Bed Wetting in 5yo DD

[niamh29]

DD was 5 in Sept, she toilet trained early at just before 2 and shortly after night trained; there has always been occasional accidents but since she started school it has gotten worse, we never make a big deal, just change sheets and put her back to bed, she's a heavy sleeper and hardly remembers. Over the Christmas holidays however there was no accidents and she seemed in fantastic form, we started to wonder if school is the trigger and low and behold after her first day back another accident. She's absolutely loves school and her teacher and is getting on very well and the teacher has said she has no issues so we are at a loss as to what the trigger is?? Anyone else have any experience of this??

Maybe just the extra tiredness means she isn't waking? Mine were soooo tired for the first year of school (although they weren't dry at night anyway so were still in pullups).
Would you consider using nighttime pullups for a little while? It's very very common amongst infant school age children still to be wearing them.

Tried it but no way will she wear them, her older and younger DD are both dry for a long time and she's getting very aware and embarrassed about it, I feel like I need to do something to help but I also know that probably everything I do won't work cause her bladder is probably not ready but then she can be dry for weeks at a time

My ds was 5 in October and also started wetting the bed after starting school. He would change his pants and not say anything so when I put him to bed the sheets would stink and he would totally deny it.

We stopped drinks from after dinner onwards and make him wee before bed and it's stopped for the time being. How much juice/water does your dd have? Maybe try tackling the physical side of it if it's hard to find the trigger?

Don't make a big deal of it, is totally normal just not something most people talk about at the school gates or at mum and baby sessions.

ds1 has a good friend who is in nappies at night aged 7. nobody is worried about her, it's just one of those things. I wet the bed until I was nearly eight, and my very young mum freaked out about it, tried star charts, punishments, all sorts of things. .. I will never forget the stress that her anxiety caused me, bless her, but there was nothing I could do about it.

current thinking is that this is caused by a lack of some hormone I can't remember the name of (but Dr Google will provide).

Keep calm, don't stress, make sure you are relaxed about the whole thing. Trust to the waterproof sheet, don't be afraid of outsize nappies, and the whole thing will pass sooner or later. If you are really worried, talk to your GP, but I'm sure your GP won't be concerned at this stage.

If it's any help my DS(9) is still not that reliably dry at night (and neither is one of his friends who is nearly 10)
We got in touch with the school nurse (via the health visitor) when he was 7.5 as he was starting to become much more aware. She suggested:

• getting him checked out by the GP to rule out any urinary infection/physical cause
• getting him out of pull-ups (same reasoning as not using nappies again when starting toilet training). We use Huggies DryNight bed mats which stay put inspite of a wriggly sleeper :)
• Making sure he drinks plenty during the day to help stretch his bladder so he learns the feeling of a full bladder
• Avoiding fizzy or blackcurrant/red drinks for at least 2 hours before bed (apparently they stimulate the bladder)
• Doing 'wee, teeth, wee' before bed to make sure his bladder is as empty as possible

All of this, plus a very calm 'ok, lets get you into the shower' attitude and the final arrival of the wonder hormone means that although we still have 4-5 wet nights a month I think we are nearly there!

She will get there, the trick is to make it as painless as possible for all of you in the meantime.
Good luck.

Niamh29,

There are many things that can cause bedwetting in children, and while I can give you a hint or two (this might help you understand bed wetting better: goo.gl/nRSkzx) only a doctor can say for sure what it is, and also recommend the right treatment. As I was saying, bed wetting in kids can happen for many reasons, like emotional well being (stress is known to cause Enuresis), urinary tract infection, deep sleep cycles, bladder size (not everyone has the same size bladders), or even genetics... any of these can be the culprit. And there's plenty other reasons that I omitted. Again, you need to talk to a doctor. S/he may need to conduct some tests and only then recommend something suitable for your DD. As for remedies... well, reducing drinks before sleep, doing some bladder exercises (some types of exercises are covered in the resource I've shown you), avoid foods high in fluids (watermelon for example), there's also herbal remedies (parsley, plantain, or cornsilk to name just a few), as well as vitamins (amino acid complex, etc.)... they also help cure bed wetting. But you can't just go crazy and try every remedy under the Sun because some of these can have side effects. Which is why I keep saying that you should see a MD first :)

HTH

Thanks for replies; her bed wetting has never bothered me much cause she is only 5 and I didn't want it to bother her (which it is starting to despite our best efforts) but the correlation with school is baffling but she was dry last night so maybe.......