7 year old - bedwettting and doctors

[Furiousfive]

Hi,
My 7 year old son wets the bed every night and wears pull ups. We've tried a lot of strategies to improve things, like drinking more in the day and stopping a couple of hours before bed; leaving pull ups off and waking him up when we go to bed; bribery...!
I was reading the ERIC website which stated that from age 5 they can be referred to a clinic to investigate and give advice, but that the doctor will need to make the referral. I wanted to speak to them about bedwetting alarms in particular.

I took him to the docs and said all this, that we'd like a referral, and she asked me about the ERIC website and I told her about the alarms. She said she didn't need to refer me as they give the same advice as the clinic but all she did was go to the ERIC website and then send me a text containing the link to buy the bedwetting alarm for £50 and that if it didn't work to come back to see her! I could have done that myself and indeed already had done.

Should she have referred him? I'm a bit annoyed that it was such a waste of time and she blocked me from the referral when I want to speak to an expert, and also don't want to buy an alarm for £50 without finding out a bit more about it. She was in training too so clearly didn't have the level of experience that someone at the clinic would have.

My DS wet the bed until he was almost 9. There were no issues, just that his body didn't get the hang of it until then. I think there's a real danger of making it a big deal if doctors/psychologists get involved. I know it's really tough, but if you can hang on a bit longer then hopefully it will all come good.

I think this is a really common problem, but no one wants to let on that their child does this.

I agree with the poster above. Two of my boys weren't dry at night until 8 and 9. It's much more common than you'd think, especially in boys. The less fuss made the better.

Do you have a school nurse? They can refer to the continence clinic.

My son never had had a dry night when he was 6. The alarm was brilliant, but you do need someone to basically sleep near them every night for a few nights to wake them up asap as if they sleep through they don't make the "connection" between alarm and weeing...

My son wasn't reliably dry until he was about 9, possibly even a little after that.
At 7, he was pretty much wet almost every night, except for a brief few months phase where he was dry, then it started again.
He's now 11 and completely dry although I still have a waterproof cover on his mattress.
His 8 year old sister, I can count on one hand the number of times she's wet the bed since the age of 2.
So it's only anecdotal evidence from me, but sometimes boys just take time

My 9 year old ds will still bed wets, not every night but on average once or twice a month. my 7 year old ds toilet trained at night almost straight away from toilet training. They're all different off course, and some children just need time for the relevant hormone to develop. I've spoken to GP and he advised to give it plenty time.

I was told that the valves from the kidneys to the urethra sometimes develop late in boys and you should see a specialist and ask for a scan.

When dd was 7, I spoke to the doctors who prescribed medication to help with bed wetting. These helped, but didn’t stop it happening. I think the doctor then referred us to the school nurse, I had an appointment with them and they sent us a bed alarm. Within a few nights of using that, the wetting stopped and dd has never wet the bed since (that was about 5 years ago). Like you, I didn’t really want to buy an alarm for something that may or may not work and if it did work, we would only need for such a short pace of time, so I was really glad to be able to borrow one from the nhs for the half term.

I have 2 boys and both were in pull ups until age 10 or so. The eldest was referred and went onto desmomelts but unfortunately they didn't work. The only thing that worked for him was an alarm, but the type that goes on the bed under a sheet as opposed to the ones that clip to the pyjamas. We are now doing the same for his younger brother. We were lucky enough to loan one from the continence service the first time round, and having had success, I have bought one this time (albeit a cheaper version than the Malem - think this one is Astric it's definitely doing the job) Trying to ensure he's dry each night in time for school camp in June!

DS was referred through our GP surgery aged 7 but we're in a fairly large city.. do you know if there is actually a clinic to refer onto? With cuts etc, this may well be an area they've decided isn't necessary?

If there is, I would go back and push for the referral. DS was offered medication (the melts mentioned upthread) but similarly, these didn't work for him and actually caused me real concern - splitting headaches etc. We were also given an alarm by the service but DS hated it, it didn't seem to really work for him and it freaked him out to the point that I just took it off.

Funnily enough, at our first post-pandemic appointment, the clinician asked us to restart from basics ie measure input, output, poos etc and for the three weeks until the next appointment, lose the pull-up. DS was dry from the night of the appointment and has maybe had one or two accidents since - normally when ill.

I think a lot of pp's are right in that it will just come with time.. it is hormone related after all and we all develop differently. I only asked for our referral as my ExH was like 'it's not right, he should be dry!' and I figured it couldn't hurt to see if they could help.

Good luck, OP... as well as the boost to DS's self esteem (as he'd started to notice at family sleepovers etc - and my dick ExH obviously commented), the saving of the £10 a week on pull-ups was fab!

Realistically, at this age, the clinic isn't going to tell you anything that that ERIC site doesn't. In fact the only advantage the clinic will ever have is that they can eventually advise the prescription of desmopressin if the alarm doesn't work, but 7 is well within the norm for not being dry at night - DS wasn't until he was 10/11, and we weren't referred until he was 9 (the alarm eventually worked for him).

There will be a school nursing service in your area and you can self refer but they don't usually see kids until they're 8. Desmopressin worked almost immediately and we stopped it after 6 months.

But as others have said it's hit and miss.

@Malibuismysecrethome - 10% of kids still wet the bed at 7 and most of them are boys. It's perfectly normal

I used to work in the school nurse team and did lots of advice for bed wetting, it's a postcode lottery in terms of getting a bed alarm and you would most likely need to buy one yourself anyway but they are only 50:50 successful. The best thing to do is ask school for contact details of your school nurse team who will give you support and advice largely similar to what's on ERIC . A lot of the time things will improve by increasing daytime drinking and avoiding certain drinks (black currant , fizzy drinks ) double voiding (this will be on Eric) and regular toilet visits throughout the day but not to frequent . Also you need to rule out constipation . Don't lift and don't limit drinks even close to bedtime .

My son is now 8 and still wets it occasionally. He'll go through periods of being ok then wetting again. We did have an appointment with the nurse who asked loads of questions, then as he stioped, my husband cancelled the appointment. I phoned back and now we have the option of seeing a dr at the hospital. I'm in two minds whether to see him or wait it out. Dont want to make my son anxious or waste the drs time

I occasionally wet the bed till I was eleven. I would dream that I had got out of bed and gone to the toilet and then wake up and find the bed set. So distressing for a child. Then I grew out of it.