4YO wetting bed - ideas please

[RunningUpThatHill]

My 4YO DD1 has been dry during the day since she was 2, but we just cannot seem to get her dry at night. We have tried the following:

• Praise on dry mornings (usually once or twice a week)
• Reward charts and gifts on dry mornings
• Night light (incase its too dark for her to find her way)
• Asking her if she wakes up and wees or just wakes up wet (she doesn't really answer)

-She has been wearing pants to bed for weeks in the view that the nappies/pull ups have just been too comfy for her.

• Explaining that as she's starting School in Sept she is a big girl so should be dry over night by now

So what else can we try? Any ideas? She is dead chuffed with herself if she does have a dry night, but she still has more wet nights than dry ones.

Wake her up just before you go to bed and make her go to the toilet, see if she goes until morning. If she does then do it a bit earlier each night to find out how long she can hold it and also to train her muscles to hold it longer.

Only a small amount of fluids after dinner time.

Give it time, some kids wet the bed occasionally and she is still quite young at 4.

Oooh yes sorry already do that. Should have put that on my first post.

Her last drink is at 6PM and we wake her up when we go to bed at about 11 for the toilet. Good idea about doing a bit earlier every night, thanks :)

maybe she isnt ready to be dry yet - it isnt considered an issue until at least the age of 7. It doesnt matter that she is starting school soon as she isnt going to be staying overnight there. She needs to be producing a hormone that suppresses urine production overnight and needs to be able to wake up when her bladder is full and be able to get to the toilet.

I'd put her back in nappies/pullups and try again in a few months (maybe once she has settled into school)

Sorry to put a dampener on things, but my DD is 8 and still not dry at night.

One thing they have said at the enuresis clinic though, is that her bladder capacity needs increasing. Basically, she just doesn't drink enough. So this is the first thing we are working on - getting her to drink at least 6 glasses of water a day, and not rush to the loo.

How much is your DD drinking, and what does she drink?

Don't make a big deal of it, it almost certainly isn't under her control. Children become dry at night when they start producing a hormone which enables their urine to become more concentrated over night. This is often mentioned on MN, but confirmed for me by a paediatrician when DS was in hospital for a hypospadias op. I saw it in action over the next 7 days looking after his catheter. There's a daily cycle with hardly anything produced overnight, an early morning rush (I see it now when he needs to go roughly half-hourly over the first couple of hours of the morning), then drops off to a more stead rate for the rest of the day. The age at which this hormone kicks in is very variable - anywhere between 2 and 7 for most of the population, with a very few people for whom it never functions correctly (don't worry, we're talking tiny fractions of 1%).

I think I read somewhere that the reason the NHS don't treat bed-wetting until 7 is that something like 50% of children still wet the bed once a week at the age of 5. My DS has been mostly dry since about 3 1/4, but still has occasional accidents when v tired or ill. I just use waterproof bed mats and try to treat it as matter of factly as possible ("accidents happen, don't worry, I can clear it up"). I'd be careful of sticker charts, as this gives her the message that she ought to be able to control it when it's involuntary, and could in the long run contribute to her developing a sense of shame about it. Also (not advocating letting her drink gallons just before bed, obviously) I read somewhere that restricting fluids is counterproductive as it just leads to reduced bladder capacity and more problems.

On a practical level, you could try layering sheet-waterproof mat -sheet so in the middle of the night you just strip off the top layer. Also maybe a waterproof duvet cover.

Thanks for the replies. Obviously if there isn't anything else I can do, she obviously isn't ready. I'm going to go back to the pull ups. Interesting regarding drinking. DD1 drinks quite a bit during the day (mainly weak cordial, but she will have Milk if we are eating out and she has a hot chocolate the days she's not at school), she obviously just isn't ready.

Ive tried not to make a big deal about it and just only do when she's dry. If she's wet she's wet. I don't say anything, just clean her and the bed up. Ive got a waterproof mattress protector on her bed, followed by her sheet, on top of that I have a waterproof smaller sheet (that goes across width ways just where she sleeps) and another small sheet on top of that. I just change that sheet on those days she has an accident.

Thanks for the input, you've been really helpful.