5 years old and still very wet at night

[Shugarlips]

DS potty trained himself (more or less) at 2 years old and had virtually no accidents.

He is a bad sleeper and always has been. In and out of our bed at night, wakes at the slightest noise or movement - have tried everything.

We use trainer pants at night and he is always wet.
Should I lift or encourage him to go when he wakes? He gets very grumpy when I try and move him at night and he is too big to carry around.I didn't lift my daughter and I don't understand how this encourages him to control his bladder all night.
When we restrict drinks after 6pm he is drier but still wet.
Any suggestions???

Don't do anything except wait. He will become dry when his body is ready, when he starts to produce a hormone that regulates urine production during sleep. Then he will produce less quantity of more concentrated urine, which his bladder can hold all night. He will then start to wake when the full bladder sends a message to his brain and get up for the loo. It is purely a developmental thing and not really trainable, although you can help by getting him to drink lots during the day, then limiting drinks at night, also no fizzy drinks after lunchtime and nothing with caffeine, i.e. cola or hot choc.

It could be that he wakes as he is wetting some of the time, if he has woken himself you could encourage him to go to the loo while he is fully awake. But I wouldn't wake him up if he gets upset/grumpy. Carrying him to the loo while asleep is pointless, as he isn't aware of what he's doing and it just teaches him to keep on wetting in his sleep.

You could have a word with the school nurse for helpful hints, but treatment is never recommended until a child is 7.

wait and forget lifting.

He will get there in the end.

25% of 5 year olds are not dry at night. (DD2 wasn't till nearly seven and still then had occasional accidents at night till nine.)

You don't get to hear about it because many parents seem to think it is shameful enough not to talk about.

Of course we all get to hear about the little darlings who have been dry day and night from the age of 2...

sugarlips..i didn;t know what do to about night time training with my first child. i mean i went by the advice in a potty training book. it said not to lift unless all other methods tried, because lifting can cause sleep problems. Apparently most kids dry by 4 at night, but may have occasional accident up to age of even 7. So it said to leave nappy on until it was dry, and by age 4 or 5 would be ready.

He just hit 4 in july and he was still waking up with a wet nappy. But i suspected he was just weeing in the early hours after he had woken up. I also thght, since the nappy is on, he is using it as a comfort thing and being lazy rather than getting up for the loo. So i decided enough was enough. i explained as simply as i could that i would leave the light on in bathroom, since it is next door to his bedroom. If he needed to wee then he was to creep out without waking his sister, and wee like the big boy he was.

I said if he manages he would get a treat because he was a proper man. seemed to work. He hasnt wet his bed yet since july that is. If he had wet the bed i would have tried 1 more or 2 more days to see if there was improvement. if not i'd go back to nappies for a few months before trying again.

So with my daughter she's 3, i will attempt nappy removal when she's 3.5 i hope it works the same.

maybe you should try it. i mean are you sure your child isn't weeing early hours of the morning as opposed to night?

only problem i faced was son was scared about doing poo alone, he said he needs help cleaning himself. So i said he should call me first, but if he cant get to me, then go toilet and give me a shout. So the little squirt decides to do poo on the night i decide to remove his nappy for good. Thankfully his bowel movements have moved to daytime hours so my sleep is not interrupted anymore lol.

Thank you so much for all your helpful ideas and support - particularly the bit about not hearing about it with other children because mums may think there is something shameful in it.

I don't think I will lift as I think it encourages night wetting but encourage him when he wakes naturally.

Comforting to know that it will happen when he is ready and that there's not a lot we can do until then.