to think my ex isn't helping the situation?

[NonTraditionalFeelings]

My 6 year old daughter still wets the bed, recently after a bad tummy she also pooed the bed twice. She simply doesn't get woken up by feeling wet. I've been trying to combat it by ditching the pull ups and waking her before I got to bed. This generally has been successful with a dry bed in the morning except for a couple of accidents when she wasn't feeling well. She's just come back from her Dads who insists on just keeping her in pull-ups and of course she instantly wet the bed which tbh I'm not surprised since she's then used to not worrying about it.

I woke her up to go the toilet and she was absolutely soaking, how it doesn't wake her up I'll never understand. She went to the toilet at 8 before bed and is so ridiculously soaked at 11:30. I never show any frustration with my daughter, it's not her fault but I'm getting annoyed at my ex for not trying to combat it. Is it me? Should I just stick her back in pull ups and hope for the best? She at his 50% of the time so it's a large chunk.

He is being lazy. She is getting to the age of sleepovers and pajama parties.
Does he want her to be subject to shame and embarrassing comments?
She was doing well so can control it but needs consistent routine.
We had a late dry one and cut down drinks after 6pm, took him to the toilet at bedtime and took him again when we went to bed. He wore pants to bed which seemed to help. Also, even if he said no, we sat him down for a wee and there was always one there!
Lots of encouragement and rewards. We got there in the end.

And we kept pull ups for upset tummy times!

This will be of no help to you so I wonder why I'm answering at all but... I wet the bed til about 11/12 years of age

I had every test going.
Also had Charts, no liquids after 6pm,getting woken up every couple of hours and even a god awful battery operated buzzer alarm with wires that connected to a sanitary towel which would bleep very loudly when I started to pee.

There was simply no explanation for it other than I did not receive the signal during sleep that I needed to go... Doctor's said I would eventually grow out of it. Which thankfully I did around age 12.
I'm not saying this will be the case for your child!
I often thínk I was the only person in the world this happened to.... I'm still thinking this now
Good luck with the training OP!

Bedwetting at 6 is incredibly common. It is nothing she has control over, so frustrating as you find it, never let her see that. And current advice is to let them wear pull-ups until they are dry - they don't deliberately wet them, as you said she doesn't feel the wetness, so all the pull-up does is let her self manage the situation and less washing.

AS for the PP, there are some techniques that work, but ultimately if you don't produce a hormone that stops wee production overnight, she isn't going to be able to hold all night long.

There is some interesting research showing kids with repeated tonsilitis are more likely to be bed-wetters due to their interuppted sleep patterns.

So her Dad is actually doing the right thing, leave her in pull-ups and wait for her to be ready to be dry at night. If you're concerned get a GP to check, but the bed-wetting clinics don't see them before 8 (or 10yrs)... it's not considered a problem until they are much older.

Well did you speak to him about what you're doing to try to combat it?
Did he agree to do the same then just go against the agreement?

Agreed, he's making if difficult and he's being lazy.
Though your daughter sounds like she's not drinking enough.

I have an 8YO bedwetter and have been going to the NHS enuresis clinic since she was 7. Note she has no control over this - the first poster is wrong on this. One thing that may help is literally training bladder: drink drink and drink some more, and wee regularly during the day (until about 6pm). If thirsty at night give icecube to suck. It does help to increase bladder capacity. There may also be hormones at play and there are pills for that but that is a bit more radical and clinic advised to not start with that. Don’t reward the wetting/not wetting itself although do keep a chart. Reward the drinking and daytime weeing as that is under her control. Good luck!

And taking her up at night may keep her dry but doesn’t ultimately help her own body make and respond to the right signals. So in that respect pullups are actually better. Or those washable sheets like Brolly sheets.

Someone told me plenty to drink until 6pm then no more drinks after this time. This piece of advice really helped us

I teach a little girl of a similar age, who also wets the bed. She has regular medical appointments and mum is certain that there is a medical reason for it. During the last conversation I had with mum about this, she said that the advice she'd been given at the hospital was simply to allow pull ups. It seems that waking her is pointless because you are not really training her or helping her, just hoping to get lucky and catch the last wee of the night. I'm not sure if you've been to the GP or not op, but it could be that your efforts are disturbing her sleep and adding stress to your life, unnecessarily.

