5 Year Olds Wetting the Bed

Archived Q&A and reviews ▼

Archived Q&A and Reviews

Questions

 

Bedwetting solutions - 5 yr old

July 2008

My 5 yr old daughter is still wetting her bed. Not every night, but on average every two or three nights. She is a very deep sleeper, so I'm certain it is something she cannot help. Does anyone know of non-disposable underwear that will help to contain the pee? I hesitate to use the disposable diapers like ''Goodnites,'' every single night, and I'm also not wanting to waste time/energy washing sheets so often. I'd like to try something like the Gerber training pants, but seems they only make them for toddlers (up to 3T). Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks. Sarah

My son is 5 and stays dry a few nights, wets a few nights. We tried the Gerber pants because he still fits a size 4T, but they really only hold a little. We were getting him up every night once or twice to help him to the bathroom to pee, hoping to instill a pattern he'd catch on to. Tried that for about 3 months, didn't work. He's a really sound sleeper and barely remembered getting up with us. We didn't want to change the bedding every time, and our child doesn't care what he wears, so we save ourselves the work and stick with the pull ups for now. anon

I remember wetting the bed at that age. I am now expecting a child and have discussed this with my husband in terms of ''what would we do'' and while considering this I realized that what my parents did was quite smart and changed my habits. They set an alarm for me at 2am every night on low volume. This alarm only woke me up and I would get up and go to the bathroom. I believe that for the first week my father did get up with me to make sure that I went. After a time, I would turn the alarm off and use the restroom on my own without even remembering. At some point my parents took the alarm away and I woke up naturally, much like I do before my alarm goes off in the morning for work. I hope this helps. Stacey Hunt

Try the bedwetting store, www.bedwettingstore.com. They have washable bedtime pants and various other bedwetting-related items. Ilil

You don't say why you don't want to use overnight disposables. Are you opposed to what they do to the environment? Is it a cost issue? Because with the drought and the cost of energy to the environment, it's almost a wash, I'd guess. Training pants don't contain pee at all -- they are for training a child to feel the wet and make the connection to the feeling they had PRIOR to becoming wet. At night, there is no feeling, thus the pee in the bed. I'd say use the ''Goodnights'' every night and on the nights when she doesn't pee in it, just save it for another night. I've used the same one over and over again until it got wet and did this for each of my kids. Some kids just don't get over night peeing until they are 7, 8, 9 -- and it's physiological and not their fault. Why not make it easy for all of you? Love my ''Good-nights''

We used cloth diapers for my son, from 4 yrs to 4.5 yrs, to avoid the constant bedsheet washing. We had 10 large-sized pre-folds and 3 large covers that we washed & line-dried each week. They were large enough for a 5+ year old: my son definitely could have worn them much longer. We didn't use them all the time, the cycle went like this: bedwetting and general lack of sleep due to sheet changing for several nights, diapers on for 3-4 nights until we had caught-up on sleep, diapers off & bed dry for several nights, wet bed for several nights, and on and on until he just stopped wetting after 6 months. BTW, my son was never dry in the morning with diapers on, but they gave us sleep to boost our hopefulness and he was always motivated to try again after a few nights in wet (uncomfortable) cloth diapers. ms

my 3 year old and 5.5 year old both have cloth pull-ups for overnight, they're available online, called Little Beetle Learners. wetters' mama

We had the same problem with our son, many years ago. One thing we did was buy a pad for bedwetters. It is like a huge version of a waterproof lap-pad. It went on top of the sheets and tucked in. That way, if he wet it, I only had that piece to wash, not the all the sheets and mattress pad. I forget where I got it, but I bet you could google it. Also, I made a couple out of a waterproof mattress pad. I got a large one and cut it and hemmed it. My son was (and still is, at 13) a deep sleeper and we just had to wait for him to outgrow the bedwetting. Trying to wake him up when we went to bed never worked, restricting liquids before bed didn't help much, he slept through the underwear alarm thing we bought, and so on.

I used overnight cloth pants (Nikky all night pants) from BabyWorks.com I bought 2 or 3 pairs, (it's been a few years now, so I can't remember). The main difficulty was that they were so thick, it was hard to dry them. They needed about 3 dryer cycles to dry. So I just tossed them in the dryer as I did the rest of my laundry, and that worked out fine. Jen

I wrote your exact post almost a year ago and got no replies and could find nothing in the archives. I also hated using disposables every night and couldn't find anything in cloth sufficient to hold the volume my daughter would produce. We ended up using those blue disposable bed sheet squares they sent home with you from the hospital when you had your baby. We kept one under the bottom sheet and also kept a clean spare set of sheets to change the bed with. At least we only disposed of plastic waste when she wet the bed, instead of using a disposable diaper every night whether she used it or not. I believe you can purchase them at medical supply stores. I've also used ''puppy pads'' and they seem to keep the mattress dry, at least. Good luck!

