Dd Just 5 still primary bedwetting, should I worry?

[stripeysock]

Hi my dd has probably only ever had 3 dry nights. Randomly and nowhere near consecutively. About every 3 months for the last year I have taken the pull-ups away, with very little success. I am trying this now it has been 8 days with 1 success (involving lifting) and a lot of washing. Am I pushing her to do something she is not ready to do or should I keep going? I am interested in hearing many experiences except those who's children just had dry nights at the same time as they potty trained.

Hi,

My DS wasn't dry at night untill the age of eight! He has a bladder issue but I found at the time that night time wetting is more common than you think In children under 7. Go on the ERIC website they were are great source of information and support for us.

If I was you I would keep trying my 4 year old dd was 3 when she finished potty training properly and it took a year and a half

Thankyou, been to Eric website but really interested in case stories. She has been mostly dry during the day for over 2 years. Should I keep trying with no pull-ups??

yes keep trying with pull ups for a while

I would try maybe using the disposable bed mats that way she won't have the feeling of a nappy but you also aren't changing bed sheets in the night.

ds took over a year between day dry and night dry (although he was younger than your dd)

He drinks a huge amount, and slept 12 hours in a deep sleep, and his bladder was full and he was too asleep to wake (I say this with hindsight) We started lifting him at 10 pm, and then he had a dry nappy in the morning, so we then lost the nappy and went on lifting. I know lifting is controversial, but it worked.

So, I guess what I am trying to say is, does she wee at eg 5-6 am, which is probably a full bladder, or at any point during the night, which would suggest to me that she is not yet able to recognise the signal to wee when she is asleep.

It is much more common than you think, and can be a combination of factors. I don't think I would be going through wet bed every night. I think I would go back to pull ups and to your gp for some support.
There are wee alarms you can get which wakes them as they wee, so they learn to associate the wee and wake up

Interested. My DD is 5yr 9mths and has never been dry at night. She has mostly been dry during the day since she was under 3, day potty training was relatively easy, sorted in about a week. We do pull ups, the NHS advice we got when she had reception check was to not use pull ups, but the thought of getting up every night fills me with dread.

My DD does sleep very heavily. She has in the past wet the bed and not woken (forgot pull up one night on holiday) she only realised in the morning when she woke late.

Thankyou last post steppemum.

She has suddenly gone pull-up resistant!!!

She will wee quite early on unless we lift and sometimes has before I lift, then wakes early having wet the bed between 5&6am.

Glad you wrote about lifting, that's one of the things I am trying to fire out.!!

Keep them coming interested in positive negative and confused like me x

wonderstuff - that is ds, he wet the bed occasionally once trained, and he never woke until morning, in fact a few times in warm weather the bed was nearly dry in the morning, and I he didn't notice that he was a bit damp!

Dd1 potty trained at 2, she's 4 and a half now, has been without pull ups at night for about 10 months and is still very hit and miss. We tend to lift her about 10, but have recently moved it back to 930 as she kept having wet before we got to her. As long as she's dry then she's usually ok until the morning. We've got waterproof sheets, found out today that actually they do fine in the tumble dryer (thank goodness!)

Oh and she will merrily sleep in the wet too!

Mine too

When you say hit and miss what is your hit and miss rate? Roughly of course!

I don't think I could lift DD, she is so heavy, she's in a cabin bed and on a different floor to the bathroom. I'd have to change her bed and get a potty...

I would say have a break and try again. Don't worry, as other posters have said it is very common.

My DD aged 4 and 10 months is just starting to have a run of dry nights, having been dry in the day since she was 2 years 6 months.
We had been trying periodically in the intervening period: having a potty in her room, lifting her, but she sleeps 11 hours a night, quite deeply, and we could never quite figure out the right time to lift her. Really, she just wasn't ready.

It's been a few weeks now, and we have had about 3 accidents, mainly if she has tried but hasn't managed a wee right before sleeping. The accidents when they occur are in the early morning, when she is still sleepy, so I think she is physically ready.

If you need an incentive to get her back into pullups, perhaps you could try getting some of the ones with princesses on the front (if she's into that). Then you can have princess panties for when you are ready to try again. Initially my DD was excited to have big-girl princess panties at bedtime, though now that she is mostly dry she isn't bothered which ones she wears.

I've been told by a GP that "1 in 5 five years olds and 1 in 10 ten year olds" are not dry at night. I think there is quite a taboo about wetting and probably lots of your DD's classmates will be in the same position but you won't hear about it. I know of various children who were 5 and 6 and 7 before they were dry at night. My DD is older than yours and not dry but she also has daytime issues (possibly overactive bladder) too.

