6 Yr Old and Wetting the Bed

I don't think it will help to train her quicker, but it could help you save $ on pull ups. My mom gave my little brother "dry walks" (if she told him they were going to the bathroom he'd just pee on the spot) until he was about 8 yrs old.

Sleeping dry is a physical development process and there is nothing you can do to hurry it along. The age at which kids can sleep dry is partially determined by genetics, so since you were late in doing this, so is she. It is not about size of bladder, but about the intricate connections between brain and bladder that regulate urine production and the stimulation of the brain to wake up when necessary.

My daughter wet the bed, less and less frequently, until she was 9. Then she stopped. The only thing we insisted on was that she use the bathroom before she went to bed. We did not withhold drinks, wake her up at night, or use alarms or other devices. None of those things work.

Dragging you out of bed at night did not work for you, nor will it work for your daughter. You'll both end up tired and frustrated, and she may begin feeling shame for something that is out of her control. Do what you can to reassure your daughter that she is normal, this is normal for many kids, and that she will grow out of it.

I was a bedwetter for MANY years.... I remember going on sleep-overs and having the M. put a plastic sheet under me! I remember having dreams about going to the bathroom.. even sitting on the toilet.... and guess what? I would wake up, and find that I had wet the bed!

Anyway, fast forward to my kids.... one of my 4 had problems with bedwetting, but not near as long....

We got one of the inexpensive bed-wetting alarms, the type that clipped into her underwear, and within a couple of weeks of using it, she no longer wet the bed. Follow the directions in the package on how to prompt your daughter to get up and go to the bathroom.

Good luck, and wise mommy kudos for not pressing the issue. You are right, she can't control it, and getting her up in the night won't do anything about it.

It doesn't work. She needs her sleep. Tell hubby that as soon as she wakes up she tightens those muscles that are relaxed while sleeping and she starts holding it. She won't go to the bathroom, she'll sit there holding her urine until she lays down then she'll start peeing as soon as she's back asleep. This will only make you tired and her lethargic and cranky due to not getting her needed sleep.

You might have hubby get on here with you and then you use the search option and type in wetting the bed at night.

He will learn that people are supposed to sleep all night and not wake up to go pee, that their kidneys are supposed to stop producing urine so the bladder doesn't get too full. To notice when he wakes in the morning, does he wake up and suddenly feel his bladder fill? A lot of people do, that's the kidney's turning back on and starting the production of urine.

Kids who don't have control of their kidneys can't be expect to pee on demand and not wet the bed. Sometimes it takes until a kid is much older too. The only option in my opinion is this, if hubby wants her to wake up and go then he needs to set the alarm and get up and do it himself. Then he needs to make time in his day to strip that bed, wash and dry the bedding, then remake the bed, knowing the whole time that he'll be doing it again tomorrow, and the next day and the one after that and on and on.

Waking up in the middle of the night doesn't work to night potty train.
How much can ANYONE learn while they are unconscious?
There is no 'training' the body to wake up if her brain is not sending a wake up signal when her bladder is full.
It won't make her bladder grow or mature any faster than it already is.
My son was though with pullups at night when he woke up dry for 2 solid weeks in a row.
He was 7.5 at the time.
A few of his friends wet the bed till they were 11 or 12.
Just wait it out and tell Hubby to relax.
She will grow out of this eventually.

my daughter is 7 .. she recently stopped wetting her pullup most nights.. she was dry for a week.. so we stopped the pullups.. but twice this week she had wet sheets in the morning. I do not need to do extra laundry.

my son is 5 he was dry all night at 3.. maybe once every 2 or 3 months he might wet his undies a tiny bit then he wakes up to go potty..

I didnt do anything different with these kids.. my girl is wet.. my boy is dry.. your daughter will eventually grow out of this.. i would wait it out.. waking her up will nto teach her anything.

What the doctor told your mother when you were a kid is not what they've learned in the years since. You cannot train kids to wake up, and waking them up at random points in their sleep cycle does nothing but create sleep-dreprived children and parents. And don't bother with the alarms - all they do is jar a child into a state of sudden consciousness AFTER they are wet! So they do nothing because the child has already peed! We did it - I SO regret putting my son through that.

Ask your pediatrician for a referral to a pediatric urologist, if necessary. Some pediatricians can take care of this themselves. This is a developmental issue, and your child has grown/matured in many ways, but the "bladder-to-brain" signal is further down on the list in her case. You cannot train this, you cannot force this. If the pull-ups are not working anymore due to her size, or if she's uncomfortable waking up in wetness, you can consider a medication that stops this. I'm not a big medication person if other things will work, but I have to tell you, a simple single pill at night that caused no side effects for years of use made all the difference in our lives and our son's. He got to go to sleepovers and to overnight camp. Some kids just need it for a short time, while ours needed it longer. We took him off at age 9, but the problem came back after a few months, so we put him back on until around age 11 or 12, at which point he came off with no issues. We did this after consulting with 2 physicians, and it was the right choice for us.