My daughter still wets the bed regularly at almost 6. She stopped wanting to wear pullups at around 4 and since then we just do a lot of laundry. Recently, we've been staying at friends and at a cabin with no washer and together we decided to try ''goodnights'' since it was going to be more difficult to deal with a wet bed. She really didn't like them (uncomfortable and embarrassing). I also found she peed MORE regularly at night with them on. So, we're back to doing laundry. I have to say, it gets a little bit better all the time. Very slowly, but certainly, she is having more dry nights. Good luck! Jenny

5-y-o ends up really wet in the nightttime

Feb 2008

My son is now five years old, and he has been potty trained for years. He trained pretty early, a litle past the age of two, actually, but he actually has pee accidents sometimes during the day, and he ends up really wet in the nightttime. What can we do to break this cycle? He just doesn't wake when the pee comes. I am looking for advice and suggestions on how to help him with this! Thanks!

Our child is 6 and still wears pull-ups at night. We've had a few dry nights, but this has been ultimately a result of dehydration (whilst ill) or luck. I would not do anything if I were you (except to maybe put him in pull-ups so he doesn't wet the bed) and let it be for a while. There is much stigmatization surrounding the bed-wetting issue as if this was psychological (there's been some change or new stress factor in his life) or something your child can contro, which he probably can't. You mention he is a deep sleeper. Not all deep sleepers are bed-wtters, but all bed-wetters are deep sleepers. It's very possible that your son, like our kid, has a combination of factors going on. 1) he's a deep sleeper as you have mentioned. 2) he physically is not capable of storing a whole night's worth of pee, meaning he has a small bladder and 3) he doesn't produce enough of the hormone (yes, there is one) that tells his brain whilst he's sleeping, to wake up and go pee. The other factor is that this condition is hereditary. Were either you or your spouse bed-wetters?

I have spoken to two pediatricians about this. The first one said every year from the time our kid was 4 ''let's worry about it next year.'' She has three daughters, one of which was out of pull-ups at 4, one at 6 and one at 7 (not necessarily in that order). The second ped said it's very common and if it's still happening by the time our child is 7, then we can address it then.

I don't believe in limiting my kids fluid intake. And I'm not likely to ''lift'' in the middle of the night as I am a fairly sound sleeper myself, and that doesn't teach your child to wake up and go anyway, IMHO. Your son is still fairly young and I would advise to you to relax, let go of the stigma (because you and more importantly, he is not doing anything wrong) and wait a while to see what happens. He could eventually just do it on his own. anon

I fear this will not be popular advice, but it worked so well for us that I can't imagine not sharing. First, let me say that our pediatrician argued that kids will nighttime potty train when they are ready, not before, and that boys especially can take up to seven years or even longer to complete nighttime training. Second, there may be many other factors in your son's experience, including simple bladder ones (especially since he pees a little bit during the day), and if those are present, what worked for us may not work for you. But anyway, we had a fully daytime-trained five year old boy who was sleeping in diapers when we decided to start training. We tried lots of things, including simple incentives, dietary changes, restricting liquids in the evening, etc., but nothing worked consistently. One day my husband said, ''it's too bad there isn't an alarm that wakes you up when you pee at night.'' Turns out, there is.

I know this may sound mean, but the idea is the kids are too deeply asleep to sense their bodies' cues, and the pee alarm trains them to start associating that feeling with needing to pee. With our son, the first few times the(totally safe and comfortable) alarm went off we had to go in there and wake him up and take him to the bathroom (usually he had already peed). Then we helped him change the sheets (it's important that the child participate, I learned). After that he woke up the next few times and was able to get most of the pee in the toilet. After two weeks he never peed again and we stopped using the alarm.

This solution isn't for everyone, and you might be wondering why anyone would put their child through that.. In our son's case, he wanted to be done with diapers for sleepovers. It may, in fact, help to have a motivated child.

p.s. I don't know whether or not this list allows specific recommendations, but we used the one mentioned here: http://www.drgreene.org/body.cfm?id=21=detail=96 We liked that the company provided a ''success chart'' and after 30 or so dry nights (symbolized by stars), we sent it in and they sent us back a ''star badge.'' That was neat for him. Leila

We had a late-bloomer, too. Last year we started taking our then-6yo son to pee between 10 and 11 pm every night for about 8 months (we had tried this when he was 4 and again when he was 5 but gave up because he just wasn't ready) -- it's a technique called ''lifting.''

After about two months of this, he started waking up with a dry pull-up in the morning. He was very excited about switching to underwear at night, but we continued the lifting for another 6 months. Finally, during last Thanksgiving break, we decided to ''see what happens'' and after two non-consecutive nights of accidents, he has been dry ever since.

We opted for the lifting technique, as opposed to a bed-wetting alarm, because he shares a room with his sister and we didn't want it to wake her up, too.

I think that success really depends on the developmental readiness of the child, and there isn't a whole lot you can do about that. No matter what technique you use, if he isn't ready, it isn't going to work, and you will all end up frustrated, which isn't good for any of you. Stay positive! Good luck!

Night time peeing or bedwetting is also a symptom of Sleep Apnea. Does your son have any of the following symptoms - snoring, sleeping in strange positions, daytime crankiness or hyperactivity or sleepiness, excessive sweating at night, mouth breathing?

