Almost 7 year old still very wet at night.

[OuchyMcOuch]

Ds is 7 in September and he still isn't dry at night. He wears pyjama pants and each morning it's sopping wet. If we take the pyjama pants off the bed is soaking - ds just sleeps right through in a soaking bed. He's a very deep sleeper, I regularly go in to his room to sort clothes while he's asleep and he never wakes up.

I know they say you should wait until they're 7 before seeking medical advice, but is there something I should be trying now?

He's not troubled at all about the fact that he still needs a pull up or that he wets the bed. He's not a massive drinker, he has about 2 cups to drink with tea and nothing else afterwards.

Drinking more in the day to expand the bladder and going to the doctor to check for an sti, other than that there isn't much you can do as it's normally hormone related.

Two reasons for night time enuresis - hormones and deep sleep.

Bed wetting considered normal until 7. Once past that, head to doc.

If you suspect deep sleep is the culprit, try an Enuresis alarm (note, for deep sleepers, they generally wake the parents, not the kids initially, so you will have to take over as the alarm and rouse the child). Males do good ones - you will need one with alternating tones and vibration - otherwise it will get ignored... (Subconsciously or otherwise)

If you think hormones, then see doc for meds such as desmo, (synthetic hormone).

If you are really lucky, you might need both.

The eric website has lots of info.

Lol, Malem, not males. Stupid autocorrect.

oh thanks, I'll look in to an Enuresis alarm. I hadn't wanted to do dream sees just yet, as I wanted him to wake himself up to wee, but I guess he's not doing that. He's a super deep sleeper, we were on holiday last summer and there was a massive thunderstorm and lightning hit the house and it honestly sounded like a canon going off on the roof. Everyone in the house was woken up by it apart from ds :o

I guess I should be grateful he's a good sleeper!

Fairly sure it's not a bladder infection, he's not ill, no fever, no weird smelly wee.

I'll have a look at the Eric website too. I don't want to make an issue of it for him, because he's so unconcerned by it.

My child is only just dry at 8. Many children are still wet at night until 7 or so.

We didn't do anything, didn't restrict drinks at all as he has chronic constipation and bowel impactions and is on medication. Restricting drinks just didn't feel right for me generally.

We did buy an alarm at about 7 ... and used it for a week before giving up and going back to pull ups as it seemed to cause him stress.

Personally I wouldn't go down the medication route for anything that isn't essential at the age of 7.

No magic answer here but just wanted to say my DD was a regular bd wetter up to about 9 and then sporadically for the next couple of years. Only at 12 did we have a whole year of dry bed! She is a deep sleeper. I just put one of those impermeable mats under her bottom sheet so I could just whip off the sheet and mat in the morning - the top sheet/duvet was often dry.

I have a thread on behaviour and development about my ds (7.6) being wet at night, over 200 posts full of brilliant advice and support.

You are very welcome to join us op, we are now on dry night number 10!

Good luck to you all

My ds went through this until he was about 12 I think. I used to take him to the Eurenesis clinic every month and he had an alarm. It was very stressful all round but he did grow out of it eventually.

I remember feeling embarrassed when he was in Y7 and it happened at a sleepover

He is now 16.

Enuresis sp sorry

We were referred to the enuresis clinic and after discounting anything serious, DS had to complete a drink & toilet diary over a few weeks...

They recommended 5-6 drinks throughout day i.e. 2 before school, 1-2 at school and 1-2 after school before 5 or 6pm, with a trip to loo on waking, before school, break time, after school, after dinner & before bed.

Exercising the bladder during the day logically reduces nighttime emptying..

I didn't think DS was lacking drinks, so thought it would be a waste of time but the diary highlighted how little he was actually using his bladder during the day & forced him to be 'mindful'. He had been drinking 2-3 times a day max (probably too much in one go then and at the wrong times) and rarely using the loos at school.

Hope something works for you soon. Good luck.

Flumps and everyone else, thanks so much for that. Thinking about it, I don't think ds drinks much at all during the day. I give him a water bottle to take to school and most days it comes back full, or almost full. I try and tell him to drink more, but when he's at school all day it's difficult. He has a couple of glasses of apple juice in the morning, and maybe one glass of water with his tea. I'm going to try encouraging him to drink more during the day to see if that helps.

The sleepover thing really worries me. He's desperate to go on one (I think he's a bit too young still, but that's another thing) but I think if he has to put a pull up on at night at someone else's house he would be very embarrassed.

Whereisegg, I'll have a look out for your thread, thanks!

On the sleepover note, I ran a cubs group - there were always cubs there of 7 and older who were still in pull-ups. It's no big deal.

To be honest, it's so normal, it's really silly that parents are curbing their kids' activities because of it. It's the whole last taboo shite, and everyone is convinced their kid is the only one not dry. Just not true at all. And leaving them out of sleepovers and overnight activities just perpetuates the myth that all kids are dry at three, or whatever.

Give ds a plastic bag and two pull-ups, and tell him how to deal with it. At cub camp we were very discreet. The kids were fine. It was really no big deal.

(We take spare sleeping bags too. There are always wet sleeping bags)

Does your son snore? I'm curious because this is one sign of obstructive sleep apnea, which is linked to bedwetting in children. The most common treatment for this is, I believe, getting the adenoids and tonsils removed. A paediatric ENT would be the best person to evaluate this for you. Here's a link with some basic info on paediatric sleep apnea, in case it helps you.

emedicine.medscape.com/article/1004104-overview