bed wetting 4 1/2 year old DS

[Sugarmagnolia]

DS is 4 1/2 and if we don't lift him to do a wee before we go to bed (around 10:30pm) he wets the bed. Maybe not every single night but a couple of times a week. We keep a waterproof sheet under his normal sheet so that's not a problem but still don't know how to break this habit. When he was first out of nappies he was actually fine at night but now I don't know what's happened.

For a while we were convinced that accidental wetting during the day and night was connected to his diet as he had a dairy intolerance. He seems to be a bit better with the dairy now so we do allow him the odd cake or bit of chocolate that isn't dairy free and I wonder if there's a connection.

Or maybe if we just stop lifting him and put up with a wet bed for a few nights he will start to learn?

I don't know what to do.

My DS was wet every night until he was 5.1/2. I gave up worrying about, put on a dry nite every evening. This is quite normal especially for a boy. He became dry literally overnite without lifting, restricting drinks etc. Try not to worry about it. He will get there.

I have a friend struggling with this at the moment - son was toiler trained until he had a urinary infection and now its all gone haywire.

She has been told that lifting is a bad idea as it stops the child from learning the signals to get up during the night and also stops the bladder from stretching a bit to accommodate a "full nights" worth.

She has stopped lifting her son and is of course now having to deal with lots of wet sheets but is hopeful that it won't last for long.

I too was told that lifting is not sucha good idea as we really need to be teaching them to be wide awake and aware of weeing amd when we lift them they are very much half asleep and dont really have any idea what is going on.

We found a small link between DS having drinks with sodium benzoate in them as this is a mild diuretic and when we cut that out it did make a difference. And then I guess he just out grew it and he's 6 1/2 now and I dont think he's wet the bed for over a year.

A tip I got from someone on here too was to put a sheet on underneath the mattress protector so that if he bed wets during the night you can just take off the top sheet and the protector and the bed is ready to get straight back into.

my dd is 5 in july and still in dry nites - she sleeps sooooo heavily that lifting makes no difference and I'm just not worried about night training (maybe I should be?!?!?) I don't think you should worry - kids are designed to lull you into a false sense of security and will always throw you a curve ball just when you think you've got it sussed!

good luck

my 7yo dd still needs taking to toilet at 11pm otherwise she wets the bed. during the week she goes to bed at 8pm and is always wet by midnight if i dont take her.on a weekend she stays dry and i dont have to lift her but she is often still up at 10 and goes to the toilet before bed. i too have been told that lifting is a bad idea but when i have tried to stop have had wet sheets to wash every day. i gather that at some point they begin to produce a hormone that allows them to hold on whilst sleeping and some are later than others when this happens. i think it is possible to get a presription for a synthetic form of this hormone but i would rather not go down that route. i certainly wouldnt be worried at 4 1/2 although if he was dry and this has changed there might be an underlying problem such as stress or a urine infection. if not, i wouldnt stress and take comfort in the fact that he wont still need lifting at 18. i am just dreading first sleepover invitation !

Although most children do grow out of this, some take longer than others and there is a minority of teenagers who still wet the bed. So it's worth taking seriously imo. At your ds's age it is quite common though. I had this with my dd - she was wetting every night at your ds's age and at 7 we went to the enuresis clinic.

The advice was not to lift; to talk to the child about it; to involve the child in dealing with the results of wetting eg strip own bed, put pjs in the wash etc; to give no drinks after evening meal and to avoid juice, fizzy drinks or tea which may irritate the bladder after 4 pm. Also to make sure they drink plenty in the morning and early afternoon to try to retrain the bladder.

At 7 we were also given an enuresis alarm and this was helpful, but she still wet the bed occasionally till about age 11 ... then started her periods soon after! Good luck.

LOL still need lifting at 18!

He doesn't drink any fizzy drinks, only juice or water during the day and only water at dinner time. We used to let him have a small drink before bedtime but we stopped that ages ago and it doesn't seem to make a difference. He does seem to have a very sensitive tummy and if his poos are very yucky during the day (sorry if TMI!) he's more likely to wet at night.

Putting the extra sheet under the waterproof one is a good idea except I still have to change the duvet. The other side effect is that it usually happens at around 2am and totally wrecks my whole night's sleep. Good to know he's not the only one though.

We were lucky that we had a spare bed made up and dd used to change her own pjs and get into the dry bed. That way we could leave dealing with the wet sheets till morning.

