6 Year Old Daughter Wetting the Bed at Night

Desi is 4 will be five in October. She had problems with wetting the bed. We started putting big girl pants on her and only letting her hair a small drink of water before bedtime. We also gave her one dollar each time she didnt wet the bed. She was so excited and did great. In six months she has only had one accident, and her piggy bank is getting full. Hope this works for you.

I have 6 1/2 yo twin boys - one has been dry since he made the decision when he turned 3; the other took another 6 months to be dry during the day, but is still in pullups at night (and wet every night). He had been dry quite regularly when he was 2 or 3, but now he just sleeps so soundly! I've tried to get him on a schedule of waking up 3x/night, but if I'm not the one waking him up, he just doesn't waken & it's simply exhausting for me. I know there's no helpful suggestion for you here, but sometimes knowing it's not uncommon can be a relief. Good luck to you -

Hi C., I hope all is well. I know that your pediatrician says there is nothing medically wrong, but just wondering if she has been snoring at night, or have you noticed that she can fall asleep at the drop of a hat? My now 20 something daughter started wetting her bed when she was 12. It turned out she had sleep apnea caused by an infection in her tonsils. It was the most unusual thing. We took her to two different ENT specialist. One recognized it as an infection and put her on an antibiotic. The other wanted to operate. The antibiotic took care of it. I had been told that sleep apnea doesn't just go away, but in her case the sleep apnea was a symptom of the infection.

Yes! I have gone through the same thing when I was potty training my niece, who is six and a half years old now. The only thing I have done for her is stop giving her a drink, like you said an hour before bedtime, and making sure she goes potty before she lays down. After she has been asleep for at least three hours, or you can wait till you think it has been long enough, I would wake her up to go potty again and then she always went back to sleep when she was done. This has helped me and my sister with her bed wetting because before she would be a very good sleeper that she would not wake up in the middle of night either, now she has gotten alot better and she even wakes herself up every now and then. I hope this helps, but if it does not just be patient and eventually she will grow out of it and stop. Good luck with everything and remember to keep smiling....

Kim

Consider food allergies--if you want more information, call me for an appt. at Libra Natural Health Consulting, ###-###-####. S.

Start keeping track of what she is doing during the day. It could be something upsetting her causing the bed wetting. Also it could be because she doesn't take enough time out of play during the day to go like she should. My suggestion is to make sure she goes to the bathroom more often during the day. Stop all liquids at 6:00 pm. Usually there is a reason behind bed wetting at that age. Try to talk to her more, give her special one on one time if possible. Instead of the time you would spend changing sheets maybe try finding at least a half hour in the evening for one on one time. Read a book, talk about school, play a game. Then if she continues to wet the bed I would take her to another doctor for a second opinion. Could be kidney problems. Good Luck!

Hello C.,

My son is long since grown up but we had this challenge also. When I would go to check on him shortly after going to bed,maybe an hour or less, the bed would already be soaked and he was very difficult to wake up. It was a strange thing but I noticed that on the days he had orange juice, that night he would usually wet the bed and not other nights. So I looked into food sensitivities. Notice I said sensitivities and not allergies. Anyway, a book that turned out to be really handy was "Is This Your Child" by Dr. Doris Rapp. Check to see if your daughter has red cheeks, or even red ears or one ear. This happens after eating, even up to an hour after eating. Behavior is another indication. Just being a bit hyper can indicate a suspect food. I also did day care for about 3 years and used that book with the kids and their cooperative moms. What a difference in behavior! And all the moms were grateful, too. It changed their lives, too.
So, for us it was the orange juice. Milk and apple juice should be high on your list to check out. Ask your daughter to tell you how she feels after she eats and if she notices anything. They can help with this. If you go to check her to get her up and she has had an accident before you go to get her up, and especially if she is really hard to wake up, I would invest in this book. Perhaps if you think about it, you will already know what to check on. If there is a food that is bothering them, they will probably be craving that food and eating it all the time.
I hope this helps. It is frustrating for both of you. I know.
Good luck!
C. M

Don't be discouraged... Your not alone. I have a now 7 1/2 yr old boy. He has wet the bed at night for as long as I can remember. His cousin, great grandfather and great aunt wet the bed when they were young, all the way up till about 12yrs old. My suggestions to you would first of all be that 1yr for liquids before bed is too soon. If she goes to bed at 8, I'd stop the liquids no later than 5 or 6. My friends used to think I was cruel, but they didn't come every morning and change sheets. Also, his bd was in Dec. and he wanted an alarm clock, so he got it with his own gift card, picked it out and I set it for like 2am. I continued to set it forward in time, and now we are at 5:30am. He wakes himself, goes to the restroom and goes right back to sleep! Its GREAT! I used to wake him to go and this is so much better. And its an accountability thing too for him. I think most of the accidents happen in the early am of the morning, so start there. They really don't want have accidents, they are just extremely heavy sleepers. Good luck, make the experience a good one, but I would recommend NOT to put her in pull ups, it brings their self confidence down....

