Bedwetting is a very common thing that happens in children. Most children can achieve daytime dryness around 4 years of age, however a lot of children still have some bedwetting for a few years after that. 15 percent are usually still wet at between 5 and 7 and that sort of decreases after 7 years of age until even as a teenager, 1 to 2 percent of the population still has some occasional bedwetting.
At this point, we have several contributing factors. One of them is sort of genetics. If your parents we’re bed-wetters four years after they achieved daytime dryness then it’s more likely that a child will be also having trouble with bedwetting. Other things that also contribute to it are whether the maturation of their spinal cord as it gets the ability to tell the child to wake up and go to the bathroom at night or the size of the child’s bladder.
Some children have very small bladders and they can’t make it all the way through the night without getting up to go to the bathroom. There can also be some changes in the hormones in the body such as vasopressin and if that is out of balance a child can have some trouble with bedwetting. And then there are other things like psychological stresses in this home. One common scenario is that a child is starting to learn to toilet-train and then a new baby is brought home. That can be very stressful for the child and a lot of times they can have trouble with bedwetting after that sort of situation. If your child is in the age range of three to six years old the best thing to do is just provide reassurance. There’s not really a whole lot that you can do at that point for helping the child’s bedwetting. About 15 percent of the children per year will spontaneously grow out of it on their own.
It’s not necessary to scold the child about it because they’re not doing it on purpose and it’s also really important that we don’t physically punish the child because they do not want to wet the bed they just don’t really have control over it at that point. Once a child is at least six years old the problem that develops is that they become embarrassed about the bedwetting. They don’t want to spend the night at a friend’s house or they’re afraid to go away to sleepaway camp things like that. And when bedwetting becomes a social issue then it, then there are some more things that we can do to try to help it out.
First of all you want to try to do simple things such as restricting how much fluid they’re drinking at night. We want the majority of their fluid intake to be in the morning and afternoon. You want to remind them to go to the bathroom before they go to bed which can help decrease the amount of bedwetting they have. After that you can try motivational things such as a sticker chart. If they are dry for a night they can put a sticker on the chart and if they have seven nights in a row with stickers on them then they get a prize such as a book that they want.
After three to six months of trying sort of behavioral interventions to resolve the bedwetting, other things can be tried such as a bedwetting alarm which can be successful in a large percentage of children to achieve a long-term dryness at night. Or some children need a prescription medication occasionally to help resolve the bedwetting. If your child has additional symptoms there are some times that you need to see the doctor before just trying behavioral changes at home. Some of those symptoms would be if they have been dry at night for over six months and then they start wetting the bed again. They should see a physician. Or if they complain a lot of burning when they’re urinating or changes in their urine color or smell they should see a physician. If they start drinking a lot more water than they used to drink and they’re very very thirsty they should see a physician. Or if you’re otherwise concerned that there might be any other health problem that they might have you would want to see if a doctor for that.
Bedwetting can be a frustrating thing for parents to deal with and it’s also frustrating for the children. And it’s just really important to emphasize that they’re not doing it on purpose but that recruiting them to help. so having them help to clean up at night so that they can change the bed covers that they can change their outfit and help get things into the laundry can actually recruit them to feel positive that they’re helping to solve the problem and sometimes that can be helpful as a result the bedwetting too.
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