My 7 year old wets through the bed every night. He goes to the toilet before bed, we limit what he drinks in the evening, he wears a kids pull up (probably wasting our money as he wets through them every night) and we take him to the toilet before we go to bed but have been told none of that will help anyway as it is genetic and developmental. We have a waterproof protector so it doesn't take long to change the bed however he wakes every night at about 3am wanting a shower as he is completely wet. He is scared of being alone and the dark so wants me to be there when he has a shower but also argues about having to get out of the shower. I usually can not get back to sleep after this and living off 4 hours sleep a night for the last 7 years is taking a toll on my physical and mental health. My 4 year old son has also just started wetting through the bed. Any tips or advice, I've been told this could continue through until they are teenagers.
9 Replies
Mine wouldn't get a shower. Wet wash cloth and a towel. Clean clothes ready and back to bed asap.
If it genetic and developmental, there will be nothing you can do about it. Unfortunately seems like it’s one of those things you just have to grin and bare until he grows out of it. But please don’t stop letting him have a shower to clean himself up. It would be absolutely disgusting to send him back to bed in clean clothes but covered in his own pee
There is a medication you can try when they get a bit older.
We found brolly sheets amazing and I’d look into some better pull-ups, google incontinence products.
Have you looked into Retained Neonatal reflexes? My son as ASD and our OT and friend recommended it to me. My friend had great success with resolving her sons wetting the bed after treatment. We haven’t had the results there (my son is still only quite young though) but we have for other areas and I highly recommend it.
If you are in Sydney I can recommend someone but otherwise you might need to search out a practitioner. It used to be done by OT’s but in recent years has been picked up by Chiropractors.
What kind of pull up are you using?
My son has bowel/bladder incontinence (spinal cord), he empties his bladder before bed (catheterises) as your son does and he has never wet through a pull up and he is 11. Maybe you need to change sizes? Is he in the 4 to 7 or 8 to 15 year olds? Sounds like you need to go up a Size? Maybe when he goes he isn’t emptying his bladder properly?
Also, limiting drinks is the wrong thing to do, a full bladder helps with continence, it stretches it and they can feel better when they need to go.
Has he had an ultrasound on his bladder/kidneys? If not, I would definitely be suggesting that.
Maybe look online at independence, they sell all types of continence aids. You need something absorbent enough to hold his wee so he doesn’t wake and need to shower. He is only seven, his bladder wouldn’t be that big, grown adults manage it, you just need to find the right product I think.
Poor kid, waking up wet every night, I don’t understand how that is happening.
It will stop when they are ready, I had three kids that Started being dry after they where 10. Just give them pull-ups in the right size (maybe one up if leaking through, my son was always wet even with them so he had one near his bed so he could change, put a towel on the wet spot and keep sleeping). don’t make a fuss about it. All the things with not giving drinks, alarms, waking them up in the middle of the night is only making them more anxious about it. My mum tried this on me as I wasn’t dry till 14. I hated it, would have wished for some pull-ups so I could sleep though the night. Just talk to your gp to exclude any medical issues, but normally it’s just not their time yet to be dry at night.
I kind of brainwashed my kids, every night before they went to sleep I'd say if you need to do a wee WAKE UP! And go to the toilet. Surprisingly it actually worked on both my kids pretty quickly!!
It’s quite normal for some children to take longer to be dry at night than others, especially if there is a family history. My eldest wasn’t dry until 6 1/2 and my 2nd (who is a very deep sleeper) still wasn’t having dry nights at almost 7 1/2. We took him to the doctor to rule out any other concerns but with our doctors consultation decided to try a bed wetting alarm. We bought it online (brand was welcare) and it has worked even quicker than we expected. He had a dry night on the second night of using the alarm and a couple more nights wet then dry but has since had14nights dry in a row.
I took my daughter to pediatrician and got the alarm through him. It was a few sleepless nights, but it worked. Otherwise you could try incontinence clinic (my maternal health nurse gave me numbers).