4.5 yr old wetting the bed

[michaelad]

we finally managed to potty train our ds1 about 1 yr ago (he was very late and an utter pain to deal with) and have started leaving nappies off at night about 4 wks ago now (at his own request). So far so good..however the last 3 nights he wet his bed every night!! We have cut down on drinks before bedtime, make sure he has a wee before he goes to bed, talked to him about it.. what do I do now? Do I put him back in nappies at night because he's not really ready for it or do I persevere and just put up with the wet sheets and duvets?

It's not unusual for children to not be dry at night at that age, especially boys. But if had been ok for a few weeks.....has he been very tired the last few days or doing lots of activities during the day that would cause him to sleep deeply?

yes, he was wiped out when he came home from nursery yesterday!

Maybe keep trying without nappy for a few more nights then? I put a protective sheet or Pampers Care Mat thing under the sheet to protect the mattress. While the weather is warm you could leave off the duvet and just use a cheap fleece blanket (which you could put inside the duvet cover if he is attached to his duvet) - a lot easier to wash....

Yes, am reluctant to put him back in nappies..fleece blanket good idea! Fingers crossed!

you've probably thought of this but do you have a potty in his bedroom? This might make him more likely to get up and go to the loo if he needs it

It might..it's just that he shares his room with his very strongwilled toddler brother..and God knows what he would get up to if I left a potty there overnight, unsupervised

Have you any idea when he pees? Is it just before he wakes up for example? If this is the case you could wake him up around this time and take him to the loo yourself.

no, unfortunately not..whenever we get up it has already happened,

My daughter is 8 and we still have this problem. No routine as to reason, happy, stressed, worried, upset, makes no difference to wet beds. Doctor advises not to lift out of bed to take to toilet and don't restrict drinks at tea time. In some children the brain and bladder takes longer to send/receive messages from each other but this will fix itself in time. Some say its an attention thing but i disagree. Even so, i change dd, change bed without making a fuss. i don't even try to discuss it with her anymore as it doesn't make any difference at all. I try to be calm even though i'm tired and sometimes annoyed. Its a difficult time but it does get better. dd doesnt wet bed anywhere near as much as she used to.

Both I and my brother were closer to 10 than anything else when we reliably were dry at night.

Our theory is that we tended to 'run on empty' in terms of taking life at full tilt until we passed out at night, and were simply too tired to wake up!

Mum had a cunning setup on the bed with a waterproof sheet, then a big towel, then a fleece blanket, then the normal sheet etc. Result was if you woke up in the night to a wet bed you pulled out the soaked towel and had a fleece stay-dry layer between you and the waterproof in case you had a second (very rare) accident.

Once we were about 5, we each managed to deal with that without waking anyone else, I think (this is a long time ago!) or at least without waking each other as we shared a room.