"lifting" for a wee at night...it works for us, is there any reason we shouldn't?

[mrsbabookaloo]

Dd has been out of nappies at night for a month or so, we had lots of wet mornings at first but neither she nor we wanted to go back to nappies.

Dh now takes her to the loo every night before he comes to bed and it works a treat; she barely wakes and is always dry in the am. However, I have a sneaking feeling that I've read somewhere that it's not a good idea.

Does anybody know why> Any opinions?

I would think it wasn't a good idea mainly because DD doesn't actually know that she needs to go and then goes iyswim

It worked fine for dd2. After a couple of months we didn't need to do it any more.

Yes, I can see that it's not training her to take responsibility for it herself, twims, but maybe this will come naturally a bit later, as epithet says.

Thanks for these thoughts...any more?

It seems to work for many. For us it didn't, it meant DS wet the bed more often as it conditioned his body to think he needed to go more often.

I know many people who have used it and it worked though. Whatever works for you.

It didn't work for me - and I mean personally! It represents some of my earliest memories and still pisses me off royally to this day!

General opinions seem to be rather against lifting at the moment, I'm sure they'll change back at some point. We lifted no.2 and it worked for him. Like most things with childcare, if it works for you and your child, then why not?

It worked for me - although we didn't have accidents, I found that mine woke up TOO BLOODY EARLY if I didn't lift them

Still lift the six year old if I want a lie-in!!!!

I think it only becomes an issue if your child gets to 7 or so and still needs to be lifted. My sis has been taking her DS to a urologist for not being dry at night (he's 7 and a half) and was told lifting at night gives all the wrong signals to the bladder and doesn't give the bladder a chance to be able to hold a night's worth of wee.

There is a big emphasis on the child being in control of their bladder and not the other way around.

We have the same issues with our nearly 7 year old DS and we do lift him, as being wet in the morning is very distressing for him. We won't get a referral until he is seven though.

You are reinforcing the "wee whilst asleep" message for the brain.

Fine if it works for you now but wouldn't recommend it as a long term plan.

I've seen older children in Enuresis Clinic who have been lifted for so long that they have never learnt to be dry at night - their bladders haven't developed the tone and capacity to hold a night's worth of wee.

worked for ds1.
came out of night nappies at 2y11m - because I asking in passing if he wanted it, and he said no (ekk).
So I lifted, for about 3mo, then being heavily pg and knackered just forgot and went to bed.
Never had any problems while lifting, or once I stopped.

You may find that lifting doesn't stop the wetting later at night [bitter experience]

One of the tips that the enuresis nurse gave us was to shower in the mornings for social reasons.

Don't restrict drinks, in fact encourage the child to drink more, to stretch the bladder and increase capacity.

Avoid fizzy drinks and blackcurrant (can't remember why, do they irritate the bladder?)

Double or triple dress the bed - waterproof/bottom sheet, another waterproof/bottom sheet, easy to whip off wet sheets at midnight and ta-da a fresh bed with no faffle

OK, I get it more now - especially like the way you put it, Sidge. So we shouldn't do it for too long. Maybe we'll try and have her go through the night again soonish.

worked for us we did it for a couple of weeks then forgot one night and there was no accident so we stopped.

when dd (4.5) first came out of nappies we had to lift her every 2 hours until midnight, she was then dry till the morning. 4 months on we now only lift her when we go to bed - we make her walk to the toilet so she is semi-awake and does remember going in the morning but falls back to sleep straight away without a fuss. Some nights she pre-empts us and we hear her get herself out of bed. I really don't think it's a huge problems if it works for you.

Boysarelikedogs you are right.

Drink loads in the daytime to stretch and tone the bladder - like any muscle it needs to be used to get stronger. Regular drinking and weeing will give it a workout.

Blackcurrant irritates the bladder - we recommend avoiding all red, purple and brown drinks after about 4 pm ie Ribena, berry juices, cola, tea and hot chocolate.

Pick a time to go cold turkey and not lift/wear pullups - your child needs to be wet to develop the bladder-brain signals, ie full bladder stretches, triggers brain to wake, child gets up for wee. As the bladder gets more toned, and the hormone that reduces the volume of wee overnight increases, the child will become dry. The age at which this happens can vary hugely but up to 6 is 'normal'.

I did this and had no problems

sidge .. how do you decide when to try. Ds has been dry during the day for over a year and I havent given much thought to trying over night as his nappies are always full come morning.

I am not convinced ds would get out of bed anyway ... he gets into bed at bedtime and doesnt get out again until his rabbit clock tells him he can!

Ds is 4, soon to be 5, and dh still takes him to the bathroom at about 11pm otherwise he sleeps so deeply that he will wet himself & only wakes up once he gets cold. I confess it's for our sanity we still lift him - can't face the 2am stripdown - but I have assumed that he will eventually grow out it, but am taking on board the idea of training his bladder!

Not done any good for us - it just means that DD is overtired from that being slightly woken every night.

She has asked for pull ups again.

DS hasn't needed it.

BALD - fresh bed is easy like that until you get a child who sleeps with legs intertwined round the bloody duvet

We did this for ages with ds1, who had a real problem with bedwetting from the age of 7 onwards, having previously been dry since about 4.

For no apparent reason he went from being almost totally reliable at night to wetting almost every night, sometimes twice a night, and we were at our wits end with it.

We did find that lifting him meant a dry night, and frankly we were so knackered at the time that it was preferable to having to get up in the middle of the night and change his bed - which was a high bunk bed, so not easy to change either. Even then he was sometimes wet before we got to him.

After a while, we tried a bed-mat alarm, which did help, in that it reduced the wetting to once or twice a week, but that last bit seemed intractable (and the alarm mat packed up because we'd used it for so long), so we went back to lifting him when we went to bed, to ensure dry and undisturbed nights.

We did see the enuresis specialist, who was little or no help whatsoever, and he was also prescribed desmopressin spray for when he was sleeping away from home (including school journey in Year 6).

Then we were lent another alarm, which fitted inside a pair of knickers so was more sensitive, and that did make an improvement too - but we were still lifting as well, mainly, I suppose, because we didn't want to take the risk - we thought it could all go back to square one again.

Finally, as ds1 was at senior school, we did decide that we should give it a go, talked to ds1, and went 'cold turkey' on lifting, and he stayed dry - and has been dry ever since.

To this day I don't know whether we went on lifting him far too long, or whether, if we'd stopped earlier he would have gone back to wetting. I know it seemed endless at the time, and is now a memory that can still make me feel tired.

Buy a couple of waterproof bottom sheets Bo, have plenty of dry sheets, blankets and jimjams on standby - check them before you go to bed - and bite the bullitt

As an alternative to the waterproof bottom sheet, you can buy a padded, waterproof backed washable bedmat. Because it lies on top of the sheet, rather than being the sheet, it is easier to whip it out and replace it. We used one when we were having the problem with ds1, and it was really useful.

Bodiddly - if a child is reliably dry in the daytime and you feel up to it then you can go for it. Many children subconsciously wet in the night if they are wearing nappies/pullups; they semi-wake, think "oh I've got my nappy on" and wee then go back to sleep. If you remove the nappy they then wake to wee.

There are no magic answers as it varies so much from child to child - what works for one won't necessarily work for another, even with siblings. Just because your eldest was dry at night at 4 (for example) doesn't mean your youngest will be. But it's a good idea to try and aim for night dryness by about 5 or 6 as by then most children have enough vasopressin (the wee reducing hormone) and the bladder tone and capacity for night dryness.