Bedwetting 6yo DS, not sure where to post?

[mrswoz]

Hi all, not sure where to post to get advice on my little boy, just turned 6? I also wanted to have a look through threads others have posted on same subject for advice but not sure where is best to look, anyone point me in the right direction please?

Briefly: my son has been dry in the daytime since 2y9m, literally only ever had a handful of wee accidents in the daytime since then, he has never had a problem with daytime wetting or poo issues, poos have been in toilet since before the age of 2.

Night times are a different story regarding wees, I continued to use pull ups at night time until he was at least 4.5yo, when they appeared to be practically dry every morning and I thought we'd cracked it, so stopped using them (always had waterproof sheet on under ordinary sheet anyway, to protect mattress). Since then, he wears pants and pj bottoms if not too hot. Nearly every morning these are wet, with either just a dribbly bit of wee, if he's woken up in time and gone to the toilet, or else quite a good soaking. Once a month or so this would be so bad as to need a full bed change, which I could live with. I just assumed he would grow out of this by around 7, if not I envisaged a discussion with GP.

The problem is, the bed has had a full soaking 5 times since we started the summer holidays 2 weeks ago. And I am 32 weeks pregnant, also with a DD 3.5yo who is STILL waking me up at least once every night, often twice.

Poor DS is embarrassed and annoyed, doesn't understand why this happens to him as he is quite controlled in his behaviour during the daytime, so to not be able to control what his body does at night obviously causes him distress. If he had been totally dry at night I would have just put it down to anxiety about new baby arriving soon, but he has never really been fully dry when he wakes in the morning so I just have no idea what to think, or what to do next.

So as not to drip feed, and get all the facts out there: he has not woken during the night with wetting for several months now, it's only in the mornings. He drinks reasonably well throughout the day, milk first thing then water/sometimes weak squash, he will have a teatime drink 2.5 hours before bed, then approx 120ml milk at least an hour before bed, wee before bath then another wee immediately before bed, no nighttime drinks allowed unless ill (rare). Am reluctant to restrict fluid in evenings as have heard that's not helpful? He usually sleeps for about a 10hr night in hols, closer to 11.5hr in term time.

His behaviour/general attitude is quite frankly rubbish for most of the day after he has wet the bed, so he is clearly frustrated by it - it's not a great way to start the day for me either, but I am not being cross with him about it. Please can someone suggest things I can do to make this better for him?

My ds almost 6 has only stopped wetting in the last few months, really oddly this coincided with us changing his bed, he went from wetting almost every night, to being dry 99% of the time (he inherited his sisters old bed) literally overnight.

I know it's just coincidence, but thinking about it, maybe it broke some kind of link/association . Useless but thought I would chuck it out there.

"1 in 12 young people in the UK regularly wet the bed
20% of 4 year old
10% of 8 year old
2.5% of teenagers (or 1 in 40)"

from \link{http://www.brollysheets.co.uk/Help++Advice/Bed+wetting+-+the+Stats+for+kids.html\here}

it's much more common than most people realise, & everybody is so embarrassed about it, nobody talks

I had a very late bedwetter - combination of extremely deep sleep, small functional bladder capacity, & developmental delay in natural production of vasopressin - this was exceptionally bad, most kids only have 1 or 2 of those factors.

Finally fixed by desmopressin in early teens (alarms didn't work at all).

Ds is younger, but I have found instead of wet bed/nappies, I put on training pants (so kinda waterproof) over the top of his normal pants. You can however also buy online more absorbant waterproof pants. I'm not sure that they would hold a night time of continual wees, but for the OP it might be an option as it seems to be less/ in the morning. It has the benefit of not making all the bedding wet and so a whole load of washing, while at the same time they do feel some of the wetness. More appropriate for the heavy sleepers than those with hormone deficiency. I read somewhere (probably MN!) that early in the night bedwetting was hormone deficiency, dry until early hours of morning was more likely to be heavy sleeping and more ameanable to alarms etc. Not sure if it is true.

Should say they came in all sizes and look like normal pants.