Night wetting six year old

[YukoandHiro]

I have a just turned six year old going into year 2. She's never had a dry night despite being day trained for 3 years.
We have been waiting to this magic hormonal moment but nothing is changing and she's now wanting to be free of pull ups. We have just started going without pull ups to try to help her train but she sleeps so deeply all we're ending up with is loads of washing every day (she doesn't wake when it's happened so rolls around and it gets all over the duvet too).
I'm not sure what to do next. Should I go in and wake her in the middle of the night? (She's dry when we go to bed about 11pm).
The thing is she's always been lowish sleep needs so once she's awake she's v hard to resettle. If she ever wakes due to a nightmare eg at 4am she rarely goes back to sleep that night. So I am very reluctant to do this. But not sure how else to get her body to signal to her that it's time to wake.
Should I try a bed wetting alarm? How do they work?

unless things have changed since my son was that age, 6 wasn’t seen as an age to I’ve concerned yet, my son was 8 before he was reliably dry…he wasn’t a fan of pyjama pants, as we called them, but he (and I!) was even less keen on a wet bed most nights, so pyjama pants it was.

I should say he was 8 before he was reliably dry at night, he was day dry from before he was 3

I had this with one of mine. Stopped fluids after 6pm unless she asked for them, and walked her to the toilet when we went to bed. Worked a treat.

We’ve just started using a wetting alarm with our 6 year old. Working well so far. the aim is for her to be dry at night by the end of the summer holiday.

My now 7 yo DS was still wet at night at 6. I too was waiting for hormone to kick in, attempts at going cold turkey with the pull ups had failed. So once the weather turned warmer this year, I decided to have 1 last try because he didn’t want to be in pull ups anymore.
I layered up his sheets with bed pad, sheet, bed pad, sheet so if he had an accident I only had one layer to sort. I reduced the amount he drank at tea time (used to be a big sports bottle, now just a cup). I then put him to bed and got him up about 9:30 and 11:30 for the last wee. We’re now down to 1 wee about 10:30 and he’ll go right through. But he’s a heavy sleeper and goes straight back. You could try it and see how easily she goes back to sleep.

I had this with my DD. She turned 6 in April and would have accidents every night. Like you I was beginning to become concerned so took her to the GP (she does only have one working kidney so wasn’t sure if this was contributing to anything). They did refer her to community nurses who would have gone down the route of a bed wetting alarm but did say some children take longer for that little thing in their brain to click and wake them up.
I tried everything though, not giving drinks after a certain time (easier said than done when they ask for a drink and you say no!) waking up when I went to bed etc but nothing worked.
Suddenly she just started to have dry nights and has done ever since (touch wood) so didn’t actually need the appointment with the nurses
I used Huggies dry night mats which just stick to the sheet and are so absorbent and brilliant! I would sometimes need to wash the duvet if it got on that but they helped massively with the washing side of things

It is not an issue at 6; just wait. It is completely normal. Even in year six there will be two or three who are regularly wet at night. The main annoyance is the cost of pull-ups .

2 of my dc were 8. It isn't uncommon. It was like sometime flicked a switch one day and that was it. One of them had trouble with over active bladder so was on meds in the day and the consultant decided to prescribe for the night too (we didn't ask and were not bothere) but it didn't work sp we stopped giving it. It all came together when they were ready.

For sleepovers etc we bought a nice baggy onesie so it hid the pull up and the dc would go get changed in the loos and take their wash bag to pop it in in the morning.

And as I told my dc, they sell the dri nites pants for age up to 15 in Tesco so they're are obviously plenty of others their age who need them.

Have you been referred to the bladder and bowel clinic. My dc went through this, tried alarms and various medications and is finally signed off age 13. The natural hormones didn't kick in until puberty here. You can buy washable fabric bed pants that are a bit more grown up looking as she gets older.

Alarm worked like magic on my eight year old. You need to push through a few nights of everyone being woken up by it, though. Took approx three nights.

My DS1 was dry in the day at 2yo but in pull ups at night until 7yo. We waited until they were dry in the mornings and that's how long it took. I think this is quite common?

It’s still completely normal at 6, just go with it rather than crating work / stress. It will happen , mine were more like 7/8 until
they were consistently dry at night having been day dry since age 3.

Have a look at the ERIC website but we've been on a long journey with DS(11)

• no blackcurrant drinks
• 1 x full glasses of water every 2 hours (to stretch the bladder)
• no drinks after 5pm
• wee before teeth / story, then another wee just before bed

We did also use a Rodger bed wetting alarm which worked for a few months, then stopped, so we had another go and it improved.

We're on medication number 2 at the moment which seems to be working and he's been diagnosed with an overactive and reduced capacity bladder.

Thanks everyone for the advice. I think we might keep going for a couple of weeks and see how we go but if there's no improvement stop and speak to the GP.
We're going on holiday in the third week or the holidays so definitely going to have to use pull ups for security while away.
Re: no drinks after 5pm, we can't do that as often don't get home til 5pm after clubs and she's on 2nd centile so has to have calorific drinks before bed.
I'm going to try waking her for a wee at 10.30 and see if it helps.

Ok I'm going for the waking technique tonight - just took her to the toilet at 11pm and surprisingly she did a huge wee. So we'll see what happens in the AM.

Amazingly she did go right back to sleep immediately after despite being awake enough to walk to and from the bathroom, so I guess I was wrong about that