6 yo bedwetter - we have to lift him every night and he's HEAVY

[NQWWW]

My 6 year-old DS came out of nappies at 2.5, but carried on wearing them at night til aged 4 when he refused, and we started lifting him to the loo at 10.30 every night. He's now 6 and large for his age and its becoming impossible - really hard to leave him with a babysitter in particular.

Has anyone got any ideas for how to stop this?

My DS is now 9 and when I go away I still take him for a wee at night as he still wets occasionally.

I try to wake him and (literally) drag him out of bed so his feet are on the floor. Then I make him sit up (whilst talking loudly to him) and then walk him to the loo. At 6 he would be fast asleep (but would still walk). Now he is 9 he wakes up and takes himself off to the loo - I just walk behind to catch if he falls.

We don't have a problem at home thankfully as he's in a bunk bed!

Sleepwalk him. I have a family of late-dries and, once they consistently had a dry nappy when we ourselves went up to bed, we would take them to the toilet. Dh used to carry them there and back, but I couldn't do that so I walked them. Sometimes I would have to walk behind with a hand under each armpit to keep them upright, but on the way back they could usually manage for themselves. It never disturbed them.

(Two down and one to go - but he's only 4 and we havent started lifting him, so it'll be a while yet.)

I'd really like him to sleep through the night - sooner or later he will have to, so how do we get out of this habit?

lifting at night isn't recommended; night time dryness is governed by a hormone produced as the child's body matures, age 2 in child A, age 5 in child B and age 9 in child C. Not considered a medical prob til age 7 in UK, when you can get referral to enuresis clinic for advice/treatment

things you can do in the meantime:
increase daily fluid input, to increase the volume of the bladder and therefore holding capacity; avoid red/brown drinks, milk/water best; you might need to remind him to drink more at school
wee/teeth/wee at bedtime (double-voiding)
double/triple dress the bed (waterproof/bottom sheet, waterproof/bottom sheet
shower in the mornings for social reasons

best of luck

It's all very well to say that lifting at night isn't recOmmended, but what do you do with a child who is not yet physiologically able to be dry, but wont wear a nappy? Or a child who wees so much that his nappy overflows by midnight, but does not wee at all after he has been asleep for 3-4h?

NQWWW, our experience with ds1 was that he eventually started taking himself to the loo at about 8.5yo, and with dd that at about 7.5-8y she stopped being able to wee when we lifted her, so we stopped lifting her, and remained dry all night. Ds1 still gets up to wee in the first half of the night, but never remembers that he does this and is convinced that he doesn't!

well, unless you can be absolutely sure that your child is totally awake when you take them to the toilet you will be reinforcing the wee-asleeping

this is why I suggested things to help in my earlier post; I have experience of wedwetter post age 7 and was passing on info gleaned from enuresis clinic

but shrug, take advice or leave it, makes no odds to me

bedwetter not wedwetter, that is just odd, rofl

Agree with wooftoyoutoolady!

And Pretty candles, I'd make my child wear a nappy at night if they weren't ready to be dry - the lack of sleep, hassle of changing sheets every night would drive me mad.

what woof said.
not recommended as you are effectively teaching a child to wee when asleep, so potentially making it more difficult to be dry.

at 6, it's still very normal to be wet at night. once kids are seven, if you feel you want to hurry up the dry process, you can see the gp for desmotabs or similar, or try using an enuresis alarm.

dd1 was 8 when we used an enuresis alarm (meds had no effect at all) and she was dry within two weeks. ds1 is 9 (nearly ten) and there appears to be no magic solution for him yet. just pull-ups and continued loads of laundry (god bless my washing machine).

Will he wear the dry night pyjama pants.? They do them for his age and older and look more like pants then nappies. Lifting actually encourages a child to wet during the night.

Interesting advice wooftoyoutoolady, I will try those. I don't think we'll get him into any sort of nappy-style pants unfortunately, and even if we did I think he'd probably soak through them.

I agree we should never have started lifting him - he's the only one of my 3 that we have done this for, simply because I was too exhausted at the time to contemplate getting up in the night to change sheets on a regular basis for 3 years (as I did with DS1). DD was dry at night immediately she was potty-trained, which took about three days - give me girls any day of the week (at least as far as this is concerned).

Enuresis alarm sounds interesting too, thanks madwoman.

Coming from a family of bedwetters, and having my own family of bedwetters (dh and SIL were dry day and night from 2y - MIL hasn't got a clue, my mum OTOH understands) I suspect that I, too, have a reasonable degree of experience and knowledge to draw upon. I found the enuresis clinic supportive but totally useless.

If a child is physiologically ready to be dry at night, then the situation is completely different to dealing with a child who is not ready. I've never had to train a child who was ready, only to support children who were not ready. I don't agree that lifting a child teaches them to wee in their sleep. When my dc were ready it became quite obvious, because they took over for themselves.

If the parents are willing to lift the child, then why get into a fight over wearing nappies? And if the child wants to be dry but can't, lifting them is so worthwhile as it gives them such a boost to wake up with a dry nappy. And why should the patent have to cope with all the extra laundry and night-wakings of wet beds? Why should the child, either? It's not their fault.

"Don't lift your child to wee in the night" is a bit like "Never feed a baby to sleep" or "Don't bedshare": one-size-fits-all advice that does not fit everyone.

It is a habit though prettycandles, because if we don't lift him at the usual time, he will wee at that time - not before and not after.

And given that he goes to bed at 8.15, he only has to hold it for a couple of hours before we lift him - he then goes through to 7 in the morning without a problem.

NW, you might well have some success with wee/teeth/wee going on your latest post

In that case maybe he is ready and therefore training would be effective. We did not lift our dc at exactly the same time every night, in order to avoid creating a habit. I also walked them, rather than carried them, in order to try and make sure they were not asleep. I would talk to them, explain where they were, encourage them to sort out their

(hate it when that happens!)

?encourage them to sort out their pjs etc, to try and get them actively involved instead if passively peeing.

All I can say is that it worked for us.

The double-peeing works if the bed-wet is small. But if it's a full bladder, soaking sheets, then that means the child is still making urine at the daytime rate. So if your ds always pees at the same time, relatively early in the night, and really wants to be independently dry, you might want to try one of the wetting alarms.

I read somewhere that carbs help in the release of the hormone that stops wetting, so a weetabix or toast at night can help.