Sorry, risking my head above the parapet here, but why immediately say the OP's ec is being lazy? He has just as much right to decide how to help her as the OP, 50% of care. Dads care about and love their children just as much, and aren't always looking for the easy life. Is his view/approach discussed openly with the OP as well, ir is there just an assumption he is wrong and he is JUST a dad???

Have you been to the GP about this and potentially got a referral for more investigations? Also what is her height like compared to her peers? Short stature and bed wetting can be linked by a condition.

My ds wasn't dry at night until 7. He just wasnt ready. My dd was dry 3 with no effort required, just did it in her own.

He has very different toilet habits to her. Drink way more, wee's a lot more. Poops more frequently. Just has a different body.

No drinks after 6pm was key to success but it was hard from him as despite drinks loads in the day was thirsty. Waking her isn't going to help long term. She needs to be able to get the balance right in the day so her body is in the right place to hold urine overnight. Ds still gets up at night to pee but does it independently and gets back into bed.

The advice is the worst thing you can do is go in and out of pull ups. As she isn’t yet 7 and that is when Gp can start the referral process.

If you have a good relationship agree on a plan in terms of reducing nighttime and I agree with daytime

Sorry OP, I also have a 6 year old who isn't dry at night and the medical advice is to allow pull ups until dry. Your ex is the one in the right here. As a PP said, waking them for the toilet doesn't help, it just enforces a pattern that someone else will do it for them. If your daughter isn't producing the hormone yet then she can't help it at all: She can't control it. Let her wear pull ups at night until she's dry.

6 isn't late for dry at night! Its hormonal and not taught. One in 5 still wet at 8 and one in ten still wet at 10 years old!

He's being sensible. She has no concept of being wet (I read that they can't be dry via training - it's body chemical dependent)

You might not be purposely stressing her out I'm certain she'll feel gutted every time. Leave it a bit, let her wear pull ups. It's not a big deal.

Neither of my two were dry until 8. There’s a hormone that needs to kick (it’s often hereditary and my DH wasn’t dry until 10). No point lifting them and taking them late at night as that won’t help a hormone start working. Just keep in pull ups until they’re ready but more importantly if you’re raising a child together you need to have conversations with each other about working together.

If your ex has 50/50 why is it you get your decide the course of action and he has to follow suit? If she is wetting the bed pullups seems like the solution to me. Have you tried talking to him about it, or do you just expect him to do as he is told.

www.eric.org.uk/Pages/Category/bedwetting

Good information here

Thanks for your responses (well some of them). The amount of presumptions are pretty breathtaking. I was advised by a GP that leaving her in nappies would make her dependant on them and having also listened to some experts via various podcasts the advise again was not to leave her in nappies, interesting how this now seems to differ. She has also expressed that she was unhappy about wearing them mainly down to the fact that she thinks her peers won't approve, so I said we would try and get a routine going so she wouldn't have to wear them. The fact that some of you seem to want to turn this into a point scoring exercise against my ex says a lot about what your own angle is. I never said he was lazy or that he 'should just follow my orders', but it's good to know that disagreeing with your ex husband still automatically turns you into the 'bitch ex wife', even without any other context.

I actually have a good relationship with him, we talk daily and always communicate around the kids but yes I do find him frustrating, funny that considering we are divorced! We have spoken about my daughters issues, but he doesn't really seem that interested, just like how he doesn't really see the point in bathing them or brushing their hair, apparently that's my job not his.

To answer some of the other points my daughter has never had tonsillitis, she's very tall for her age, she's even as tall as some of my 11 year olds friends. She wears clothes in size 9-10, has size 2/3 feet. She drinks a lot during the day but does often ask for drinks after 6, something I'm working on with her. I will speak to her tomorrow and ask if she wants to go back into nappies, it's her choice after all not mine. I'll also stop all drinks after 6. Generally me waking her before bed has worked well and she's been going from 11-7 or 8am, completely dry, which is what confuses me as if she is going to wet it's always within a couple of hours of going to bed, even after she's been to the toilet and had a big wee.

For those that are trying to offer helpful advise, thank you.

For anyone who followed this I thought I'd give you an update. I managed to get my ex husband on board and he started putting our kiddo (6) in pants at night. That alongside me lifting her for a wee before I go to bed meant that she was completely dry within 2 weeks. I had no accidents here once he got on board and as far as I know he had non either. I appreciate everyone's comments but I know my child and she needed consistency in both settings and it paid off. Her confidence has no gone up and she's proud of the fact she's no longer in nappies. So for anyone struggling with a late bed wetter I hope this give you a bit of hope x