DS7 and bedtime wetting

[TakeABobbleHat]

DS is 7 and has never been dry at night. We’ve tried all the usual things - he doesn’t drink excessive amounts before bed, he has a wee before his bath and then again before he goes to sleep, he doesn’t have fizzy drinks/blackcurrant etc, we’ve tried without a pull-up on, made sure he’s not having a lazy wee before he gets up. The pull-up is always very heavy in the morning.

He’s NT and has no other health issues, happy bright boy, no issues at school/home. We have a younger DC who was dry at night at 3.

Should we try a £30 alarm from Amazon and give that a go, or go through the GP and get a referral to the continence service? We’ve checked in with the GP a couple of times and they’ve always left it up to us, never expressed any concern. We’d hoped he’d grow out of it but there’s been no improvement.

Bed wetting beyond in older children isn’t unusual but it’s something people don’t seem to talk about. My eldest daughter has SEN issues and it’s only because of this and discussions her persistent bed wetting, that friends opened up to me and said that their older children were the same and were also using pull-ups, etc,. I wet the bed until I was 12 and my parents made me feel utterly ashamed about it which is dreadful as I had no idea I was doing it. Semi-waking a child for a last wee just as you go to bed, can help but it does seem to be something which children naturally grow out of. DH is a Scout Leader and regularly has parents approach him in advance of a camp, regarding their children who still wet the bed. It’s always managed by the discreet use of pull-ups and has never been an issue. You’re not alone. 😊

We've just been through this with DS(9) and the issue with him was an overactive bladder muscle that prevented his bladder from growing so it only held around a third of what it was supposed to! Alright in the day (but did mean lots of wees and lots of 'only just / didn't quite make it in time' moments but disaster at night.

We discovered this through referral to the childrens continence service via GP so I'd go back again. Lay it on thick about him getting upset about it.

We did a few days charting - so writing down every drink and approx size in ml and also weeing into an old baby bottle to measure what was coming out.

Then we started an 'expansion' routine of having a big drink (270ml) every 2 hours to try to stretch the bladder.

This made NO difference (but it does in some kids so maybe worth a try) and when we did the charting again after about a month you could see no change.

Eventually he needed medication to relax the muscle AND the drinking regime to expand bladder and solve the problem.

We also tried the alarm which worked for a bit but because it hasn't fixed the actual physical problem it wore off after a few months. He was also exhausted getting up to wee every couple of hours!

Hi there. Our eldest boy still wet the bed until he was 10/11. Our youngest, like yours, was dry from early on with no accidents at all. I sort of had faith he'd grow out of it in time - isn't there some hormone that needs to be present before they become dry at night? We just used pj pants and bed mats for him until he grew out of it.

Thankyou all so much! Really helpful. It’s the one thing I’ve read lots of conflicting advice about - some sources seem to claim you can train children to stay dry at night, others seem to say the hormone needs to be there. He is fed up with the pull-ups and hates them.

@FusionChefGeoff that’s really interesting about the bladder muscle, DS can be similar with the ‘only just made it’. I’m glad your DS has solved the problem now. My son had a couple of scans of that area as a toddler as he had a really nasty UTI that required lots of antibiotics and besides a harmless cyst on one of his kidneys they didn’t pick anything up, but that was a while ago now.

You can do your own charting just out of interest? It's very simple, I used an app called Dry Dawn. Pick a day when you're at home is much easier.

Work on a big drink (so an adult sized mug full every 2 hours which must be drunk within 15 minutes. Then nominate a jug / bottle for every wee.

You'll see very quickly what the average volume per wee is and if it's consistently less than 250 (when DS was 8 they said it should be 270) it would suggest a physical issue with his bladder size.

Firstly, if you haven't already have a look at www.eric.org.uk/

Secondly, being dry at night is to do with a chemical that our bodies produce called vasopressin. When we sleep urine production is reduced so our bladder doesn't become full and we therefore don't need to empty it. Some children don't start producing this hormone until much later on.

The drug you can get prescribed by the GP is called Desmopressin and if they take that and are dry then you can basically say it is the vasopressin they are missing and it will happen at some point. There are valuable supermarket shelf spaces taken up with pyjama pants for older children because it is far more common than people think and there is still a stigma attached to bed wetting so no one ever talks about it.

We did everything, measuring input and output, half term would be a great time for you to try this, we did the alarm, which did stop them but they woke up in a complete hysterical state and it woke us as it was so loud. Desmopressin worked so we just used pyjama pants until he was 10 because I wasn't prepared to medicate my child every day but did use it for holidays.