I didn't lift my son wetted at night till 6. we gave up worrying about it and put him in drynites till 5. Then we put two layers of bedding on and let him get on with it. I seem to remember it went like this: plastic sheet, normal fitted sheet, absorbent pad (like one of those disposable mats or a folded up towel), then on top of that we had a plastic-backed towelling fitted sheet. we just whipped off his PJs and one layer and he went straight back to sleep.

Once he got fed up with being wet, he learned not to do it. Eventually. I suspect your instinct to let him have a wet bed is the right one but might be more like a few weeks. Once he stopped, he really stopped.

my Ds is 4 1/2 and although he was dry at night at the age 2 1/2 he's gradually gone back to wetting the bed? It became too disruptive having to change wet sheets everynight so I resorted to Dry nights pull ups - sometimes he is dry in the morning, but until it's more frequent I'm sticking with the pull-ups, trying not to panic and hoping he will grow out of it very soon.

Actually I can't face the thought of letting him have a wet bed not the least because of the number of sleepless nights it would mean for me. Lifting him before we go to bed does do the trick and to be honest I'd rather continue doing that then put him back in pull-ups or dry-nites.

Leonie, is that a sympton of autism then, or did you mention it just by the way?

Honestly, it's quite normal for boys especially to wet at night. My ds - same age - wears a nappy to bed everynight. Don't worry about it...4.5 is still young - and if it continues till he's 13...he'll be able to change the sheets himself!! lol

I'm sorry...I know it's only natural to worry about our children's development but it will happen when they're ready. Don't put yourself under pressure!

Developmental delay in any area can be a sympton of autism, but I assume in my ds1's case (who has as) that he is just like me - I sleep very deeply and wet the bad up to the age of 8 - I never wake in the night for the toilet - even when pregnant!Ds1 is just 6y and has been dry since 3 in the dy time, but i wouldn't dream of trying to do anything at night before ha has at least got drier nappies - my mum wishes there had been size 6 nappies when i was a baby!
Ds2 has been dry at night since he was 2yr10mths, but he just did it night after night with a dry nappy - he didn't know he'd done something good- he didn't know that no nappy at night was a choice!His twin sister still has sodden nappies every morning.

dd1 is nearly 4.5 and she still wets 5 out of 7 nights, she again sleeps so heavily, but sure she'll grow out of it

Like a lot of the other posts, my daughter was 6 before dry through the night. My DS who is 4 i/2 still wears nappies to bed and sometimes I have to change that nappy when I go to bed at 11 ish! It not unusual for him to fill the nappy until it leaks and we still get a wet bed. LIke his big sister, one day it will suddenly stop - you can't enforce it, its when their body is capable of it.

my dd was 5 in Jan and has wet nappy every night although she does have times like all over christmas holidays that she was dry for. But it doesn't last. ds who is 4 this month is dry at night my other two were dry quite early. So I don't know whats happened to dd3.

Getting a bit desperate here, ds age 4.5 goes a couple of weeks without accidents, then we get several mishaps a day for 3/4 weeks, wee and poo! It's as if he can't be bothered to go to the loo, if we remind him we need to ask repeatedly or even shout to get results! Also he wets the bed nearly every night, even though he's wearing a nappy, we've tried several brands but they all seem to leak. He starts school in september and I really hoped we'd have all this ironed out by now, sometimes he will wet 4 times in a day which I can't expect the school to cope with. Any ideas greatly welcomed!!!

It runs in my husband's family. He was 6 when he was dry at night, but his brother was 12! A nephew was 11. So I didn't bother with training my eldest son, who had a full nappy / dry night every night. I thought it will come when he's ready, so better not stress about it. Otherwise I (and he) might have six years of stress if he isn't ready till he's 10 or so...

Then, when he was about 8 years old, I heard of the Rodger system.

It is a device that you clip on the special Rodger pants. When it comes into contact with urine it sends a signal to an alarm which is plugged in the mains. This wakes the boy (or girl) up, the very moment he starts to wee. He then has to get up, recognise he needs a wee, turn the alarm off, and go to the toilet.

Lots of people were raving about this system, but I thought, I bet he is the only one with whom it doesn't work. But no, it was fab! The first few days he didn't even wake up, and we had to wake him when the alarm went. Then he started to wake up when the alarm went, and did have wet pants, but did not have a wet bed, which is a great improvement in my books! Then he started to wake before the alarm went, and eventually he didn't wake at all or wet himself!

It was around 10 day when he had his first complete dry night, and they say that when you've stayed dry for 2 weeks, you're officially dry. This was after six weeks with my son, and we haven't looked back since!

Look at bedwettingalarm.co.uk

Or just google Rodger bedwetting alarm