My daughter is 6 1/2 and wears a pull up to bed every night and it is wet every morning. I know it is normal for kids to wet at night until 7 or 8. Her doctor was not concerned when we talked at her 6 year check up in October. The doctor suggested I try waking her up before I go to bed to have her go potty. I have tried this but she is such a deep sleeper I can't get her to wake up.
Also, she used to have night terrors and still sometimes has them if she is overtired. She talks in her sleep and has on a few occasions sleep walked. She will wake up crying and we can have a conversation and I can usually get it around to her needing to go to sleep and she will lay back down and sleep.
About two weeks ago my daughter started waking up crying about 2 hours after she went to bed. She was holding herself like she had to go to the bathroom, so I took her potty. Her pull up was wet the next morning and she did not remember going potty. I don't think she was really awake. She has done this several times in the last two weeks. My first thought was that her body is starting to recognize she needs to potty and is waking her up, but I don't think she is really waking up. Once after going potty she washed her hands and marched out to the living room where my husband was watching TV and looked at the TV then at him and shrugged her shoulders and went back to bed. She didn't remember doing that. (it was rather funny actually) Tonight it happened again and when I tried to give her some toilet paper she said "can I get something else?" So I don't think she is awake.
She is still always wet in the morning if she gets up to go potty or not. I know her body will eventually kick into gear and she will be dry in the morning. I am not trying to rush her or make something happen that I can't control. It is just strange to me. So my question is. . . Has anyone else experienced this?
Added: I wet the bed until I was almost 5. My mom got the alarm for me and it helped after a few nights. I have looked into those and they are too expensive for us right now.
Thanks for all the responses. I know I just have to wait it out a bit longer. I might have to talk to my husband about buying the alarm and if we want to go that route. She doesn't like wearing pull ups and has started feeling bad about it especially since her 4 year old brother no longer needs them. Which is one reason I was hoping we were on the track to being done with pull ups. I know red dye is not the problem here since she usually doesn't drink those things with it in them. She has no other sleep issues. She sleeps 11-12 hours a night, no snoring. I homeschool so there is no getting up early she sleeps until she wakes up on her own.
My daughter wet the bed, less and less frequently, until she was 9. We did not limit liquids or wake her up to go to the bathroom. She was just a very deep sleeper. She's 10 now and we are over this stage (yay!).
Most people do not wake up during the night to go to the bathroom. They stop making urine while they sleep. The occasional time we do wake up is often due to having a lot to drink and we just wake up togo.
She will be dry when her body is ready. The only thing a pediatric urologist will do is check her for constipation. IF she has pooh inside that is hard it presses on the bladder all night and pushes the urine out.
Trying to wake her up each night is time consuming and does not really accomplish anything.
It is our of the ordinary for sure. I never had that problem with my kids or myself or my kids dad when we were little.
Did you or your husband have a hard time getting potty trained when you were little? If so, what do your parents say?
My cousins, whom I'm quite close to, out of 4 of them 3 peed the bed till they were almost 10 but so did my Aunt.
I think sometimes its a genetic thing.
Other than that, if she's a deep sleeper there isnt much you can do about it until she gets more mature and doesnt sleep as hard as she does now.
It's a good thing pull-ups were invented, my cousins room always reeked of pee, they ruined many a mattress back in the day ;)
Some of it. My son was very much like what you have described--minus the night terrors and waking up 2 hours after going to sleep. Once he is asleep, he is ASLEEP. There really isn't any waking him until morning. And then, it can take a few minutes to actually have him awake. He might talk to you or mutter something at you, but he is back asleep before you can walk out of the room.
He has slept-walked. He has talked in his sleep many nights. And we did many nights (years) of dream walks to the bathroom just before I went to bed for the night. They weren't that difficult when he was 3 or 4. But then he started getting too big/heavy for me to pull to a standing position to direct him to the bathroom. It was harder b/c I had to do more actual waking him up, so he could stand up on his own from horizontal.
