My almost 7 yo is still not dry at night. Has anyone been to the doctor about this?

[Jojay]

DS1 is 7 next week and is still in pull ups at night. We get the very odd dry one but they are almost always wet by morning.

A month or so ago we tried leaving the pull up off at night. He wet the bed at about 10.30 pm, and didn't wake up. We got him up, changed him and the bed and put a pull up on. The pull up was wet again by morning.

He's a very deep sleeper which I think is his issue. We've dropped the bedtime milk and he has milk at school instead, mid morning. We restrict drinks after tea time and we've stopped 'purple' drinks (blackcurrant etc) as I read somewhere that they can be a trigger. No fizzy drinks.

Has anyone been to the doctor in this situation? What did they do?

I've read on the NHS website that a bed wetting alarm is probably the next step but that the NHS don't prescribe them, so is there any point going? He's otherwise very healthy, no daytime issues, potty trained easily at 2.4ish.

Do I persevere with no pull ups at night time and accept there may be lots of laundry for a bit? Has this worked for anyone? or should I just buy an alarm off ebay?

Any experiences welcome! He's just joined Beavers and wants to go on sleepovers etc but will be mortified if he has to go in a pull up.

I don't have any experience with this but my dsis did with her DS and what they did was they lifted him out for a wee just before they went to bed and even though he was half asleep he still went and did one and then straight back to bed after.
I think they still do this at the moment (he is 6) and they may have to for a while yet as he is a very deep sleeper too. But that keeps him dry through the night.

We are in exactly the same situation with our just turned 6 DD. We have had a maximum of three nights in a row dry. Lifting doesn't work as she is either wet before we lift her or is too tired and confused to wee. She can get upset when we try to lift.

I am considering the GP route soon as there has been no change in about 3 years. She was dry in under a week at 2.6 but she sleeps very deeply and even a soaking wet bed doesn't always wake her.

Hoping for answers too!

Yes, we did with DD. When DD was 7 we were referred to the HV who worked through an eneuresis programme with us, and the GP prescribed a nasal (hormone) spray. Both worked well, although tbh even at 14 she still has the very occasional wet night. Iirc it's something to do with a hormone that your brain sends to your bladder (or the other way about? I forget which) and they absolutely can't help wetting the bed. I would recommend going to see the GP if your DC is 7 - there is loads that he/she can do to help you

Not been through it personally - but I would have a look at the ERIC website and speak to them

I understand they are very helpful and experienced

Yes. DS1 was almost 9 when we resorted to an alarm. We had tried the hormone pill that is supposed to mimic they wee suppressant hormone. Desmopressin. Made no difference to him. We got an alarm and he was dry within 2 nights. DS2 was dry at night around age 3. But DS 3 is now 5 and no signs of being dry. At some point we will probably have to use the alarm with him too.

One of our dd's was about 8 before the bed wetting stopped of its own accord. She had pull ups and we did lifting during the night. Sorry can't offer any other advice.

we went to the doctors early this week with my ds who is 7 and is exactly how your post describes, word for word op, deep sleeper etc,

he's embarrassed about bed wetting, and is in pull ups which are wet every morning, which he throws in the bin before i wake up so i dont see them.

the doctor has referred us as 7 is when they do something about it, and said medicine or an alarm would be the route to go through.

my ds is aware of whats happening, but not fussed as i think hes relieved theres help available.

i did say to the doctor that it may be hereditary as some of my husbands side did say they were late in stopping bed wetting but the doctor wasn't overly bothered tbh about that

i didn't see doc but did research this for DS2.
I decided the alarm would wake whole house up repeatedly & had at very best 1/3 chance of working.
Chance of meds working was slightly less.
So we soldiered on with pull-ups & thankfully DS cracked it 4-5 months after 7th birthday with no interventions
No regrets.

My DS began to have dry nights just before his 8th birthday. He isn't dry every night, but he went from being wet every night without fail to maybe wetting once a week some weeks, and at other times he can go weeks without wetting. We didn't have any treatment, I just thought we'd ride it out as I was confident that sooner or later it would sort itself out. I just sought advice from parents who'd been there.

He is now 8.3yrs, so it's still a fairly recent development.
I haven't read the whole thread, but these are the steps that have worked well for us:

• no drinks after 6:30pm (unless he's been at football training 7-8:00pm, in which case he takes a water bottle, and is allowed a drink as soon as he comes in)
• drinking at least 2 glasses of water with each meal, plus a big drink of water when he gets in from school, as well as drinking all of the water in his bottle at school

-we don't have cordial, he only drinks water, fresh orange (at lunchtime) or very occasionally hot chocolate/milkshake

• we decided to stop using dry nights when he was about 6yrs, as it was humiliating for him to be 'in nappies' as he saw it.

Just a really good waterproof sheet and endless laundry for years in our house, but he was happier with that so I didn't mind.

I used to be strict about him not waking me up, so from about 6yrs old he would take his own sheet off the bed when he woke in the night, put it in the bathroom and then go back to sleep (he'd only wet once a night by this age.) It was for both our sakes, as by that age, I was grumpy and snappy with him when he woke me up to do the sheet, which wasn't fair on him - the wetting didn't bother me but being woken up
Hope it gets better soon xx

Thanks everyone. I think I will make a doctors appt. It probably will sort itself out in time but with Beaver camp on the horizon, he'd feel better if we were doing something about it.

I gave him the choice of whether to see the doc or just wait and see, nad he opted for the doctor, so off we go.

Wish us luck

Do have a read of the ERIC website before you go, it's really good.

Had the same issue with ds1 but something suddenly clicked when he was about 7.4 and he's been dry ever since.

Good luck with the GP - our school nurse was really supportive and helpful. She told me that at your ds's age there will still in all likelihood be 4 children in the average class who aren't dry at night.

Just reread the bit about Beavers - ds getting dry was literally a few weeks before Beaver camp so I had a quiet chat with the Beaver leader - she was lovely about it and had seen it all before. In actual fact they go to sleep so late that there is tons of time to do a last wee before bed and much less time to wet

Oh and while lifting can help in a very short term way (we did it for a while so I'm certainly not judgy about it), you will see ERIC (and doctors) don't really recommend it as you can inadvertently be training your dc to wee in their sleep.