Help! 5 year old still not dry at night!

[Kat70]

My little boy is five on thursday and he still has night after night when he wets the bed.
We only just stopped putting a nappy on his a couple of weeks ago because we felt that we should just go for it and see how he went.

We lift him out a couple of times a night and he has a wee and those nights he is generally ok. But if we leave it too long he wets. I always ask him next day about it but he doesnt remember.

We don't make a fuss just sort the bed out and make him dry and pop him back in.

My daughter was dry by 2 and half! What are we doing wrong? Any tips? HELP?!

My daughter is 8 and has only recently become dry at night after we acquired a night-time alarm from the health visitor. We really thought it would never work as she is such a deep sleeper and would sleep in a wet bed unaware previously. However, after about 3 weeks with the alarm something clicked and she hasn't wet the bed since! It's really strange how things changed so suddenly. I wouldn't worry too much at this age - apparently it's still very common at that age and more prevalent amongst boys, but it might reassure you to talk to your health visitor/school nurse. Good luck!

My ds was 6 before he was dry at night and he still gets the odd wet night if he's upset or worried about anything.

from age 4 we tried him on and off but he had far more wet than dry nights, despite lifting him at 10pm and reducing evening fluids etc.

After his 6th birthday, he asked me if he could stop wearing pull ups. I said of course.. It was up and down for the first month but i just never mentioned it either way. If his bed was wet i just took the sheets off and never commented. I also never commented on the dry bed either so as not to make him feel disappointed when he was wet.

It all came together really after about a month to 6 weeks.

Don't worry and just go with the flow. My hv told me it's perfectly normal, particularly with children who are heavy sleepers and training doesn't really work unless their bladder and sphincter control is ready anyway. She said that those who train would have likely had the same success without training...

Good luck and hope you feel better.

Hi Kat70. It's unlikely there's anything wrong or that you are doing anything wrong. DS was the same, but it wasn't considered an issue until he was 7. At 7, DS had an alarm and it worked really quickly. It's not like day-time toilet training. We were told that either he just wasn't waking up when he needed to go (hence the alarm)or that a certain hormone which reduces urine production at night hadn't kicked in, or possibly a combination of both. It's frustrating. Have a word with your HV as DS is 15 now and approaches might have changed since then.

My DD was 7 also, we had spoken to the dr and were referred to the clinic, she didn't need to have an alarm as we just did the charts and something clicked - in the first week she had a few dry nights and with in 2-3 weeks she was completely dry. Prior to going to see the nurse I was sometimes changing her sheets 3 times a night!! So it is def worth having a word with your GP.

Hi, don't worry - there are all sorts out there. My older DDs were dry at night by 3 yrs. My new batch of offspring - I thought they would never be dry! DS is just 7 - has been reliably dry for 6 months. DD will be 5 in 3 weeks - seems to like the moisture - no chance of dryness yet, but I have hope - she has started to talk about dry nights in an aspirational way, IYKWIM.