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

[Pricklypears]

Just that.

He’ll be 6 in October and still wearing pull ups at night time. He has the odd dry night, but mostly it’s still wet when he wakes up.

Do I need to contact a doctor / paediatrician?

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

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

My Gds is coming up to 8, and still wears them - not always wet in the morning, but they certainly beat a wet bed. He’s an extremely physically active child and perhaps unsurprisingly sleeps very deeply - plus he does always want to drink a lot, but restricting his fluids isn’t an option his parents would consider.

When I’m doing bedtime I do make sure he does ‘a really big wee’ first!

Dd and SiL aren’t at all worried. The only thing is, now he’s becoming more self conscious, he will almost certainly refuse any invitations to sleepovers.

I agree that it is pretty common but I wouldn't use the provision of products as a guide for that, these companies make money off the products, they have a vested interest in children remaining in them as long as possible. Same with nappies and the normalisation of daytime toilet training at older ages than previous generations.

This isn't a dig at anyway btw as I said my 6 yo old still wears nappy pants overnight. As I said earlier, we've tried a few times without and got nowhere even after multiple nights, she doesn't even wake when shes soaked, we'd check on her and she was soaking twice a night and fast asleep. But just because something is sold to us doesn't mean we should use that as a guide for what's 'normal' or developmentally appropriate for our individual children.

My 7.5DS isn't consistently dry at night.

I'm trying to be chill about it, but he's desperate to be out of pull-ups, and is quite embarrassed about it, as in every other way, he's quite a mature and thoughtful chap.
It's not helped that his twin sister, has been dry at night basically since being potty trained...

My first child was dry at night from 3mo (!! Yes, really. She really was three months old when she stopped peeing at night for 8-ish hours. Freaked me out, but apparently this does sometimes happen with healthy babies).

My second was 4 going on 5, and needed a "push," hence we did the "dealing with some wet sheets" for several nights until the message from the body to the brain got through. No shaming, no commentary, just dealt with the wet sheets for a bit.

Of course there will be children for whom this just does not work - the Ancient Greeks wrote about bedwetting and they obviously did not have disposable pullups.

Five years old is still well within normal range of bedwetting. Have a look at the ERIC website, and in our area once your child turns 6yo you can ask the GP for a referral to an enuresis clinic.

Bedwetting can be genetic, so my DS(9) still wets the bed despite two referrals to the clinic (he won’t fully engage with what he needs to do), but I wet until 13 years back in the 80s so that’s where he’s likely got it from.

Some advice we had was no drinks 1.5 hours before bed, two wees at bedtime - 1 when doing teeth and the second attempt after a story, no apple & blackcurrant or dark coloured drinks as they can irritate the bladder, a specific amount of water to be drunk daily according to your child’s age/weight etc (for DS it’s 1.5 litres) as the bladder is a muscle which needs to get stronger like any other. So, drink and wee during the day and then at night the theory is that the bladder should not empty during sleep as strength has been built during the daytime (or something like this the nurse said!).

One of our kids wore pull ups until they were 8. Then went dry and never had an accident.

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.

What an utter waste of NHS time.