4 yrold still wetting the bed

[greycat]

my 4yr old is still wetting the bed. he was dry at night when he was 3 then after really bad illness he reverted. after advice from the health vistor we put him back in pull ups. he does not wet these- ever. then as soon as we take the pull up off he wets again. i really am at a loss to know what to do for the best. he is rally bright 4 yr old and hates being a baby and wearing a 'nappy'(he has a younger sister and hates that he has to wear a nappy like her). should i just not worry about it for the min or not put him in pull ups and suffer the consequences?

don't worry about it grey cat. My 5 and 1/2 yr old ds still wets the bed occasionally - about once a week. We have found that the only thing that helps is to take him to the loo when we go to bed ourselves i.e 11.30 ish. He will always do a wee then , meaning he can often stay dry till the morning. I tdoesn't always work, but it's worth a try. Rubber sheets help too.good luck.

thank you! like you have tried lifting and sometimes he manages to make it through other times not. so you never reverted back to pull ups then?

Yes we did, just for a little bit. Then we used those pampers mat things - but of course that meant he still woke up with wet pyjamas. In fact he has had a really bad week this week and wet the bed 2 out of the last 4 nights.Other times he will be dry for weeks. TBH I've stopped fretting about it. I just calmly accept that he will do it when he is good and ready. The mountain of laundry pisses me off occasionally, but I keep telling myself it won't last forever.

My 5 year old still wets sometimes, and until 2 weeks ago I was lifting him every night at 11 to make him wee on the loo!

Don't worry too much about it ..... but try getting siome character pants and letting him wear those to bed .... as my 5 year old secretly liked the idea of being abbaby like his younger brother.

In case you're interested in picture books about bedwetting, I've just written one called 'Toby and the Flood' (available from Amazon and Play.com).
I wrote it because there are very few children's books that deal with bedwetting, and I always found with my own child that using stories can be a good way to bring problem subjects out into the open.
Incidentally,you'd be surprised how many children are still in nappies at night when they start school... I think bladder size has a lot to do with it.

A friend of mine has been advised with her 4 year old that lifting is not a good thing as it sort of fails to train the bladder to last for long period (this may of course be rubbish).

How long have you tried leaving the pull-ups off for and seeing what happens? If you make the bed with a sheet on top, then a waterproof sheet and then another normal sheet underneath, you can just whip the top 2 layers off if something happens so there is minimal night time dispution for all.

Don't think its uncommon though and would not be concerned at all except in so far as it is upsetting your son.