6 year old wetting bed

[lolbrador]

Hello

Dd is six, she took a good while to potty train through the night. The health visitor was unconcerned and advised that it was something to do with vasopressin?!. I felt a bit fobbed off at the time but persevered.

She has been really good lately and we have only had a wet bed a few times, however this week she has had a wet bed every night. My first thought was infection, however she is completely fine throughout the day. It's like she gets into such a deep sleep it just happens.

Any tips on where I go from here? Do I contact the school nurse? Thank you in advance!

The health visitor is right. When I took ds1 to the GP he was not bothered until ds1 was closer to 8 years because it is considered normal to be wet at night until then.

We saw the school nurse and then a specialist continence nurse when ds1 was 8.

My top tips are.....

At least 7 big drinks a day
No black Currant drinks or caffeine drinks
No drinks 2 hours before bed
Double wee at bed time (before and after teeth)
Make the bed with a double layer with protective sheet between to make it easier in the night
No punishments but child to help strip and remake bed

You can get a prescription for desmopressen which adds to the hormone the body produces- if there is enough hormone in the body then the child does not wet the bed. The tablets are only a top up though so ds1 still wet the bed as he was not producing enough even with tablets at the beginning

What worked with ds1 and ds3 was an alarm. It was prescribed fir ds1 we bought one off Amazon for ds3. It took 3 weeks for alarm to work

The website www.eric.org.uk is fantastic!

I have similar with my 6 year old ds. He can go for weeks not wetting the bed but then will have a run of 2-3 weeks where he wakes up wet. It seems to be if he gets very tired or a little run down so sleeps in later than normal.
No advice on how to stop it I'm afraid but I dont think its unusual.

Thank you both. Will look into alarms. Just some reassurance that we aren't the only ones has been massively helpful

I read somewhere that about 1 in 6 children still wet the bed at age 6/7 ( can't remember exact statistic). This was certainly true in DS1s class in primary as I knew of at least 4 children who still wet the bed when they were at least 7.

It can be a genetic thing - both me and my mum were about 9/10 when we were dry at night. This was in the days before disposable nappies so nothing to do with the use of pull ups.

To tackle it with the alarm the whole family and particularly the child has to be really motivated and have the time and energy. It disturbs your sleep quite a lot!