Bedtime wetting

[expattwinmum]

My twin sons are 5.5 years old and still wetting the bed at night ... both of them nearly every night. We are 3 weeks into our third attempt in the last year to get the boys out of night nappies and it's not going great - and I'm not sure what else we can do. There is so much advice online, some also conflicting. I had read that for boys they need to develop a hormone so I wasn't too worried initially (plus they have been day trained for a long time which went quite smoothly) but now at 5.5 years I'm getting concerned - we have a strict bedtime routine, ensuring they go to toilet before bed, the boys are happier not to wear night nappies, we use waterproof sheets and the Huggies bed pads but the duvets are getting wet. Before this attempt we noticed that sometimes they were waking with dry nappies so we took this as a indication it was a good time to try. I also feel that as time goes on they are getting worse not better. Now we are all back at school and work this is becoming a nightmare but I'm determined not to give up. Any advice? TIA

It seems as they are (I assume identical) twins and having the same issue it is physiological.- the way they are biologically. Apparently it's normal that 20% of kids are still wetting the bed after 5 and some up until 9.

thebedwettingdoctor.com/blogs/bedwetting-tips-advice-blog/at-what-age-should-my-child-be-dry-at-night

Contact your school nurse team, they will give you tailored advice based on the latest research. Your school should have their details.

Have you tried a bed wetting alarm?

https://thebedwettingdoctor.com/blogs/bedwetting-tips-advice-blog/what-settings-should-i-use-on-my-bedwetting-alarm

5.5 is very very young to be worrying about this. Have a look at the Eric website , the boys need to be drinking 6-8 glasses of water a day to stretch their bladders and stopping drinks atleast an hour before bed . Are they not drinking at school? If so this often means their bladder can't hold wnough to stay dry. Stop milk before bed and no blackcurrant or fizzy drinks. Try the online advice first and then ask GP to refer to school nurse.

I took my then 10yo daughter to the GP practice for bedwetting. She was 50/50 dry and wet at that point. I was told she is still young. When I questioned that, the nurse practitioner said, well she's not 16, so that took a lot of pressure off. If the lockdowns hadn't hit maybe we would've gone back but as it was I did basically nothing and dry nights just steadily increased to every night.

Things that helped us:
Making the bed up with double sheets so you can strip off wet sheets and the bed is still made.
Brolly sheets (or similar)
I didn't bother with duvet covers just the duvet (thin ones) and fleece blankets that all just going the wash and tumble dry and back on at bedtime
We did use pyjama pants after she got ringworm
Lots of reassurance that it's not her fault, all bodies develop at different rates, explanations about how you need the right hormones to reduce urine production at night and your bladder need to be big enough, etc to reinforce the not your fault messages
I read the stuff about ensuring enough daytime drinks and leaving it longer between toilet trips to stretch the bladder but I never implemented anything apart from limiting drinks after teatime.

As far as I could see most kids just grow out of it. Options you have are an alarm which can be disruptive for other family members especially if sharing a room (applied to us). Or there are medications that limit urine production after taking them. They are not without drawbacks. And my understanding of the way they work is they keep the bed dry at night while the child just grows out of it. If the bedwetting is causing the child distress this might be the right route for you but I couldn't justify drugging my child to reduce my laundry load so I concentrated on ensuring her self esteem remained in tact while she just grew out of it.

I think this is still within the range of normal, my DS wasn't dry at night until age 7, then it just happened.

Hello - thanks for responding. They are non identical which is why I'm wondering if it's us doing something wrong. Although one is doing better than the other they both seem to have regressed now we are back to the usual routine

I think the alarm might be more of a disturbance as they share a room and one twin is doing better than the other

Put a pull up on them and be done with the wet sheets 🤷‍♀️. My ds was potty trained before his was 3yo, but nights weren't reliably dry until he was 7yo. It didn't worry me (or him) one bit. They'll get there.

Thanks for this - i have read to wait till at least 6 years old. I can check with the school that they are drinking enough but they only drink water and milk (no flavoured juices nor fizzy drinks) and we stopped milk before bedtime a long time ago.

Yes our biggest issue (aside from being woken multiple times a night) is the wet duvets - the sheets etc are no issue as we use waterproofs and the bed pads. The general advice seems to be wait and see for the moment and give it more time

Thanks everyone for your advice - the general advice seems to be to a bit longer. I just wasn't sure if we should go back to night nappies until we see some more dry nights but my gut is telling me not to do this.