The medical name for bedwetting is "nocturnal enuresis". The condition is divided into 2 types: primary nocturnal enuresis (PNE) and secondary nocturnal enuresis.

Thorough history regarding frequency of bedwetting, any period of dryness in between, associated daytime symptoms, constipation, and encopresis should be sought.

Nighttime incontinence may be one sign of another condition called obstructive sleep apnea, in which the child's breathing is interrupted during sleep, often because of inflamed or enlarged tonsils or adenoids. Other symptoms of this condition include snoring, mouth breathing, frequent ear and sinus infections, sore throat, choking, and daytime drowsiness. In some cases, successful treatment of this breathing disorder may also resolve the associated nighttime incontinence.

Between the ages of 5 and 10, incontinence may be the result of a small bladder capacity, long sleeping periods, and underdevelopment of the body's alarms in the brain that signal a full or emptying bladder. This form of incontinence will fade away as the bladder grows and the natural alarms become operational.

Enuresis is defined as the involuntary voiding of urine beyond the age of anticipated control. Diurnal enuresis is daytime wetting, nocturnal enuresis is nighttime wetting. Both of these conditions can occur at the same time, Many children with nighttime wetting will not have wetting during the day. Children with daytime wetting may have frequent urination, have urgent urination or dribble after urinating.

The DSM-V classifies enuresis as an elimination disorder and as such it may be defined as the involuntary or voluntary elimination of urine into inappropriate places. A patient must be of at least a developmental level equivalent to the chronological age of a 5 year old in order to be diagnosed with enuresis (in other words it is not abnormal for a child below the age of 5).

The patient must either experience a frequency of inappropriate voiding at least twice a week for a period of at least 3 consecutive months OR experience clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational or other important areas of functioning, in order to be diagnosed with enuresis. These symptoms must not be due to any underlying medical condition (e.g. a child who wets the bed because their kidneys produce too much urine, is not suffering from enuresis, they're suffering from kidney disease which is causing the inappropriate urination). As well, these symptoms must not be due exclusively to the direct physiological effect of a substance (such as a diuretic or antipsychotic).

Common causes include, but not limited to:

- Incomplete emptying of the bladder

- Irritable bladder

- Constipation

- Stress

- Urinary tract infection

- Urgency (not “making it” to the bathroom in time)

- Anatomic abnormality

- Poor toileting habits

- Small bladder capacity

- Medical conditions like overactive bladder disorder

The most common sleep disorders include:

- Bruxism, involuntarily grinding or clenching of the teeth while sleeping.

- Catathrenia, nocturnal groaning during prolonged exhalation.

- Delayed sleep phase disorder (DSPD), inability to awaken and fall asleep at socially acceptable times but no problem with sleep maintenance, a disorder of circadian rhythms. Other such disorders are advanced sleep phase disorder (ASPD), non-24-hour sleep–wake disorder (non-24) in the sighted or in the blind, and irregular sleep wake rhythm, all much less common than DSPD, as well as the situational shift work sleep disorder.

- Hypopnea syndrome, abnormally shallow breathing or slow respiratory rate while sleeping.

- Idiopathic hypersomnia, a primary, neurologic cause of long-sleeping, sharing many similarities with narcolepsy.

- Insomnia disorder (primary insomnia), chronic difficulty in falling asleep and/or maintaining sleep when no other cause is found for these symptoms. Insomnia can also be comorbid with or secondary to other disorders.

- Kleine–Levin syndrome, a rare disorder characterized by persistent episodic hypersomnia and cognitive or mood changes.

- Narcolepsy, including excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS), often culminating in falling asleep spontaneously but unwillingly at inappropriate times. About 70% of those who have narcolepsy also have cataplexy, a sudden weakness in the motor muscles that can result in collapse to the floor while retaining full conscious awareness.

- Night terror, "Pavor nocturnus", sleep terror disorder, an abrupt awakening from sleep with behavior consistent with terror.

- Nocturia, a frequent need to get up and urinate at night. It differs from enuresis, or bed-wetting, in which the person does not arouse from sleep, but the bladder nevertheless empties.

- Parasomnias, disruptive sleep-related events involving inappropriate actions during sleep, for example sleep walking, night-terrors and catathrenia.

