How do you get urine out of a mattress

Reading Time: 5 minutes

This 3-step process will remove urine stains from your mattress in no time! 

Inside: I’ve learned the very best way to clean pee out of a mattress. As the mom of 4 kids, I’ve dealt with our fair share of bedwetting accidents over the years. Thankfully, urine odors and stains (for the most part) don’t have to ruin mattresses forever!

A few years ago, my husband and I got a brand new, luxury mattress right before Christmas.

We were ecstatic. We had the mattress delivered straight to our door, and it was one of the best early Christmas gifts (to ourselves) ever.

Not only did we have a very nice brand new mattress, but we also avoided the dreaded mattress showroom experience and avoided any and all delivery fees by ordering it online.

Since I absolutely hate shopping, I was doing a happy dance when ordering our mattress took a matter of minutes!

The mattress came to us in a box about the size of a mini fridge box.

It came all rolled up, and hubby and I unrolled it together. We then left it for a few hours to expand a bit.

I was especially excited because the mattress was made from certified organic materials.

We had been wanting a safer mattress, and this one far exceeded the standards of our previous mattress.

And then.

The first night’s sleep was wonderful. The second night’s sleep was as well.

Until.

I woke up–in a pool of pee.

One of our children had climbed into bed with us the night before and had peed in the bed–leaving a giant urine stain on our brand, spanking new mattress!

While we had a mattress cover on the bed at the time, it apparently was not waterproof anymore, so after some suggestions from readers, we decided to try out these three mattress covers to protect our mattress from future urine stains:

Coop Home Goods UltraLux Bamboo Mattress Pad

Saferest Hypoallergenic Premium Mattress Protector

HomeStyles UltraPlush Premium Mattress Protector

I don’t normally mind when our kids climb into bed with us at night. They are only little once, and we will miss their cuddles one day.

But for urine to get on our brand new mattress two nights after we got it?!

I will be honest: I was mad. I was so mad, that my husband had to remind me that I’m the one who usually tells him not to “cry over spilled milk.” It was an accident, after all.

“It was bound to happen eventually,” he said. “It might has well have happened now.”

Still, I was determined to keep this mattress nice. I had to figure out how to remove urine from my memory-foam mattress–and stat!

To my relief, getting the pee out of the mattress only took me two ingredients, and I already had them both on hand!

What You Need to Remove Urine from a Mattress

You likely already have these ingredients on hand, and, if not, you can easily buy them at any local grocery store! Our mattresses have been peed on so many times now (again–we have four kids!) that we always keep these on hand.

• 1 bottle of diluted white vinegar
• baking soda
• a large towel
• a vacuum cleaner

Cleaning Pee Out of a Mattress

1. Remove all sheets, blankets, any mattress covers, etc. and wash.
2. Blot (don’t scrub!) the urine with a large towel, getting up as much of the liquid as possible.
3. Lightly spray the entire urine spot with a solution of 50/50 white vinegar and let stand for five to ten minutes.
4. Continue to blot out any liquid.
5. Cover entire area with baking soda. Let stand for 8-10 hours. (Ideally, you will do this first thing in the morning, as soon as you discover the pee on the mattress!)
6. Vacuum up the baking soda.
7. Repeat the process if the urine stain and odor are still on the mattress. The odor should be completely gone from the mattress, but you may still have a very faint stain.

I was very satisfied after using this method to remove urine from the mattress the first time.

There was still a faint circle, especially around the edges where I did not get baking soda, but I was happy that it was mostly unnoticeable.

As irony would have it, another one of our children wet in our bed two nights before I wrote this post!

Lucky me: I had the opportunity to try out this method of getting pee out of a mattress again.

I used the exact same method to remove the urine from my memory foam mattress, and this time I saw it work even better–even removing more of the original stain!

This confirmed to me that repeating the process really does yield the best results, if you have the patience for that. In the years since this has happened, I’ve used this method again and again.

While, ideally, just use a good mattress cover and avoid this predicament all together, this method for getting pee out of mattresses is a lifesaver (and mattress saver!).

Have you ever had your child wet your bed? What are your tips for getting pee out of mattresses?

What happens if you leave pee in a mattress?

Can you save a mattress that was peed on?