5 year old wets the bed every night and won't wear pull ups. What are practical tips that could help?

[Sausageheadset]

Anyone find anything that helps?

My sister bought her girls barbie pants. Voila, the kids didn't want to 'pee on barbie'. She has her uses...

We used the Roger alarm on Ds he was six n wetting almost every night. Took about 6 weeks for him to be dry. Even now at nearly 11 he has the odd accident (twice a year)

Ok - from the experiences of a nearly 9yr old bedwetter...

• Definately 2 trips to the toilet before bed.
• Cut out squash/fruit shoots these are the devils work to bedwetters! Particularly blackcurrant juices.
• Make sure she's not constipated - it isn't always obvious
• bed mats such as "brolly sheets" and lots of spare bedding. Use 4 tog duvets that you can wash. Pile them up or add fleece blankets if she is cold. Basically take the stress out of the washing element - it took me a long time to do this and it has really helped.
• Seek the help of your health visitor/school nurse sooner rather than later.
• pyjamas pants etc are invaluable for school overnights, sleepovers, brownie camps etc as they contain the smell usually and make everyone's life easier. Much easier to conceal from friends.

An enuresis alarm.

Beware op that others have asked for advice on this same topic and been abused for it. Apparently you should make your child wear a pull up, with gaffa tape and force if necessary

My DD didn't refuse to wear pull ups but she would get hot during the night and take them off in her sleep, so we had a wet bed nearly every morning. We took her to the gp last year when she was 8, and they recommended waking her when we go to bed and again during the night if necessary. If that failed next step would be an alarm, then medication as a last resort. Anyway waking her when we go to bed has done the trick, she still wets the bed about once every couple of weeks but it is a huge improvement. Hopefully at some stage she will wake herself and eventually last all night.

My eldest was dry, day and night at 3 (he three away his nappies and wasnt for having anything on) but my younger two were around seven before they were reliably dry. Youve had all the suggestions already, Id make.
Double layer the bed to make night time accidents easier to deal with, no dark drinks, no drinks an hour before bed, wee -story - another wee and then wake them before you go to bed. They need to take themselves to the bathroom, dont carry them and plonk but wake gently and encourage them to the bathroom with only low light. We got a battery power, motion sensor night light for the bathroom. I do think their bodies mature when they are ready and its case of active management until it clicks for them. Good Luck!

We moved house and changed DD2s bed. She was 6. I was v reluctant to buy a new bed until she was dry but she had grown out of her cotbed.

I think the feel of the new bed and mattress disturbed her just enough to help her realise when she needed a wee.

My ds refused pull ups at a much younger age. We wake him at 10/11 for an extra wee. Also can’t let him sleep in past his usual 7/7:30.

Doesn't help to solve the problem but I have a spare duvet made up with the cover already on so that when we need to change DS' bed at night (he's nearly 7 so thankfully very rare these days) I can quite simply throw fresh mattress cover, sheets and duvet on the bed. I can change the bed quicker than he can change his pyjamas.

Apparently you should make your child wear a pull up, with gaffa tape and force if necessary hmm

Not sure what the face is for. A 5 year old child doesn't get to dictate whether they wear a pull up or not if they are wetting the bed every night. If they are mainly dry with the occasional accident then fine. Parents do many unpopular things with their children for the good of their child. This isn't necessarily for their own good but it's definitely for the parents' good.

As long as it's not positioned as a punishment that is.

Agree that offering a choice is good but it has to be a choice between two options that suit the parents. It might be worth establishing if there is a particular issue with the pull up that maybe a different brand etc may resolve.

waxon and how exactly would you propose to force a five year old to wear pull ups? It's not possible if they are firmly against it.

It isn't for the good of the child either, enuresis clinics strongly advise against pull ups as it prolongs bed wetting.

You don't need to force them. You tell them that they are wearing them and they know that you mean it.

Wearing pull ups wont have detrimental effect on a child who isn't yet ready to be dry. Not being wet every night would be an indication of that. A child who wets every night doesn't yet have the control to be dry so you can use every intervention you like such as waking them to go during the night etc. but that doesn't cure the issue in that they still don't recognise the need to go so waking them is no better or worse than wearing pull ups.

Once they start being dry then, if it's not a fluke then not wearing pull ups can be an advantage or a disadvantage depending on whether they are motivated to not wear them or are motivated by not being in a wet bed.

Until they have an element of control then it makes no difference. A five year old that is wetting the bed nightly doesn't yet have the control so it's about management not training.

waxon you seem unable to comprehend that children are different. Some children may respond to a conversation as you propose, but others won't.

There are different ways of doing things, your way is not necessarily superior, and goes against medical advice.

I was going to go with "make hime wear the pull ups" too. My 4yo ds has tried the same nonsense with me.

I'd love him to be dry at night of course and save buying and more pullups but I'm not having wet beds and I'm not going to put pressure on him to be dry or wake him up to sit him on the loo.

Occasionally I've put the pull up on him after he's been asleep and that's perfectly easy enough to do. But i think telling them they have to wear it is preferable.

It's a strange thing for me though to have this with ds, because dd was just spontaneously dry at night at age 2 1/2. The nappies would just come off dry in the morning so O stopped using them.

Sbe would sometimes wake up to go to the loo for a while which was a pain but obviously I did just take her.

waxon you seem unable to comprehend that children are different. Some children may respond to a conversation as you propose, but others won't.

