To be concerned my 5 year old is still in pull ups at night time?

Following with interest- DD2 has just turned 5 and still in pullups at night.

We got referred to Paediatrics whey my daughter was about 8. She wasn’t producing the hormone she needed to stay dry at night, so was put onto Desmopressin, she stayed on it until she was about 13, when she was able to stay dry naturally.
It’s just one of those things that some children have, it’s not that uncommon.
All the “training” in the world would not have kept my daughter dry, medication was the only real option

My dd ended up on medication from the gp at 7, then was dry ish by 8 but still has issues as an adult, she's since been diagnosed with a complex unusual condition

Age 5yrs is pretty normal - especially for boys. My son was similar- slept so deeply that he'd only wake up as he was actually peeing. We tried limiting evening fluids & waking him for a late night pee etc but it just sorted itself out with time. The GP said not to make a big deal of it & wait it out.

Most gp's won't refer until 8 as it's still in normal range, unusual by 6 or 7 but still not necessarily a medical issue, just a developmental one

My 4yr old son is under paeds for toileting issues and still has a full nappy overnight.
Although they have said can be normal until 8, they do sometimes start investigating from 5.
I'd start speaking to GP now as it was nearly 6 months for our first hospital appointment from referral.

I totally accept that some children have difficulties but people on this thread need to understand the term ‘normal’.

Thank you. I have just discussed this with my husband for our 5 year old. We last tried to crack it around Christmas but it got so stressful. We’re going to give it another go and commit to two weeks.

We know our son would like to get dry as he finds wearing pull ups really embarrassing. I don’t want him to miss out on sleepovers why grandparents and cousins because of it.

Were going to try no fluids after 5pm so I’ve encouraged him to have plenty to drink this
morning and told him the plan.

To be upfront I'm not a medical professional. I appreciate OP is just asking for opinions and you're entitled to give yours. But your
post implies that you are a medical professional and yet saying that 'lifting' is advised, when the ERIC site specifically says that this is not the correct thing to do.

I don't know - I stopped pulling ups around 7 for both of my later bedwetters, thinking that feeling the wet would solve things but it didn't. (Both were referred for eneuresis clinic and I follow/ed all advice from I'm given from the nurses).

My 2 who were reliably fry from 4 were in pull ups right up to then. They just naturally stopped and their pull ups were dry every night so we stopped using them.

There is a huge amount of shame attached to night time wetting for children and I think we need to be very careful about not perpetuating the 'lazy' trope because it can cause lasting psychological damage.

His bladder isn't able to go all night yet.

We tried taking ds for a wee at around 11pm , no drinks in a evening but really it just happened when he was ready (6)

You can’t do anything to make them dry at night

I don't think this is necessarily the case, given the numbers of us on here who found that taking the pullups away and dealing with wet sheets and PJs for a bit caused the child to become dry at night after a few disturbed nights.

It obviously doesn't work in every case (as bed wetting for years is a known phenomenum for some kids in all societies, and some parents really do try everything and persist and the kid still wets at night), but taking pullups away and letting the kid experience some wetness when they "go" at night, does seem work for many/most kids.

Agree with Princess above, that a lot of parents are just not "trying without the pullups" at all, and this is causing the nighttime wetting to drag on for a lot more years than it needs to for a lot of "regular" kids who do not actually have enuresis but who have been encouraged by prolongued pullup use to just keep wetting at night.

My ds was until just short of 7. Could be dry sometimes but not reliably. Then he was suddenly dry every night.

We were just at the stage where I’d made an appointment with the hospital for blood tests to start thinking about the replacement hormone (I forget the name) but then suddenly he was fine.

I did nothing differently with him than with my dd who was dry at night from 2.5 - again that just suddenly happen, her night nappies were just dry and that wad that.

You can’t do anything to make them dry at night, and they aren’t being naughty as they’re asleep.

Catch yourself on, Cherish123! Wetting the bed at age 5 is totally normal, that's why they sell Pyjama Pants up to big ages.

My DS1 dry as soon as he was dry during the day, never one wet bed. Probably around 2.5

DS2 was age 8

Don't worry yet.

