Night time dryness

[CakeAndTea18]

Morning!

I wonder if anyone has any advice to offer on this situation:

I have 6 y/o DS and 4 y/o DD, neither of whom have ever been dry at night and both wear a pull up. I have tried several times before with DS, watching what he drinks, taking him to the loo at 10pm, 3am and 5am. Each time he still manages to wet in-between these times and after a week or so we end up going back to pull ups.

I've been trying again (with both children this time) during the Easter holidays and had no luck with either child, except for one dry night for DS with me taking him to the toilet at the above times. I wondered if anyone had any advice? I'm struggling to get back to sleep after taking both children to the toilet in the night so I'm starting to get quite tired and obviously need to wash all the sheets next day.

To add, both children are heavy sleepers and are not woken by the fact that they've wet in the night.

I've heard it said that night time dryness is to do with a release of hormones and obviously don't want to demoralise the DC by continuing to try and failing but equally I feel like it's getting quite late in life now for my DD who is seven in June.

I'm grateful for any advice.

Sorry, DS is 7 in June not DD

Nothing worked for ds. The hospital (at 7 years old) told us to remove the pull ups, no fluids 2 hours before bed and get them to do 2 wees before bed. It helped a bit but didn’t stop it.
He’s just turned 10 and has stopped so unfortunately I just think you have to wait it out until their body is ready to do it.

Did you do away with the pull ups permanently after this advice? I know it won't be forever, I just feel like I'm a bad parent band want to get it right.

Yes. No more pull ups after 7.
You’re def not a bad parent. My other 2 were dry day and night before 3 and did exactly the same with all of them.
It’s really common so cut yourself some slack.
I wanted ds to be dry at night by year 6 so there’d be no issue on the school residential they go on.
I presume you’ve got a plastic sheet under your normal sheet?

I would go on the Eric website www.eric.org.uk there is loads of advice

Bed wetting is normal until at least 7/8 and linked to genetics, heavy sleeping and a lack of hormones.

Things that can help are

At least 7 big drinks a day
Cutting out black currant squash and caffeine drinks
A wee before and after brushing teeth
Helping with changing sheets ( NOT as a punishment)

There are tablets your GP can prescribe and you can get alarms through the specialist continence service or you can buy them

With DS1 the tablets only worked a small amount and the alarm took a couple of months - he was just dry in time for year 6 residential!

Ds2 was dry day and night in a week at 3!

Ds3 we did not bother with gp or tablets we just bought an alarm and he was dry at about 8

We continued to use pull ups until we had the time, energy and motivation to tackle it. I had three young children and really could not face washing a duvet, a pillow plus all the bedding on a daily basis.

It is so frustrating that parents are not told how normal bed wetting is. I knew at least 3 other children in ds1s class who were not dry at 7.

Yes, always a waterproof sheet to save the mattress. I don't suppose there's much else you can do is there!? Thanks for the support.

Just to say taking them to toilet in the night is not necessary and just reduces the amount of wee in the bed rather than trains them not to wee

We double made the bed with a waterproof sheet in the middle to make life easier.

Ah Lorisparkle, thank you for the info, that's so reassuring! I will have a look at the website and a chat to the GP.

It is so frustrating isn't it! My friend with a younger child who is dry at night just looked at me totally bewildered when I mentioned it and suggested a sticker chart - he's not even aware he's wet in the night so no amount of rewards will help

I know what you mean - people just don't talk about it.

I was exhausting myself with all the washing with ds1 when the school nurse said 'no pull ups'. My colleague found me in tears and said just put them back in pull ups and tackle it later. It was such a relief!

It certainly runs in my family and when both my mum and I were little 'pull ups' had not been invented and we were both 10 when we were dry at night.

Over sharing here... I wet the bed till 7 or 8. Perfectly normal. There's not much you can do other than what people have suggested. They do it when they're developmentally ready. Don't beat yourself up about it, you're not a bad mum. I beat myself with this stick all the time!

My mum pushed us to push DS to wear pants overnight, and periodically take him to the loo / wee in potty when he was 4/5 (he was dry in the daytime already).

In hindsight I should've said no. I knew he wasn't ready and one day he sat up in bed, crying, and told me and DH he was too scared to go to sleep in case he wet the bed.

That was it for me. We went back to pull-ups.

He then surprised us by telling us he wants to try wearing pants at night. So we double-made the bed with a waterproof sheet at the very bottom, sheets and a towel under him, and left him to it. He started doing a teeny wee (change of bottoms / pants only, sheets were dry) just before he woke up for a wee. And then he got the hang of it and we haven't looked back.

Your kids will do it in their own time. Don't push, don't rush, and I very strongly recommend to not wake them up during the night for a wee. This is the skill they have to learn and they won't if you do it for them.

They'll get there x

I can't tell you how relieved I am to read all your similar experiences, huge thank you for your words of support

I won't lie, it's the washing that's really got to me this morning and the thought that they might be disheartened by failed attempts.

