Wetting the bed

[ItsNiceItsDifferentItsUnusual]

Ds1 has just turned 5. Before term ended before Christmas he had a couple of dry nights (was in pull ups overnight) so I seized the moment and put him in proper pants to see how we got on. He did brilliantly, no accidents at all, and was dry for a month.

Since starting back at school though we've had accidents nearly every night, just had our third in a row. It happens around 4/5am when obviously the bladder is full, and he's too deeply asleep to wake up.

Any advice on what to do? I really don't want to go back to pull ups and he was dry for so long, even when sleeping longer over the holidays, but starting school again has obviously exhausted him.

Do I keep going? Issue is that I'm getting very little sleep and on days I'm working (like today) I'm not going to manage getting everything washed and dried. It's an absolute flood of wee so I've got to wash and dry 2 x mattress protectors, sheet, duvet cover, duvet, and the actual mattress also needs sponging and dried out.

I feel like we're so close!

Can you not lift him at when you go to bed so his bladder isn't as full at 4am?
It's not something I'd usually suggest but if he's been dry for a while it might be worth it for a week or so until he settles back into school.

Can you make sure he doesn’t have any fluids in the two hours before he goes to bed.

For the mattress - put down plastic (I used a cut open black plastic bin bag) and put it on top of the mattress and underneath the sheets. If that doesn’t feel ok for you to do use the pampers changing mats to protect the mattress.

A lift at bedtime might help but I found it didn’t. I don’t know why. Logically it should.

What made a difference for us was a bed wetting alarm - the type that starts beeping when the sensor in the underpants gets wet.

Are you already double voiding at bed time?
So, toilet, bath, teeth, story, toilet, sleep.
Might be enough to get you that last hour or 2.

He needs to drink more through the day but stop after 6pm. This will enlarge his bladder through the day to enable him to hold it all the way through the night. The more we drink water the more we work the muscles in our bladder the less incontinent we are.

50% of 5 yr olds wet the bed (info from nhs bed wetting leaflet) - I’d do whatever you and ds want to. Personally I’d just keep going with dealing with the wet beds for a few more night before I’d declare it a non starter. Generally bedwetting is something that just stops (barring occasional accidents) as it’s related to the release of a hormone - which just happens - the age at which is happens varying from child to child. The age at which child becomes dry is often related to parents own history. So find out the age at which you/dh/dp became dry and that’ll give you a good idea. Personally (8 dc 7 dry) I’ve never done anything to “get the dry” and hate the idea of restricting drinks etc (how would we feel if we wanted a drink and someone said “no you can’t you might wet the bed!”) One of mine refused to wear a night time nappy from the age at which he became day time dry (3) and wet the bed every time until he was 6 when he basically became dry overnight! Most of the rest have become dry between the age of 4.5 and 5.5yrs. One was weird (drank nothing basically) and he was dry at night before he was in the day. For comfort the nhs do not consider nighttime wetting a problem before the age of 7/8 as for the vast majority it just stops without intervention.

So sorry for the delay, I got booted out and couldn't remember my log in details.

Double voiding is a good idea - will start that.

I think pp who said about drinking more earlier in the day has it - at school his drinking habits are very different to home. I have a rule that his drinks bottle must be empty when I pick him up. I suspect he downs it at 3pm . So he doesn't have any liquid about 6pm, but between 3-6 that's the main hours of intake, which can't be helping!

To the poster who suggested lifting, unfortunately I physically can't lift him! He's a very deep sleeper (obviously also not helpful) and he's big enough now that I can't lift him as a dead weight.

We had a dry night last night, so that's positive at least! He came into our bed at 5am, refused to go the the loo, and then didn't go until almost 7am. He's so inconsistent - the night before he wet at 5am then needed another 2 wees 5-6am.

Thank you for your help!