9 year old still wet at night

[queenrollo]

My 9 year old is still wet every night. We have been under the eneuresis nurse and we have done the whole increasing fluid intake/measuring output thing and then went onto a bed-wetting alarm.
We had no success with the alarm at all and the nurse agreed we should take a break as my DS was becoming distressed by the whole process.
We cannot go onto the medication as DS really struggles with dry mouth at night and needs water by his bed. The nurse suggested seeing the GP to see if there is a reason behind him being thirsty at night but honestly the GP was no use.

We have tried not giving him a drink at night but he gets genuinely distressed as his mouth gets so dry. He is desperate to be dry at night too and it's starting to affect his mental health a bit.

Has anyone else had experience with a child not being dry at night at this age and also no success with the alarm?
We are going back to the eneuresis team in September but I'm not really sure what the next steps will be.

No personal experience other than having run Brownie camps as a Brown Owl. It's not that uncommon for girls to bed wet at that age (7-10). I don't know if boys are different.

I used to work in paeds.
My data may be outdated but at that time roughly 1 in 10 ten year olds wet the bed still at night and 1 in 5 five year olds. It's not uncommon.

My just turned 11 year old boy still does occasionally.

Could he try xylimelts for the dry mouth? Not sure if they're suitable for children but dh uses them as he has a CPAP machine and was waking up parched in the middle of the night

xylimelts.co.uk/what-are-xylimelts-and-how-can-they-help/

Says from age 5+

as folk have said, its not uncommon. My eldest was 10 when he stopped. just like that. By himself.
We had been attending the eneurisis clinic since he was 7 and tried all the methods. None of them worked. One day he woke up dry and that was the end of it. I was also a late bedwetter.

Have you looked on the ERIC website?

We did....

No blackcurrant, orange, caffeine drinks
7 big drinks in the day
No drinks 2 hours before bed
A double wee at bed time (one before teeth and one afterwards)
He helped change the sheets when wet

He was desperate to be dry before PGL and so we persevered with the alarm. It was exhausting and he moaned but we had a chart to monitor progress on the run up to the camp. He was dry a week before he went aged 10 years 2 months.

Maybe if he tackles the dry mouth he will drink less overnight and be less likely to urinate overnight.

Dh really rates the xylimelts I linked above. Think he got his latest packets from amazon.

What @lorisparkle says.

We got DS2 to drink more in the day and lived with washing bedding a lot. Waterproof sheets and pull ups for any trips away (always double pull ups, one was never enough to hold what he produced). He gradually got better and at 13 has just done scout camp without desmopressin or pullups. But still wet sometimes at home. But getting less often - he's now done a full month without an accident a couple of times. It does get better!

DS2 was still wet at night aged 10. We went to the clinic once when he was 8, tried the tablets for special occasions (sleepovers) but they didn't work and the GP wouldn't represcribe, never did the alarms as as couldn't face them. He hit puberty early around 10.5 and presto, dry at night.

Apparently BIL used to wet the bed until he was 11/12 and then just stopped. They tried everything before to help him.

I wasn't dry until 11, I would suggest not making it too much of a big deal and keeping him in pull ups or whatever makes him more comfortable. I would have happily stayed in them until 11, waking to a wet bed in the middle of the night every night with exasperated parents was traumatic.

The tablets don't work if you try just for the odd night though!

My son was on desmopressin and finally was dry at 16!!! It is usually because they aren't producing a hormone. You also don't just come off it but reduce the dosage and then come off. We tried at various stages and various ages to come off but it was in y11 he was finally dry.

Don't write off the medication.

@SeasonFinale they don't want to use the medication as it can cause a dry mouth as a side effect and he already suffers from that.

Yes and I am saying not to write it off especially if he ends up not being dry until 16 like my son wasn't. It is the only thing that works and dry mouth would be better than wet bed!

Is he waking up just with a dry mouth or actually thirsty?

I have used some products from this range that have been really good for helping with a dry mouth overnight, but obviously if he’s also thirsty it may not be any use.
Oralieve

My 10.5 year old has been on desmopressin for a year now. Without it he will always flood his pull up, with it, he’s slightly less likely to flood. I think it’ll be a long old journey but good to read some of the comments here.

No need to worry. It’s quite common, especially for boys, into the early teenage years. Don’t make a big deal of it for him. My ds was still doing it until he was 12.

My DS was wet until age 12. They all get there in the end. Try not to worry about it.

My DS has just turned 12 and is still wetting at night. He wears pull ups and will wet through them a couple of times a week, even on Desmopressin. He is going through puberty quite early - suddenly shot up, got hairy etc - so I’m hoping that the hormonal changes may help.

Good to read the positive experiences here - we are not alone!

Thank you so much for all sharing your experiences and advice. It has really helped me.

To try and answer some questions. The night drinking is definitely dry mouth rather than being thirsty so I will look into your suggestions to deal with that.

We do try to restrict drinks in that 2 hour gap before bedtime but this is so difficult with evening activities like Cubs where it is often physically demanding and actually finishes 30 mins before his usual bedtime.
With ref to daytime fluid intake, when we first started measuring output it was apparent he had a small bladder capacity. Working on improving this was very difficult as although school have been on board with this, it meant him needing the toilet a lot more and he became very self-concious of this. And one teacher found it disruptive and asked him to 'only go during break times' - which set us back as he then started refusing to drink so much at school because he was scared of wetting himself. (yes, I dealt with this)

He is in pull ups, we will have leakage maybe twice a week. He asked to try without them for a little while, but for the most part still didn't wake up when urinating. I would check on him when I went to bed myself to discover him fast asleep in a soaking wet bed. At any point that he wakes in the night with a wet bed it's dealt with calmly and together. He always helps with the laundry (in general, he loves hanging it on the line!)

My gut feeling is that we just have to wait this out a little longer, and I am fine with that. I just need to work a little harder on reassuring him that it's perfectly normal and lots of other 9 year olds are going through it too.

Thank you again, I'm so glad I posted as your responses have really helped me.

My dd is 11 and still wet every night. We have tried everything and to be honest I've just given up. She's on desomelts and we tried an alarm but she just slept through it. She was wet during the day a lot too but that seems to have stopped, fingers crossed. The enurisis clinic just keep asking her to do a diary and drink more, nothing 2 hours before bed and no fizzy drinks etc but after all these years it's not helped. I ended up putting her in the teen pull-ups but the nurse didn't want that but I'm going to have to do it again with the winter weather coming because I can't afford to run the washing machine/tumble every day.

Just a thought bit does he drink tea at all? My ds used to drink about 3 cups of tea a day and once we switched to decaff it stopped overnight.

My dd was wet until she hit puberty at 12 (night and day!) and now at 14 never has an accident.
It was so hard and felt endless and the shame was huge for her.
Of note, nothing helped. Meds. Alarms. Change of drinking (she only ever had water to drink ever her whole life)
Now, all is well.
You have my sympathy.

It used to really annoy me when 'professionals' would say not to put them in pull ups. Ds1 would wet the bed, duvet, pillow which would mean at least two extra loads of washing a day. I was working full time with 2 younger children and it was impossible.

Considering my mum and I were both wet at night until 10 and my cousin until he was 15 when disposable nappies were not available let alone pull ups there is no correlation for many many children.

I was literally in tears at work through exhaustion and my colleague said to just go back to pull ups until you are both mentally and physically ready.