Still not dry at night at 4.5. Unusual ?

[Tillyscoutsmum]

DD is 4.5 and still is nowhere near to being dry at night. She wears a pull up and goes to the loo just before she goes to bed and then we take her when we go to bed (around 10.30 pm) but her pull up is always wet the next morning. She is getting to the point where she doesn't want to be wearing "nappies" but at the same time, I'm reluctant to take them off when it will inevitably lead to a wet bed every night.

She's been dry in the day since 2.2 yrs. Both DH and I were late bed wetters (have no idea whether that would make any difference ?)

Do we need to start worrying yet or is it pretty normal ?

[SazZaVoom]

DD1 is 4.10 and still wears 'sleepy pants' at night (she was dry in the day at 2.5. She is dry about 50% of the time and has said she will stop wearing sleepy pants when she is 5. We shall wait and see

DH was a late bed wetter, i was dry day and night at 2.

[Poledra]

Sounds just like DD1 - reliably dry during the day by 2yo, not reliably dry at night till over 5. It's not uncommon, and nothing to worry about it, IMHO. DD1 did want to get rid of her nappies, but I swapped her to pyjama pants and explained that some people take longer to learn certain things, and for her, it was being dry at night. She's 7.5 now, and has not wet the bed for well over a year.

HTH.

[Jojay]

My DS is 5 next month and is still in pull ups at night, as are a few of his friends.

[Poledra]

And, I should say, I took her out of pyjama pants at just under 6, and just put some bed mats on her bed.

DDs 2 and 3 were dry at night much more quickly.

[FlyingPirates]

Totally normal. You wont even get a referral to the enuresis clinic until 7 IIRC.

It is to do with hormone levels and until they have got it, there is nothing you can do. You can 'lift' but all it is doing is time training them, if you stop lifting, I suspect they would still pee at that time. If someone lifts for however many months, then stops, and says it fixed it, I suspect that it would have happened at that time anyway. It has been proven to be a hormone thing, I think.

[ChippingIn]

For a child to be dry at night their bodies need to start making a specific hormone (which changes the way you process urine after dusk) - until they do that nothing you do or say will make any difference. I think from memory there is a way of telling from their morning urine if they have started to do this or not.

But no, it's not terribly unusual. If she wants to be out of nappies I'd give it a go - she may wake up if she's not wearing a nappy.

Apparently lifting them is a bad thing as it messes up their connection with their bladder being full etc.

[madwomanintheattic]

completely normal.

a gp won't recognise bedwetting as an issue until 7yo. up to that point it is perfectly normal developmentally.

[MrsJasonBourne]

My dd1 is nearly five and she is exactly the same. I read about adh - anti diuretic hormone - which the body begins to produce in childhood but at any age. Until the body produces this hormone the brain doesn't know to turn the kidneys off at night.

I'm hoping that's right otherwise god knows what we're supposed to do! My Mil keeps telling her off for it. I maintain that she can't help it and she won't wet at night forever. And once she gets to Mils age she'll stop producing the hormone and have to keep getting up at night to pee like Mil does.

[Mum1369]

Completely normal, I Wouldn't even start thinking about until they are in recepton plus

[CharlotteBronteSaurus]

dd1 is 4.7 and still in a night nappy
luckily she's not bothered about pullups/pyjama pants as they are much more expensive
she is dry in the morning perhaps 2 or 3 nights a week, and even this has only happened in the last couple of months.

[musttidyupmusttidyup]

I'm interested in this too- DS1 is 4.5 and still in pyjamas pants at night. Was daytime dry at 2. We lift him for a wee at 10 but he's rarely dry in the morning. He did go through a few days dry but started wetting again ( didn't make a deal of it, just started school etc. ) slight issue with us is that DS2 who is 2.9 is quite often dry.... Dint want to try taking him out of baptise though as it would be humiliating for DS1.

[Tillyscoutsmum]

Thanks all - the hormone thing makes sense - I'll do a bit of googling. I think we might stop lifting her as well in the meantime.

Thank you again

[hillyhilly]

My dd is 6.5 and cracked it this summer. Partly because she was going to bed longer after having a drink with her dinner, she had always had a wet pullup every single night but had a couple of dry nights on holiday so we said we'd try her without. She had a couple of mornings where she weed a little bit ie wet pjs but not wet bed and 2 wet beds but has been totally dry for weeks now even after going back to school ad being more tired and in bed later.
If she doesn't like the nappies why not have a try perhaps at half term on the understanding that if she's wet every morning she'll go back into pullups.

[musttidyupmusttidyup]

baptise nappies

[pacificjade]

I would say it's pretty normal. Approximately 15 to 20 per cent of all five- and six-year-olds wet the bed.

My DS1 only started being dry at night when he was 7yrs . Despite being dry during the day from 2.5 yrs. Like you, I got concerned when he was 4 or 5 yrs and then read on here that it's fairly common. We did try various routines, etc. but in the end (after stressing us and him) decided to leave it and just put him in nappy pants until he was regularly dry.

He was a little bit embarrased about having to wear nappy pants at 7 (especially as DS2 was dry at night from about 2.5 yrs), but we just explained that it was physical developmental thing, that his body was a bit slower at than most children, but not unusual, which he accepted.

[Tillyscoutsmum]

Thanks again. I've just read up a little bit more and low adh levels are genetic. I was a really late bedwetter and had to have desmopressin eventually, as did DH. I suspect we might need to get bulk buying the pyjama pants now

[Frawli]

My DS is 4.8 and his nappy is always wet every morning. Sometimes he wakes himself and goes to wee in the night, but even then he'll still do another. I've never bothered lifting as I read that it can just train them to wee in their sleep, dunno how true it is.

Something else I read but haven't tried yet is just to leave off with the night time nappy as sometimes they can be just weeing in it as they know they can. I don't know if I agree with this view as if he ever flakes out on the sofa in the daytime sometimes he'll wee then too wearing his pants. I think when he's asleep he just sleeps through the sensation.

I hope he starts getting dry soon, it wasn't so bad when he was in pull ups but they leak now as he wees too much and we're having to buy pyjama pants which are so expensive, 50p per night pretty much. When supermarkets have baby events they are often included in the discounts so we try and buy a few packets then, you can get them for around 30p per nappy sometimes.

It's interesting to see about the genetic link, apparently a few in DH's family were late wetters.

[ChippingIn]

Well, hopefully it will, at least, stop you worrying about it if nothing else.

I would still try from time to time to go without the night nappy because I'm sure there's still something in the fact that if you go to bed knowing it doesn't matter if you wee without going to the toilet you will.

[vbus]

DS1 also only just dry at night this summer at age of 5.5. Not sure what trigger was other than the first stage was he wanted to stop wearing nappies at night. I had not tried taking night time nappies off before as he'd rarely been dry at night and is a really heavy sleeper so often didn't remember weeing in his sleep. I figured he just wasn't ready yet.

Once DS1 asked about stopping wearing nappy pants I rang ERIC a few months ago to ask advice on how to go about it and they were extremely helpful. They said if hormone has not developed, not much you can do and they don't recommend alarms til they're at least 7. She said make sure they are going to toilet more in the day to empty their bladder, she suggested every 1.5hrs. I told DS1 he could take off his nappy pants if he did this and got him a torch (bit of a novelty) so if he needed toilet at night he could go himself. I waited til summer holidays so I could encourage and remind him to go to the toilet more often than he normally went. It worked and within a week he was dry at night. I guess we retrained his bladder.

Good luck and if you're still concerned call ERIC as they were really good and website is helpful too.