Nope, don't be so condescending. I have two very different DC, one has always been very compliant, the other not so much. But, at the end of the day I am the adult and they are the child and I wouldn't be taking any shite from a 5 year old. Strangely, mine are now nearly 18 and 17, we have a great relationship and they never give me a days bother. We just never got into the long drawn out negotiation thing. We either said yes or no, yes a lot more than no, but when it was a no it was a no. They learned that a lot earlier than 5. I don't think I'm superior and there are definitely things I would do differently but I just can't stand namby pamby parenting.

There are different ways of doing things, your way is not necessarily superior, and goes against medical advice.

I'm not saying my way is superior. Wasn't the medical advice last time I looked but if you have links and things are different I'm happy to be proved wrong.

People have to find a way that suits them, but there is no way I'd be stripping ad washing a bed every night and maybe more than once, or leaving a child in a wet bed just because they decided they didn't want to wear a pull up.

Have you taken her to the GP? ERIC recommends a checkup for children who aren't dry at 5 just to rule out some potential issues.

From a practical POV (and I have enough experience of wet beds to make me a world bloody expert) the very best mattress protectors I found were the rather useless looking ones from Jo Jo Maman Bebe. They are fab, easy to wash and tumble dry, don't develop holes and for bigger kids, using two to cover a large area worked a treat.

Also, instead of a duvet and cover, get one of those all in one covers so the whole thing goes in the wash and can go straight back on the bed as soon as it's washed and dried.

Your aim is to use bedding that can all go in one wash as that will save you time, effort and possibly your sanity. Good luck!

Tbh I wouldn't be negotiating with a 5 year old over something like this either, and i have five DC with different personalities ranging from pretty easy going to particularly stubborn. I am by nature very lazy easy going, but there are times when a parents word is law, like for example the wearing of seat belts, and no way I would allow a small child to refuse pull ups if it resulted in a wet bed every night.

Our gp wouldn’t refer for night time enuresis until 7 as it’s statistically entirely normal.
Once past 7, there are (generally) two causes - either non-production of hormone, or that the child is too deep a sleeper to be woken by a need to urinate. First camp need a prescription to mimic the hormone to be dry (usually weaned off as normal hormone production comes in) and the second camp benefit from enuresus alarms.
Two schools of thought with alarms - first, they are utterly barbaric child abuse as they wake children up in a panic (well, yes, except that in kids who NEED alarms, they don’t usually wake up at all when the alarm goes off, and it is actually the parents who are woken by the sound and have to rouse the child) or second, they are utterly brilliant when used properly and kids are usually dry within two weeks (but the initial few days are grim for pretty much everyone)
Dd1 used an alarm at 7. It was awesome. (Deep sleeper)
Ds1 refuses to use an alarm (he has destroyed 2 wires theoretically in his sleep by essentially cutting the contact) still not reliably dry at 16 and won’t go to GP. About 9 years into enuresis referral. (He notionally falls into both camps. Deep sleep and no hormone. Refuses to engage. No longer in outreach counselling although he at least will now use school/ public toilets)
Dd2. Dry day and night from 2nd birthday. Just is. No methods needed.
At 5? Honestly I would just have a mattress protector and a stack of dry bedding. Lots of people multi-layer so that you don’t have to remake the bed every time, you just peel off the wet layer and protector to get to the next dry layer and throw a dry duvet on top.
It’s hard on your washing machine.

DD had to come out of pullups at 4 because they were giving her thrush. She did use cloth washable pants for a while which solved the thrush problem, but she found them too hot so we just let her go without.

I used a plastic mat to protect the mattress covered with a fleece blanket. The blanket would soak up the wee much better than a sheet, so it didn't go everywhere, and I could whip that off and put a fresh blanket on rather than change all the sheets.

DD still wets occasionally and is 6, usually it is when she is over tired and sleeping very deeply, so keeping a regular bedtime has helped. If she doesn't wake herself for a wee by around 10-11pm then DH takes her when he goes to bed. Definitely try to limit drinks after 6pm.

I am the adult and they are the child and I wouldn't be taking any shite from a 5 year old.

It’s too late when they are older.

Our DS wasn’t dry through the night until he was nearly 8. There isn’t really anything you can do to sleep train them as it to do with development. It will happen in time.

What worked best for us was:
-No blackcurrant drinks as apparently they are a nighttime diuretic
-Lots of drinks in the morning and early afternoon, none after tea
-Waterproof cover on mattress
-make sure he uses the toilet during the day and a few times after tea, before bed
-Lifting him when we went to bed. That won’t help to train them but does make for a drier bed
-I had sheets ready to remake the bed if needed but if it was only a bit I did cheat sometimes and just put a towel on top until the morning! 😮 then as he got older he would do that himself without waking me up!

Yes stop using pull ups. You can layer waterproof sheets with cloth sheets to make changing easier and quicker in the night but also ask to be referred to an enuresis specialist. It's not (always) true that they don't help younger children - we waited till age 7 because we thought that was the minimum age for medical intervention but we're told we could have asked sooner - basically as soon as the child actively wants to be dry and will cooperation with working towards dryness.

As pp said, increasing water drinking is really important. Lots of drinks in the morning. Medium amount in the afternoon. Only sips from early evening and nothing at all for the hour before sleep. Avoid juices, fizzies and caffeinated especially in afternoon & evening. This should help increase bladder capacity.

Enuresis clinics can prescribe desmopressin which simulates the hormone that is needed, and loan out alarms which help the brain learn to wake up when the bladder is full with a pavlovian reaction.

We lifted our DC when we went to bed. Made sure she was awake and put her on the loo. Then walked her back to bed. It worked.