My son did the same thing at age 5 after being potty trained and no accidents for years. After 6 months I went to our pediatrician and he said their was no problem. It continued and then started happening during the day. I swiched Pediatricians and found out that there was a phsical development that takes place about age 5 that my son's body was a little behind on. He put him on a steroid and the accidents stopped within a few weeks. My son stayed on the steriod to help speed up the development for about 2 years and then at age 7 went off and has not had an issue since. Our children see Dr Richard Wilde in Lutz. I was seeing another doctor int he same group who kept telling me nothing was wrong. You may want to try switching pedos. My son started getting so embarrased that he didn't want to go to school. Once the issue was taken care of I seen a huge increase in his self esteam.
C.

C.,

My daughter is 6 and is going through the same thing. The pediatrician told us not to worry and it can go until she is 7, which I know neither of us want. All I can say is that we notice that when she stays with her routine no snacks or drinks after 7 and bed at 8 she has fewer accidents. I don't know how your daughter is, but mine feels really bad about it so we try to not make a big deal out of it, we found that if she goes to bed aggrivated we can almost guarantee she will have an accident. We also wake her up before we go to bed, so she gets in the routines. Now she wants an slarm clock though because she likes to be as independant as possible.

All I can say really is good luck, and you are not alone.

My eldest daughter did the same thing - she's 12 now and it was just a stage she went through. We stopped liquids 1-2 hours before, had her checked for UTIs, etc. but after a little while it just stopped. I hope it least helps to know you're daughter isn't the only one going through it. Good luck.

My son wet the bed until 10yrs old, He simply couldn't help it. We tried everything included pills if he wanted to sleep over a friends-and no success. I stopped making a big deal out of it and he wore Goodnights until 10yrs old. and FINALLY stopped wetting the bed.The dr told me if he didn't stop bed wetting by age 7 he would probably wet the bed until he reached puberty. It was such a pain changing the sheets almost daily. I used a waterproof mattress pad always too. he is almost 13 yrs and dry for 3 yrs. Never thought I would see the day,and he his so happy about ,he was so embarrassed about the whole thing.
K.

hello C., my mom had the same problem with one of my sisters at age 9 and my mom took her to a bladder speacialist dr who found out her bladder was to small . the dr streached my sisters bladder and she stopped haveing accidents at night in her bed. hope this helps. i dont know if that is the case with your daughter or if its sycological like it was for me. i had done the same thing when i was little and my mom took me to the dr and had my bladder checked and i was fine. so for me it was sycological, all in my mind. so my mom did a little trick with me. she talked to my dr and the dr recommened her to play a trick on me. the dr told my mom to buy some tic tacs and bring them to his office and he put the candy in a pill bottle with my name on them and he told her to tell me it was medicine and it would stop me from having night time accidents . so she gave me one every night before bed time and after a few days i stopped haveing accidents. i believed it was medicine and i belived it helped me . and it worked . never had any more accidents . hope this helps smiles:D

A suggestion I was given was the bed wetting alarm. It does require some effort on your part but It's better that the am laundry. The actual sleep time wetting may be of no control of hers. She may just sleep through "the urge" There are several books out about it. By waking her a few times in the night you can have her use the potty and go back to bed. Some friends have even told me they have put a small potty in their room if there may be too much stimulation walking to the potty.

Good Luck hope this helps. I too am working with m 3 year old on this problem. So far the alarm seems to help..

I know you get so much advice, but a few notes. My now 10 year old went through this at 6 and again at 8. We tried a couple of things. 1. No drinks after dinner. However I pushed drinks from the time she got home from school until we sat down to dinner. I did not want her to be thirsty and tempted to swallow tooth brushing water or sneak because she was tempted. 2. When she was getting ready to go to bed I would encourage her to try to really empty her bladder and push to make sure she went as much as she could. 3. She went to bed at 8:00, we go to bed around 10:00. I would drag her in to the bathroom, set her on the toilet and let the sink run. Something about the water running would help her want to go again. She out grew it. Pay attention to what she is drinking to. I have a friend who won't let Gatorade in her house because she swears her son wets every time he drinks it.

Hi C., your pediatrician is right, she won't go to college still wetting the bed, but she might live through highschool still doing it. My brother did until he was 16. Initially it was every night then it became sporadic.
I wet the bed until I was about 7. Our parents cut off liquids 2-3 hours before bedtime (instead of 1 hour) and set the alarm clock to go off every hour at night to wake my brother up. That seemed to help him more than anything, also taking b-vitamins and nutrients helped as well.

All the best :)