I have to tell you that I understand your frustration, but your husband's opinion (and that of your own doctor when you were a kid) are not supported at all by any research.

Let your kid sleep and let her develop on her own timetable.

Something to consider:
http://healthy-family.org/food-allergies-may-cause-your-c...

Try a bedwetting alarm. The kind that goes in her underwear. Here's the best of the best, in my opinion: http://www.amazon.com/Malem-Ultimate-Selectable-Bedwettin...

Be sure to follow the training directions in the package. That's most important if you're going to teach her brain to pay attention to the bladder....which is the whole point.

♥
C. Lee

We did everything we could to help my son, changed diet, limited liquids, woke him up, etc... but nothing worked. Our pediatrician sent me diet info as well as info on an alarm. We have a history of late bedwetters and he is a deep sleeper, so I really didn't think the alarm was going to do any good. But we tried it. It started helping him right away!!!! We started using it early Dec & have had 2 dry months in a row! He is so proud of himself & excited to start having sleep overs now (that's the biggest reward is to see hoe happy & proud he is!!). Be prepared that is does put holes in the shirts you clip the alarm to, so use crappy t-shirts for that (over or under jammies). Best $50 I think I have ever spent!!! Here is the link for the one we used that the peds recommended: http://www.sleepdryalarm.com/?xid=f481d906dbb157fa9a6f2d6...

Waking my daughter up did not help. She eventually grew out of it around age 9. Sorry to say. It does help to limit liquids right before bed, and of course have her go to the bathroom right before. Just make sure she is getting enough liquids the rest of the day. Also certain foods and drinks can irritate the bladder. I don't remember what, I think milk is one, but I'm sure you can research it online. Good luck. It is very tiring to deal with. Fortunately my other daughter never wet the bed. That's how I know it's just something you can't control.

My daughter went through the same thing. At age 7 1/2, we went to see a pediatric urologist at the recommendation of our pediatrician. They recommended a program called "try for dry." you can google it. It is a multi-pronged approach: some dietary changes, some limitations on fluids after 4 pm, and an alarm. They recommended the Malem brand alarm. I did not care for some aspects of the program - they wanted my daughter to take a muscle relaxant to increase her bladder capacity but I said no. Anyway, the alarm worked, sort of. After about 3-4 weeks, she was completely cured of bedwedding, but in its place, she now got up to use the bathroom about 3-4 times per night. She was completely exhausted all the time, no energy, a shadow of her former self. Plus, I could not just put a pull-up on her and tell her to sleep, because having learned to wakeup, she could not "unlearn" it. It was horrible. Finally, we had her tonsils and adenoids removed. Within 7 days of the procedure, she was able to sleep all the way through the night without waking up to use the bathroom OR wetting the bed. It gave her a new lease on life. The book "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Dr. Weissbluth has one or two sentences in it (hardly noticable unless you are really looking for it) about how often times bedwetting is caused by enlarged adenoids preventing good breathing (almost sleep apnea) at night. My daughter did not have classic sleep apnea symptoms, but she has more energy than I ever thought possible after this surgery. I would recommend going to see an ENT. Also, I would recommend not using an alarm -- I wish I had just kept her in pullups because she was so tired every day during that time.

I feel your pain. My daughter wet the bed sporadically until she was 8. Our doctor assured us that it was purely physiological, and that we'd just have to wait it out. Each person's body develops that particular benchmark at a different time, when it's good and ready! So I'd stick with the pullups, and don't harangue her, because it's completely out of her control.

There's an article in the March issue of Parents magazine about older kids who bed wet. My son will be 6 and was fine overnight, then as he got closer to his 5th birthday he started waking up wet. He goes through stretches of being dry, then just when we think we're past it, he's wet a few nights of the week. Anyway, he is a very heavy sleeper and waking him in the middle of the night only messes up his sleep. The article offers different strategies. Good luck!

This did not work for me as a child. We are currently doing this with our 5-year-old. I think my husband thinks it will train her. I know it won't, but i think its important to have a sense of accomplishment and wake up dry as you test out the waters of not using pull ups. Not to mention the effort if saves to change sheets. There is still good enough reason to take them to the bathroom at night. If in time she does not wake to pee, I'd look into the alarms that go off when the child pees. Those do have a training effect and they personally worked wonders for me. However, I think the alarms work best when the child is self motivated, and old enough to feel that wetting the bed is an embarrassment. Don't think they work so well when its the parent who's motivated because they are sick of paying for pullups and or changing sheets.