to think that the school nurse shouldn't have sent me this letter...

[emkana]

which has a programme in it how to deal with dd2's "bedwetting" WTF? She doesn't do "bedwetting", she's only 4.4 and still in pull-ups, which I thought was widely accepted as quite normal?

I live in the Uk, actually.

god I'm confused
did you ever live in germany?
am I hallucinating?
aurghghghg

I am German.

ahhhh
I remember all the threads about german doctors when you were pregnant with S, I think I had lodged in my head that you had moved back to germany

YANBU. Agree with your, 'I think the school nurse should send out a letter saying "normal at this age, but if you are concerned at a later date contact me or you could try this"'

Off for Gluehwein and Mandeln Won't mention German food again [wink

Oops, sorry - that was me confusing people re Germany. Do gripe a lot about ahem, certain aspects of the school system (rather a lot) here so like to balance things out a bit.
And make her jealous

I still don't think i'd be annoyed or wound up or put out or whatever by that letter, it could be quite helpful and useful, and that is what they're supposed to try and be. It's probably normal, but there's still stuff you can try so why not have something to read and consider?

Kitty miss pudding, I think that your posts have been extremely rude.
You asked AYBU I and various other posters have not been rude to you just suggested night training methods and, in my own case, mentioned someone I knew who had reasons that I considered selfish reasons not to potty train.
I do think not wanting to wash sheets/pyjamas more than usual therefore not training is a bit of a lazy atitude.
But hey, that's just my opinion and that's what you asked for, isn't it?
Surfergirl-have you actually read my post properly?

Have a look at this If we were African Digos we would all have our babies toilet trained by 6 months. Interestingly, toilet training in the third world is achieved much earlier than in the western world.

Don't think a letter as that would wind me up (and I am also german...so, it isn't a german thing ;))
However, my experiences with night dry ness in my 3 Kids have been varied....with es and ys it just happened...ms is 5 and still in nappies at night...
ES and YS both severely disliked the sensation of wetness around them as soon as they were Pottytrained...whilst it doesn't bother ms one bit...he simply couldn't care less...

Swedes, in those countries they practice elimination communication....but then, they usually also carry the Baby's at all times with them,and of course often lesser layer of clothers also make it much easier to pick up slightest hints of a childs need...although, EC is becoming increasingly fashionable in teh Western World again, and of course from a ethical/economical point of view it would make sense, as it takes nappies on the rubbish heap out of the equasion aswell as increasing use of washing and the effects on the environment if using re-usables.

"It is infantilising putting a 4 or 5 yr old in night time nappies without even trying to train them to be dry at night IMO..."

if you have a dc who has never woken up dry then you are actually following all current professional advice - which tells you to be patient and wait for at least one or two dry nappies.

people who choose not to try to train them perhaps do so not out of laziness or to infantlise their children but because they believe it is in the child's best interests - they might belive that this whole thing is not about training but rather about facilitating - about allowing a child to take control and to do something when they are physically and emotionally ready - the exact opposite of infantilising.

moondog - given that there are plenty of people who have tried your methods to no avail would you perhaps consider admitting that it is not always easy and that your method is not foolproof - as you claimed it to be: "it's dead easy...the child will learn in a few days" tbh it might be good advice - a good idea to try, but your underlying arrogance and blinkeredness is staggering. unless these people who have tried are lying you are, to be blunt, wrong.

I love this idea that years ago children were dry at night much younger, and in the developing world they're trained younger.

My mum still remembers vividly my DB being wet every night at the "tender" age of 6yrs old - he's 32. I'd just about cracked it by the time I was about 4 1/2yrs.

Yes where they practice EC they may well be "trained" earlier, but generally speaking they often take just as long in the thirld world as they do here"

i think YABU a bit - no harm in the school nurse being proactive with the advice, you can choose to ignore it if you don't think it's applicable.

Thank you hatwoman, for saying more eloquently what I was trying to.
I was also wondering whether the hormone thing ran in families? i remember my brother wetting the bed for years (he wasn't dry until nearly 6). When I chatted to my mum about it recently, she agreed that lifting him for years hadn't seemed to help and maybe it was just teaching him to wee in his sleep. Then my dad chimed in that the hormone kicking in later made sense, because he recalled having trouble with bedwetting up until he was school age and that he used to get into trouble for it. My grandmother is one of those who claimes that her children were potty trained by a year. Guess she did a lot of washing!

err...yes I agree you should have a go at training her and that the letter was meant well.