- Periodic limb movement disorder (PLMD), sudden involuntary movement of arms and/or legs during sleep, for example kicking the legs. Also known as nocturnal myoclonus. See also Hypnic jerk, which is not a disorder.

- Rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder (RBD), acting out violent or dramatic dreams while in REM sleep, sometimes injuring bed partner or self (REM sleep disorder or RSD).

- Restless legs syndrome (RLS), an irresistible urge to move legs. RLS sufferers often also have PLMD.

- Shift work sleep disorder (SWSD), a situational circadian rhythm sleep disorder. (Jet lag was previously included as a situational circadian rhythm sleep disorder, but it doesn't appear in DSM-5 (see Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders)).

- Sleep apnea, obstructive sleep apnea, obstruction of the airway during sleep, causing lack of sufficient deep sleep, often accompanied by snoring. Other forms of sleep apnea are less common. When air is blocked from entering into the lungs, the individual unconsciously gasps for air and sleep is disturbed. Stops of breathing of at least ten seconds, 30 times within seven hours of sleep, classifies as apnea. Other forms of sleep apnea include central sleep apnea and sleep-related hypoventilation.

- Sleep paralysis, characterized by temporary paralysis of the body shortly before or after sleep. Sleep paralysis may be accompanied by visual, auditory or tactile hallucinations. Not a disorder unless severe. Often seen as part of narcolepsy.

- Sleepwalking or "somnambulism", engaging in activities normally associated with wakefulness (such as eating or dressing), which may include walking, without the conscious knowledge of the subject.

- Somniphobia, one cause of sleep deprivation, a dread/ fear of falling asleep or going to bed. Signs of the illness include anxiety and panic attacks before and during attempts to sleep.

A sleep disorder, or somnipathy, is a medical disorder of the sleep patterns of a person or animal. Some sleep disorders are serious enough to interfere with normal physical, mental, social and emotional functioning. Polysomnography and actigraphy are tests commonly ordered for some sleep disorders.

Disruptions in sleep can be caused by a variety of issues, from teeth grinding (bruxism) to night terrors. When a person suffers from difficulty falling asleep and/or staying asleep with no obvious cause, it is referred to as insomnia.

Sleep disorders are broadly classified into dyssomnias, parasomnias, circadian rhythm sleep disorders involving the timing of sleep, and other disorders including ones caused by medical or psychological conditions and sleeping sickness.

Some common sleep disorders include sleep apnea (stops in breathing during sleep), narcolepsy and hypersomnia (excessive sleepiness at inappropriate times), cataplexy (sudden and transient loss of muscle tone while awake), and sleeping sickness (disruption of sleep cycle due to infection). Other disorders include sleepwalking, night terrors and bed wetting. Management of sleep disturbances that are secondary to mental, medical, or substance abuse disorders should focus on the underlying conditions.

Warning signs of the disorder include:

- A child who has one or more medical problems that do not respond to treatment or that follow an unusual course that is persistent, puzzling, and unexplained.

- Physical or laboratory findings that are highly unusual, discrepant with patient's presentation or history, or physically or clinically impossible.

- A parent who appears medically knowledgeable, fascinated with medical details and hospital gossip, appears to enjoy the hospital environment and expresses interest in the details of other patients' problems.

- A highly attentive parent who is reluctant to leave their child's side and who themselves seem to require constant attention.

- A parent who appears unusually calm in the face of serious difficulties in their child's medical course while being highly supportive and encouraging of the physician, or one who is angry, devalues staff and demands further intervention, more procedures, second opinions, and transfers to other more sophisticated facilities.

- The suspected parent may work in the health care field themselves or profess an interest in a health-related job.

- The signs and symptoms of a child's illness may lessen or simply vanish in the parent's absence (hospitalization and careful monitoring may be necessary to establish this causal relationship).

- A family history of similar or unexplained illness or death in a sibling.

- A parent with symptoms similar to their child's own medical problems or an illness history that itself is puzzling and unusual.

- A suspected emotionally distant relationship between parents; the spouse often fails to visit the patient and has little contact with physicians even when the child is hospitalized with a serious illness.

- A parent who reports dramatic, negative events, such as house fires, burglaries, or car accidents, that affect them and their family while their child is undergoing treatment.