I think this kind of thing falls into two categories - actual enuresis (which is a form of sleep disturbance rather like sleepwalking and sleep paralysis, and which has been documented in all cultures), vs “nighttime drying commonly getting later in a lot of kids due to very absorbent disposable nappies (which can effectively function as a sort of “enuresis alarm in reverse” in many cases, as they send out the message as it is OK to pee in your sleep). “

I would consider a period of lining the bed with waterproof sheets and putting the pull-up on the outside of the pajamas, which will contain some of the pee but result in him getting pretty wet. We did this for a few nights with my youngest, because unlike my eldest she did not naturally grow out of nighttime peeing early; we had a few disturbed nights and pee-d on PJs/sheets to deal with, but within a few nights her body had kind of “got the message” and she was able to transition out of pull-ups. Essentially, it works like a kind of low-key alarm, because the body feels wet, gets a little bit of a shock, and “learns” that peeing is what you do during the daytime not at night.

Obviously, the above does not work with all kids, because with some kids it is actually enuresis, not just “they need a bit of a learning period where they feel wet and wake themselves up to reset the body pattern.” If that’s the case, talk to your healthcare providers and ask at what point you talk about trying an alarm or other things.

I was still wetting bed at night into my teens . Not every night. I eventually was ok aged about 13 .I was just a deep sleeper.
My son was in pull ups until about 7 . Other two aged about 3/4 . We are all different

Don’t make it an issue for DS, just don’t mention it. Dryness can be genetic, you need to make a hormone to connect bladder signals to the brain. 8-9 years I’d consider seeking advice but not at 5

My DS was also worrying me at this stage. Turns out that he was weeing in them when he woke up! I 'caught him', we swapped to telling him to use the loo and after a couple of accidents he's fine now. Definitely the normal range regardless and some kids are actually not dry but mine was just a lazy sod.

My DS was 12 before he was dry at night.

We tried everything, restricting fluids, lifting him, no blackcurrant juice, bed wetting alarms, desmopressin, not wearing pull ups for weeks on end etc etc.

The GP wasn't worried and said he'd get there in the end and he did.

My 6yo ds is still in pull ups at night too, my older dd never wore pull ups at night as she didn’t like them, but wet the bed twice a night until she was 8 then gradually grew out of if so I suspect it’s just genetics in our case.

Should add that middle dd never wet the bed and was completely dry day and night at 2.5 so not just my bad parenting!

I wouldn't be worrying at 5 at all. My 7 year old has only recently been reliably dry, and I know some of his friends still aren't.

I think bed alarms etc are a waste of money. My sibling had one when we were growing up (they were a heavy sleeper) and all it would do was wake me up! So I'd have to stumble into their room in the dark and unplug it. Kids become dry in their own time.

my daughter is 5 and still in pull ups, as is her cousin and 2 of her friends i know of (the only 2 where I know the parents well enough to ask!)

a couple of times recently she’s forgotten to put a pull up on at bed time and both times she’s wet the bed. So it’s not just a lazy morning wee! It doesn’t wake her though, she realised in the morning/I realised when I checked on her before I went to bed. I think she must be a really deep sleeper.

ive not been limiting fluids before bed though. Might have a push on drinking early in the day and avoiding after 5pm over this half term actually, as I am beginning to get a bit concerned!

Why? It's not misleading. For some kids it is totally normal. Until they produce the right hormone they literally cannot be reliably dry at night. Should they and their parents be made to feel ashamed, like there's something wrong with them? 1 in 7 is not unusual. It is often genetic and having been the kid who was not dry later than their peers and feeling like a freak I can tell you that that wasn't helpful and I don't want any other kids to go through that.

I think a lot of people just never try without nappies, waiting until the morning nappy is dry. A wet nappy in the morning doesn't mean they will wet the bed - for many children it's just a habit. You just have to give it a go without for a fortnight or so - might take a few nights until they remember. If no progress at all, fair enough they aren't ready.

I don't think it's normal or at least didn't used to be. Running brownie holidays years ago I only recall one child out of several trips who was a known bedwetter at age 8. She was a middle child of 3 and the other sisters didn't have the same problem.