How Many Children In School Wet The Bed?

Parents whose children wet the bed and search online for help are often presented with a fact that “5-7 million kids” wet the bed, but how does that number break down into how many children in school wet the bed?  Based on the ages of kids, we can dissect that number and come up with approximately how many kids in an average school experience bed-wetting, and in what grade.

How many kids in your child’s school wet the bed?

We will start with grade school or elementary school.  Since these children are younger, and have less bladder capacity, naturally they have less night-time bladder control and a higher incident of wetting the bed. Let’s take an average grade school of 500 children.  In a kindergarten class, there could be 17 children who wet the bed nightly.  Following the standard cure rate, there would be 10 first graders experiencing nighttime enuresis, 8 second graders,  6 third graders 5 fourth grade students who are routinely wetting the bed, and approximately 4 fifth graders who experience bedwetting.

This adds up to 50 out of 500 children in the elementary school – or 10%.

To look at the number of middle school age kids who wet the bed, we need to expand the number of students to accommodate a larger school.  At a 1,000 student middle school, the percentage of kids who wet the bed decreases immensely.   Approximately 13 sixth graders in this middle school wet the bed, 10 seventh graders, and about 8 eight graders. This means that in a school of 1000 middle grade students, 31 are still wetting the bed, or just over 3%.

School-age bedwetting at a glance

Elementary school of 500 kids:

Middle School of 1000 Students

If your child is wetting the bed and thinks they are alone in their school, this can be a good way to break down the numbers for them.  They are definitely not alone – there are many kids who still wet the bed.