- A parent who seems to have an insatiable need for adulation or who makes self-serving efforts for public acknowledgment of their abilities.

- A patient who inexplicably deteriorates whenever discharge is planned.

In factitious disorder imposed on another, a caregiver makes a dependent person appear mentally or physically ill in order to gain attention. To perpetuate the medical relationship, the caregiver systematically misrepresents symptoms, fabricates signs, manipulates laboratory tests, or even purposely harms the dependent (e.g. by poisoning, suffocation, infection, physical injury). Studies have shown a mortality rate of between 6% and 10%, making it perhaps the most lethal form of abuse.

At the time of diagnosis, the average age of the persons affected was 4 years. Slightly over 50% were aged 24 months or younger, and 75% were under 6 years old. The average duration from onset of symptoms to diagnosis was 22 months. By the time of diagnosis, 6% of the affected persons were dead, mostly from apnea (a common result of smothering) or starvation, and 7% suffered long-term or permanent injury. About half of the affected had siblings; 25% of the known siblings were dead, and 61% of siblings had symptoms similar to the affected or that was otherwise suspicious. The mother was the perpetrator in 76.5% of the cases, the father in 6.7%.

Most present about 3 medical problems in some combination of the 103 different reported symptoms. The most frequently reported problems are apnea (26.8% of cases), anorexia / feeding problems (24.6% of cases), diarrhea (20%), seizures (17.5%), cyanosis (blue skin) (11.7%), behavior (10.4%), asthma (9.5%), allergy (9.3%), and fevers (8.6%). Other symptoms include failure to thrive, vomiting, bleeding, rash and infections. Many of these symptoms are easy to fake because they are subjective. A parent reporting that their child had a fever in the past 24 hours is making a claim that is impossible to prove or disprove. The number and variety of presented symptoms contribute to the difficulty in reaching a proper MSbP diagnosis.

Aside from the motive (which is to gain attention or sympathy), another feature that differentiates MSbP from "typical" physical child abuse is the degree of premeditation involved. Whereas most physical abuse entails lashing out at a child in response to some behavior (e.g., crying, bedwetting, spilling food), assaults on the MSbP victim tend to be unprovoked and planned.

Also unique to this form of abuse is the role that health care providers play by actively, albeit unintentionally, enabling the abuse. By reacting to the concerns and demands of perpetrators, medical professionals are manipulated into a partnership of child maltreatment. Challenging cases that defy simple medical explanations may prompt health care providers to pursue unusual or rare diagnoses, thus allocating, even more, time to the child and the abuser. Even without prompting, medical professionals may be easily seduced into prescribing diagnostic tests and therapies that are at best uncomfortable and costly, and at worst potentially injurious to the child. If the health practitioner instead resists ordering further tests, drugs, procedures, surgeries, or specialists, the MSbP abuser makes the medical system appear negligent for refusing to help a poor sick child and their selfless parent. Like those with Munchausen syndrome, MSbP perpetrators are known to switch medical providers frequently until they find one that is willing to meet their level of need; this practice is known as "doctor shopping" or "hospital hopping".

The perpetrator continues the abuse because maintaining the child in the role of patient satisfies the abuser's needs. The cure for the victim is to separate the child completely from the abuser. When parental visits are allowed, sometimes there is a disastrous outcome for the child. Even when the child is removed, the perpetrator may then abuse another child: a sibling or other child in the family.

Factitious disorder imposed on another can have many long-term emotional effects on a child. Depending on their experience of medical interventions, a percentage of children may learn that they are most likely to receive the positive maternal attention they crave when they are playing the sick role in front of health care providers. Several case reports describe Munchausen syndrome patients suspected of themselves having been MSbP victims. Seeking personal gratification through illness can thus become a lifelong and multi-generational disorder in some cases. In stark contrast, other reports suggest survivors of MSbP develop an avoidance of medical treatment with post-traumatic responses to it. This variation possibly reflects broad statistics on survivors of child abuse in general, where around 30% go on to also become abusers even though a significant percentage do not.

The adult care provider who has abused the child often seems comfortable and not upset over the child's hospitalization. While the child is hospitalized, medical professionals must monitor the caregiver's visits to prevent an attempt to worsen the child's condition. In addition, in many jurisdictions, medical professionals have a duty to report such abuse to legal authorities.