There's a hormone (vasopressin) which kicks in at different ages for different children, and stops the body producing so much urine at night, and with bedwetters it often hasn't kicked in yet. I believe that wetting early in the night is an indicator but may be wrong about this. Medication (called Desmomelts I think) can be given to boost the hormone, but I'm pretty sure they don't consider it until children are over 7.

What I'm getting at is try not to worry too much, go with pullups, or not, whatever works in your family, and your DD will probably sort herself out fairly soon (i.e. the vasopressin hormone will kick in).

I'm going with washing most days at the moment while the weather's good, but if we haven't made any progress by the autumn I fear we'll be back in pull-ups again - for environment.

Thanks to all posters, great to have feedback. Surrounded by parents of children who seemed to have all done it within a couple of weeks of PT!!!!

DS3 is still in nappies at night (he likes nappies better than pull ups or PJ pants), and even so, we often need to strip the bed.
DS1 is 9, nearly 10 and is only just dry at night (with the occasional accident, even now). He refused to wear any type of pull Up/nappy from the age of around 4, so I've had long years of experience dealing with wet beds!
We lifted DS1 every night until about a year ago. He still wet the bed often, even with the lifting, but it seemed to happen in the morning, so lifting at least saved us from being woken up.
Because DS3 has always used nappies, we've not really used lifting with him. He's a very light sleeper, and when we tried lifted him, he woke up, and became very distressed, so we stopped and kept using nappies.

It may be useful for you to hear my bed-saving method! I put layers of protection on DS1's mattress, and I've never had any leak-through!

1.Waterproof mattress protector that fits round the mattress like a fitted sheet.

1. Washable or disposable bed mat
2. fitted sheet
3. Another washable bed mat
4. A cot-bed sized sheet placed across the mattress, to cover the bed mat, tucking in at the sides.

Usually, it's just the cot sheet and the mat underneath that needs changing, so it's not that bad for washing. If they wake in the night, the draw sheet and mat can just be whipped off, and the child tucked back into bed without any fuss, hopefully to go back to sleep! If a disaster happens, I can unpeel the layers, but as I say it's never managed to get through all 3 waterproof layers.

I also have some lovely thin but very warm duvets from Lidl, that wash beautifully and dry very quickly, because they were cheap, I got a couple, so there's always a spare just in case.

Thankfully, my middle child decided one day at the age of about 2 and a bit 'I think I'll wee on the toilet, Mummy', and that was that. he never wore another nappy again, day or night, and has never wet the bed . Of course, he's my best one

As you can tell, "Bed Wetting in General and Mattress Protection in Particular" is my Mastermind subject. I'm thinking of doing a PHD in it (how the mighty have fallen...sigh...)

I have 2 5 yo, neither dry at night, ds had a month of being dry 4 out of 5 nights with lifting at 10pm and carefully controlled fluids then a month of wet bed every night before i put him back in pull ups, the hormone has clearly not kicked in. Dd has a tiny bladder, was dry by day a 2.3 but still soaking nappy each night. Gp won't be interested until your child is 7.

Ds3 (7) wears pyjama pants at night. A year ago he was wet 6/7 now he's dry 6/7. It will happen when he's ready. My d/n was 10 before he was reliably dry.

Again thanks everyone for the detail, finding it all hepfull. A specialist question to the amazingly patient amistillsexy. With a weeks holiday planned in a sc cottage with no washing machine Next week!!! What would the technique be???
Guessing at mattress protector/ disposable pad/ sheet/ do/ cot sheet.

Hoping to only have to hand wash cot sheets ?

Correct me if I am wrong/ bowing to your experience!!!

Ah, yes...we had the same problem for a fortnight at the start of the hols.
Yes, we take disposable bed mats and our own cot-bed sized sheets to use as draw sheets.

I think I washed the bedding on average every other night . The main difficulty is the amount of water things hold when they haven't been spin dried. They take ages to dry, even on a line.

The worst was DS1, who has been dry for months, so I really didn't think it would be a problem, but he had an accident one night, and I hadn't used a bed mat...Cue me, at six in the morning, hand-washing two cotton sheets and a mattress cover in the bath, then trying to dry the whole lot in time for it to go on the bed that night! We lit the stove in the afternoon (and opened all the windows so we didn't die of the heat!), and got them dry in the end. Luckily, it hadn't reached the mattress. He had a bed mat after that night (and kept it dry for the rest of the holiday )

Have a lovely holiday!

Oh just read your post properly

I didn't take the full monty on holiday, just the mats and cot sheets, and I wouldn't even attempt to hand wash a waterproof mattress cover, as it would be impossible to wring out, and to dry...although I might be tempted to just leave it on for the week and not bother washing it (manky, me ), if it saved the holiday house's mattress.

I think it depends on how often you have to strip the whole bed at home, and how high/low your standards are .

Thanks again. Great advice