Age 7 wets at night

[21jlb]

Hi,
My son is 7 (8 in November) and is never dry at night. He is currently in pull ups. I purchased an alarm but just created further problems, he would still wet, panic and not know where he was in the early hours and it was tiring for both getting all changed and unwired at this time.
Currently waking him about 1.5-2hrs after he goes to bed and he will then stay dry until the morning. But sometimes he will still wet before this. His body is not waking him up to go and I know it’s due to us walking him to the toilet but otherwise he’ll be wet every night.
Any other suggestions?
Thank you.

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 got “only available from the chemist” specialist “child size” 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 DS is now.

Fast forward to being Mum, 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 he 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!

Try the alarm again and stick with it for a few nights. They do disturb sleep and cause wakefulness, but that’s the whole idea. The body learns quickly to wake in time and to stay dry. I found it was worth a few nights of broken sleep and DS at same age never looked back.

Contact your GP and ask for a referral to enuresis clinic. My boy was wetting up to 12 because his body didn’t naturally develop the hormone that reduces urine production at night he had to have Desmopressin for 6 months to kick start his natural hormone production. He’s 14 now and been dry at night for 18 months.