Might as well ask while I'm here, did anyone find any waterproof sheets in particular were very good as mine are showing signs of needing to be replaced.

I have to say I found most waterproof sheets absolutely rubbish! In the end I got a big sheet of plastic, put towels on top and then the sheet. I would then wash the sheets and towels as normal and wipe the plastic sheet.

Ours are either from Asda or Dunelm. Can't remember which, sorry! But they have lasted ages. They are the ones with a waterproof back and Terry-towel top. They take AGES to dry in the winter but have never leaked or gotten damaged in the wash

Thank you for your suggestions! I've put the youngest back in a pull up tonight, I will try DS for one more night as we've been out of routine for a few days so want to see if a more normal day helps. I've booked a call with the GP too.

Struggling with this too op, my 4 yr old isn’t dry at night but is refusing to wear pull ups so we’re waking him 😭😭. We have waterproof sheets from IKEA which are brilliant, if you can face the trip they’re brilliant

Any excuse to go to IKEA 😉

You cannot train for night dryness. For the 7 year old, I'd at least have a chat with your GP. They might say it' still too soon to worry, but it is a hormonal thing and from memory, the absolute EARLIEST they'll even consider intervening is 7.

I bought surprisingly good, and very cheap, waterproof sheets off Amazon. these ones . They eventually tear, but lasted well overall and were great because DS tended to wee so much his nappy would overflow, then once he was dry he'd still wet the bed every few months (as recently as when he was 9). He was also reflux child so we had quite a bit of vomiting until he was about 4. These sheets saved me as I had multiple of them, on all the beds in the house.

It's hormonal. They go dry overnight when a certain hormone kicks in. Nothing you can do about it. Age varies massively.

My ds has just turned ten and up until now has been wet most nights.
Referred to enuresis service at 8 - followed all of the advice - plenty fluids in the day, no dark fluids or caffeine, double wee at bedtime, no pull ups.
Has had medicine at bedtime for nearly 2 years and daytime medicine too now.
Things are starting to improve. We recently had 24 dry nights on the trot which is a huge improvement. Currently having a couple of wet nights per week but mainly dry.
There is nothing more he’d like than to be dry for the year 6 trip.
My eldest dd was dry at night at 2, my second dad at 9. We did the same for everyone.

Basically, in most cases I think they get there when they’re ready. Try not to worry. If I had any advice based on my experiences it would be to lose the pull-ups asap and buy the Jo Jo Maman bed squares which are worth every penny.

Dd obviously not dad.

I should add, I’m not sure the meds make any difference. And we have chosen not to use an alarm.

Here’s the link for the bed mats we use
www.jojomamanbebe.co.uk/wet-bed-mat-b1216.html

Posted on an earlier thread about this topic: My story and advice in full:

Could it be black current juice or other cordials with artificial sweeteners that is causing it?

I was a Ribena junkie as a kid and my parents never made the connection between blackcurrent juice/ cordials and my late bed wetting.

They were not cruel about it in any way and let me wear night nappies to bed so as to avoid soaked sheets (there were no Pull-Ups or DryNites then), with occasional periods of “trying without”. I wore nappies to bed far older than your DD is now.

Fast forward and both DD’s had the same issue as me and I just assumed that they had inherited my bladder issues.

I didn’t want to stress either of them out and they both wore DryNites without getting embarrassed or upset (the fact that they go up to age 15 and say so on the pack helped, I think!)

Then a friend told me about blackcurrent juice and how it irritates the bladder causing it to empty by reflex and how other cordials and “juice drinks” with artificial sweeteners have the same effect.

We experimented, initially for just a week, with just water and milk.

It was like a miracle cure. Almost overnight the bed wetting stopped and after a few nights of dry DryNites we donated the remaining supplies to the food bank.

We added fresh fruit juices back into the mix as an experiment a few weeks later and that didn’t cause any problems but neither have cordials any more, and neither has wet the bed since.

My eldest was eleven at the time and had never been dry.

We had already done the whole experimenting without the DryNites for a few nights, cutting out fluids after 6pm, even the alarm thing (which we ditched after less than a week because it woke us all up) and GP hadn’t identified any issues. Both are NT, no disabilities or anything like that.

So if she has cordials (blackcurrent juiced and Fruit Shoots are the worst) try going to just water and milk for a week and see if it becomes your miracle cure too.

I wish my parents had known this as they would have saved hundreds of pounds on night nappies if they had stopped me having Ribena and had I tried this earlier I might have also saved hundreds on Pull-Ups and later DryNites!

I’ve posted this on other posts here because I’m a bit of an evangelist- it was like a miracle cure for mine and I hope it is for yours too.

Good luck!

So true about the black currant. My ds2 was the only one of mine dry at night at about the same time as day however when we stayed at MILs house she did not believe me that black currant was not a good idea near bedtime and gave ds2 a bottle of black currant fruit shoot. That was the one and only time he wet the bed! Unfortunately not having black currant made no difference to ds1 or ds3 but it is certainly worth trying!