But once he was on his feet, he followed directions quite well and walked quickly to the bathroom and pulled down his shorts to potty. Sometimes I had to help him aim, though.. b/c he was too asleep to be very careful about where it was going. :(
He never remembers talking in his sleep or walking in his sleep. He was probably about 9 years old when he became fairly consistent with being dry at night. He is 13 now, and haven't had any issues for a couple of years.
One of my older girls had teh night terrors and sleep walking. One time, she got up to go to the bathroom but ended up in the kitchen, using a wastebasket we forgot toput away for the toilet. She never remembered doing it. there were other times she would wake up and do something, go backto bed and not remember it in the morning. It did eventually stop. She never did anything that would endagner herself though so I did not worry about it.
My older son was a very deep sleeper.He had a loft bed and we could actually take him from the couch and throw him on the bunk. He would not wake up. He was a night wetter until almost 10. Taking him to the bathroom before bed, limiting drinks, no dairy after 5, waking him to go to the bathroom at midnight or 2 am-not easy I can tell you. None of it worked. We jsut let him get through it. One time I did ask the doc and he askedme ifhe had trouble during the day.Since he didn't have to make multiple trips to the bathroom or have trouble wetting himself, the doc said it was just a matter of maturing.
Both of my children had night terrors(starting very young) and it progressed to sleepwalking. My advice is to concentrate on the sleep issues and that will in turn help the nighttime wetness. Does your daughter snore? Sleep apnea was an issue for both of my children and they had their tonsils and adenoids removed and it improved their sleep and even daytime attitude greatly. This in turn helped reduce their nightterrors. Make sure your daughter is getting enough hours of sleep as well. You would be surprised at the range of what is normal and enough for her age.
My son who is also 6 1/2 has done the same things before. I talked to the Dr. and he recommended the alarm, but I wasn't real sure if it would work. About 8 months ago we figured out that the red dye in drinks messes with their bladder. Red dye actually comes from a bug. We eliminated red drinks like kool-aid and gatorade and within a month or so he stopped peeing the bed. A few months later my husband gave him red gatorade and he peed the bed that night. He hasn't had any since and has not peed the bed anymore. I'm not real sure what causes the night terrors, but my son had them as well. But when I read your post I realized he hasn't had the night terrors for a while either. I'm sure the red dye is not the cause of every kids bed wetting, but if it works it's an easy fix.
Good luck!
Two of my three kids did the things you mentioned. I wouldn't worry about it.
I too thought the alarm was expensive until I weighed the cost of pull-ups and constant laundering of bed linens. I also weighed their self esteem. My son is do much happier being a big bit that doesn't wet the bed. I wish I would have purchased the alarm sooner.
Just wait it out.
My son was 7 1/2 before he could stay dry though the night.
Some kids are 11 or 12 before they can manage it.
I don't think the night terrors or sleep walking has anything to do with her bladder maturity.
They are very common sleep patterns many kids have and most eventually grow out of them.
I never grew out of talking in my sleep.
In high school when I took chorus, sometimes my Mom would hear me sing in my sleep.
To this day my husband occasionally has some pretty interesting conversations with me in the night that I have no memory of in the morning.
My brother did the same thing. Our Mom didn't give him water before bed in hopes it would reduce the frequency. We believe his body would give him the alarm that he needed to use the bathroom and his mind wouldn't wake up completely. We would usually just direct him to the bathroom and then back to bed when it happened. We couldn't wake him up entirely either. He eventually outgrew it, though I don't remember how old he was. Some kids inherit this, unfortunately. Hopefully she will outgrow it soon. Let her know she's not alone and it won't last forever!
My son had the sleep issues. I'd find him in the living room, take him back to bed and the next morning he had no clue it happened. He's peed in strange places thinking he walked into the bathroom. He's going on 13 and from what I have noticed any big change, moving, extra stress in the family, puberty, makes the problems come back. They are few and far between now though when it really was almost every night when he was young. Beyond the bathroom issues, keep a close eye on her, make sure that if she wakes up you know she is up, chances are she can function very well without knowing it, but it's still dangerous. I used a good baby monitor in my sons room till he was like 8 and sleep with my door open in case any of the kids get up even now. I'd never suggest locking her in her room, but use gates ect. if needed to keep her to a safe zone if she is sleepwalking.
