How can I help my child stop wetting the bed?
Bedwetting is common and involuntary. With patience, a few habits and professional help when needed, it is resolved in the vast majority of cases.
Nocturnal enuresis, as it is called, affects many primary school children, more often boys. It is not laziness or defiance: it has to do with maturity, very deep sleep or the amount of urine produced at night, and it often runs in families.
What helps
- Do not scold or punish, and stop siblings from teasing.
- Drink enough during the day and less late in the evening.
- Go to the toilet just before bed.
- Protect the mattress and leave clean pyjamas within reach.
- Let them help change the sheets, without it being a punishment.
- Celebrate dry nights with a calendar, without penalising the others.
When to see someone
From the age of five or six, if it happens often or the child is upset about it, it is worth talking to the paediatrician. Also if it starts again after months of dry nights or if there are accidents during the day.
Treatments
There are effective ones. One of those that works best is the alarm, a sensor that goes off at the first drops and teaches the child to wake up. The professional will advise which one is right.
In the meantime, it helps to make it easy for them to go on school trips or sleep over at a friend's house discreetly.