtub. It is unfair to ask the housekeeping staff to handle linens with your bodily fluids on them, so do them a favour and ball them up in such a way as to make it easy to handle them without touching the wet parts.
While I noted that I will often bring along a bed mat/pad, I always put this underneath the sheets, for a couple of reasons. First, because sleeping directly on these pads is uncomfortable, and second, for discretion, as a pad covered by a sheet is almost unnoticeable to the casual observer. Leaks and accidents do happen, and when they do, sheets may get wet.
4 – Leave a Tip
I try to leave my room as tidy as possible to not make even more work for housekeeping. I always put the little door hanger on the door to let them know my room needs servicing should the linens need changing. This also helps you avoid the unneeded embarrassment of calling the front desk/housekeeping to ask for your bed to be changed. When I check out, I always leave a tip in the room and am always as polite as possible to the staff.
Is there anything that you do as a bedwetter when staying in a hotel that I’ve not mentioned? Please let me know in the comments.
The Bedwetting Traveller 