DD1 is 5 and a half and will be going into Y1 next week. We got her out of night-time nappies in early summer last year before she started school. For that first year she was fine, just the odd accident. Then in early summer this year she started quite suddenly to wet the bed more frequently until it was almost every night. It stopped almost as suddenly as it started two or three weeks ago and now it has started again. I know that there will be a chorus of 'don't worry, she'll grow out of it'. But it really bothers me because she wakes up at 3am having wet the bed. That wakes up me and DH; DH finds it very hard to get back to sleep and although I can slip back into a profound sleep I'm just toooo old for broken nights. So even if it's not a problem for her, it is for us.
I've racked my brain trying to pin it down to any psychological cause, but I really don't think there is one. We've had a urine test done ant that showed nothing but we might get another one done. We've put a potty in her bedroom so, if she does wake up, she doesn't have to find her way to the loo in a dark house. She has sometimes used it, but my guess is that she is wetting the bed before she wakes up.
Internet research suggests that taking your child for a pee at your own bedtime is not a good strategy as they don't wake up and it just decreases their bladder capacity. The general consensus seems to be that you should use a bed-wetting alarm. You explain clearly to the child, before they go to sleep, what will happen. You have a baby-monitor in your bedroom so that you can go in and wake the child up fully as soon as the alarm goes off. You then take them to the loo, even if there is little left to pee out. Finally you get the child to help you re-make the bed (not as punishment but just to re-inforce their wakefulness). Has anybody tried this strategy? Did it work? If so, what alarm did you use? Anything else we should try?
I really want to knock this on the head before DH and I get grumpy from lack of sleep and more importantly DD1, who is blissfully unaware now, realises that wetting the bed is something that other children may tease her about.
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Behaviour/development
Bed-wetting 5 year old DD - tell me I'm not the only one!
16 replies
Issymum · 30/08/2006 10:00
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