Pull ups make me bleaugh actually they are so....I dont know...I hate them anyway, face it, it is a nappy, not a pair of pants whatever the manufacturers would have you believe (and they are more expenisve rant rant)

dont bother waiting for the dry nappies, mine never had a dry nappy, dd1 took a bit of training, dd2 did it instantly at 3, I am not sure about the hormone thing otherwise WHY are so many kids dry at night at 3/4?

Enid, my understanding (and my HV's) is that the hormone activates at different ages for different children. It certainly accounts for the differences in my children.

Yes my experience would bear that out. I have one who was dry at night by 3, one who took until about 6 or 7 and one who was somewhere in the middle.

manchita, I did not do the OP!!!!!!!!

You might think me rude, I think those who bang on about whether kids should be dry at night with scant fact and really only their opinions to go on should hush up a bit, they make me cross and they have made some people feel bad( not me).

Why on earth would anyone want to wash sheets night after night. If you need to do that then your child is not ready to be dry, it's not bleedin' rocket science .
Perhaps people have it wrong, perhaps they should do even more washing and cause them and their children distress by letting therm wet the bed every night. I think not.

But hey, it's an open forum.

Ds1 wasn't dry at night til 7 and a half, almost 8. Desmopressin didn't help - an eneuresis alarm did (many broken nights and lots of tears). Ds2, just 6, is sort of dry at night (unreliably, still wets at least once a week).

Two quotes from Moondog on this thread:

Anyway,why should NHS funds and resources be wasted on people who are too bloody lazy to train their kids to control a basic bodily function??

There is a big difference between behaviour that is neurologically typical (ie normal) and behaviour that is normalised (ie great big kids given license to wee away.)

Until today I had never once considered that it might be my 'fault' - thanks so much for enlightening me...and with such tact and empathy too.

Manchita - Are you serious? "not wanting to wash sheets/pyjamas more than usual therefore not training is a bit of a lazy atitude".
Why would you volunteer to have more laundry than you had to? Why not wait until the child is ready and minimise the amount you have to wash? Oh I must be soooooooo lazy.

There's an incredibly strong genetic component to bed-wetting at night after the age of about 5 (that's just the cut-off they use to define it, there's nothing magic about 5). There is no doubt that moondog's advice would not work in children with a strong genetic predisposition to bed-wetting. I've had to delete everything else I wrote because it didn't fit with the MN rules, as one-sided as that appears to be...

I think the idea that waiting until your child is ready is somehow 'infantilising' them is really odd. And a very loaded choice of word.

Why are some people whose children were dry at night early so convinced that any child at the other end of the normal range is the victim of slack parenting?

Honestly, I do find it very odd. Every other child development topic on MN, the general thrust is always 'wait until they are ready, don't push it, it's not a competition'. Why is this particular topic suddenly a signifier of parental competence?

I don't come on here and attack parents whose dcs were later than my ds at doing x, y or z. Why is it OK to attack me because my 4yo isn't yet dry at night, in common with at least 15 per cent of children his age?

It's a kind of taboo, not one of DS1's parents ever ever discussed bedwetting, not ever.

Am still a bit gobsmacked that some people think that bedwetting is a consequence of laziness.

If you all knew the washing we had to do, not to mention the two mattresses we went through..

DS1 simply did not wake, whether lying in a dribble or a pool of wee, very upset to wake wet every moring, esp as his brother, 2 years younger, was dry from age 3.

Have read about half of the posts and I agree with moondog

Before pull ups, there were a few children that had a bedwetting problem at school age (i was one, 9 before dry at night, I was a rarity in my circle)

pull ups have delayed our children. The children never feel wet and so the process is delayed. Getting dry at night is a similar process to daytimes, it takes a week or three to crack it. Parents use pull up and because they are wet, think the child isn't ready. The pull ups MAKE them wet. They are the first thing you are told to get rid of at the enuerisis clinic. there will always be a few that do continue but the majority get dry quickly