By Dr. Catherine Gant

Bedwetting at night is called nocturnal enuresis.

Most children can be dry at night at 3 years BUT

• 10% of 5 year olds
• 5% of 10 year olds will wet the bed at night occasionally.

Initially encourage your child to go to the toilet just before bed and again first thing in the morning. It is pointless trying to train them until they have had a dry nappy at night for several nights in a row.

Some children are just not capable of waking up until they are a bit older and removing their nappies will just give you a lot of laundry to do. Once they have had a few consecutive nights with a dry nappy try them without for a night. Do not lift them in the night as this defeats the object of training them to wake up themselves if necessary. Before they go to bed have a long and positive chat about how they are going to wake up and go to the toilet if necessary. If they are old enough talk about how a full bladder feels and explain that this is where wee is stored until you get to the toilet; talking about it just before going to bed seems to bring it up to a higher conscious level in the sleeping child’s mind.

Put a plastic sheet on the bed to protect the mattress. If an accident occurs clean up without making the child feel that they have failed, and put them back to bed. If you have accidents for two nights in a row, put them back in nappies for another month and then try again - their nervous system is just not mature enough. Failure is not due to deep sleeping or a small bladder.

PROBLEMS

Star Charts

If you are having increasing accidents during the day a star chart can be very effective. Take a large colourful piece of paper and with your child divide it up into big squares with days of the week along the top and a big grid for 3 – 4 weeks underneath. Explain it to your child, draw a sad face or a picture of a rain cloud when you have an accident or a wet bed, and a big smiley face, a sun or some stickers if it is dry. Put the paper up by the toilet or over the bed, and get your child to show it to daddy or an enthusiastic adult when they come around.

If there is an accident say ‘oh dear never mind’; if they are dry make a huge fuss, talk about it and show people the chart.

Late Failure

If your child was previously dry and then starts to have accidents it may be due to a urinary infection so get youR GP to check the child as soon as possible.

Failure To Stop Bedwetting

There are a lot of other methods to try if these fail, but you need to talk to someone with experience of bedwetting; ask your GP for a referral if you are still having problems at age 4 years.

If a child has never been dry during the day or night then there may be a neurological problem with bladder control, which needs investigating.

Alarms can be used to wake the child when they pass urine and there are drugs that make it more of an effort to empty your bladder. These can all help but only if there is a back up of parental support and encouragement and maybe the correct use of a star chart as well.  

FURTHER INFORMATION

A very good source of information and support for parents is ERIC Online - Enuresis Resource and Information Centre.

See also urinary tract infections and potty training.