With sleep apnea, the bedwetting happens because the lack of oxygen and overabundance of carbon dioxide causes their hormones to get out of whack and this causes them to produce too much urine.

If he does have any of those symptoms, take him to his dr right away as sleep apnea is very destructive over the long term. With children it's usually the tonsils and/or adenoids which are too large and the child doesn't get enough oxygen when they sleep, which is critical for a developing brain and body (by the way some drs are not up on the latest studies and still recommend waiting and seeing - get a second opinion in that case). anon

My suggestion is to put him in pull-ups and leave him be for another year. It's extremely common for 5 year old boys to need pull-ups at night. My son is also a very sound sleeper. No accidents during the day ever, from 2.5 on, but no dry nights ever. Until, all of a sudden, just a couple of months before his 6th birthday, he began waking up dry more days than wet.

During all of this time I just used pull-ups at night and told him ''his body'' needed to learn to wake up dry (to try to make it clear to him that it was nothing he was doing wrong). When the dry mornings started, I then started being sure he didn't have much to drink after 7:00 pm, and told him that when he had a week of dry mornings in a row, we would try it without the pull-up.

Within a very short time, he started waking up dry almost all the time. We then got a waterproof sheet, and started letting him sleep without the pull-up. And for a period of 3 or 4 months, we had maybe one accident a week. Now that he's almost 7, I don't believe we've had an accident for 6 months.

I basically think his bladder just needed to grow big enough to make it through the night. It's only been recently that he's woken up to go to the bathroom. And I don't think it's worth working too hard at it before the child starts waking up dry a fair bit of the time --everyone is just going to be frustrated. Karen

5 year old son pees 4 times a night!

Oct 2007

Our 5 year old son pees 4x a night! We don't know what to do, our routine is to:  Stop liquids at 6:30, 7pm the latest (usually a glass of milk at dinner). Pee before we get ready for bed 7:30 Pee after books 8ish Wake him up at 10:30ish to pee Wake him up at 1ish to pee Wake him up at 4ish to pee Wakes up on own at 7ish to pee
If we don't wake him up he pees in his bed. They are full pees and he is soaked from neck to toe. The other night he had 3 accidents in one night. Sometimes he will wake up on his own. Any suggestions on how to get him to hold his pee or how to get him to wake up on his own? We don't have any problems with our younger daughter she can have water during the night and be fine. too much pee pee

How about having him wear a night time pull-up? I think they are sold as ''Good Nights'' at Safeway and are meant for school aged children. Maybe he just needs some more time to be able to wake up and go on his own. A little bit of pee in the bed makes a huge damp mess, so maybe there's not actually as much urine output as it seems. It always a good idea to check in with the pediatrician too. anon

Sounds like a lot of work and over thinking...there seems to be a lot of emphasis on going to the potty from getting ready for bed through the night! Five is still young for many kids, especially boys, to be night trained (it's developmental) and obviously he is not. Why don't you do all of you a favor and put him in night diapers and just let this go until he's ready? That way, everyone can sleep through the night and not worry about wettings..... you must be killing yourselves waking that many times each night to get him to the potty! anon

How often is your son peeing during the day? Is he thirsty all of the time? Sometimes frequent urination and thirst can be a sign of diabetes. Alternately, why not put your son in a diaper at night? He's only 5, right? It doesn't seem worth it to interrupt his sleep or yours so often just so he can wear underwear to bed. anon

As it turns out, I just finished researching and writing an article about bedwetting. Here's what I found out. Up until they're six, it's extremely common for kids to wet their beds at night. Pediatricians don't even call a kid a ''bedwetter'' until they're at least six -- it's just a common, normal developmental stage. Some kids stay dry at night sooner, but a lot don't.

The most important thing to know is that kids can't help it, there's nothing they can do about it. It's not their fault. ThereMostly you just have to wait it out until their bodies/brains mature enough for them to stay dry.

You can also try one of the wetness alarms, but those can take a couple of months to work and often the parent is the one who is woken up and has to wake the child.

If it were me, I'd just put him in pullups at night until he starts waking up with a dry pullup. It will happen, just be patient and don't let it worry you. Your son has a lot of company. Jennifer

i have to bring up - that sounds physiologically abnormal. why should anyone that is not getting any fluids need to urinate 4 times at night? mention this to your dr. and just make sure this sounds normal to them. anon

5 year old still in pullups at night

Jan 2007

My 5 year old daughter is still wearing pullups for sleeping at night. I just don't know how to potty train her so she wakes up to go pee. She does wake up when she has a bowl movement but this happends anyway more during the day and is kind of rare at night. I know she is a deep sleeper because I can actually vacuum her room and she doesn't wake up from that. Her pullups are pretty much always wet in the morning and every once in a while it's actually so full that it leaks on the sheets. She does use the bathroom before she goes to bed and she told me that she wants to use the bathroom during the night when she has to go. We tried it without pullups for a while but the sheet where wet everytime. The last few days I also woke her up at around 11:30 pm to use the bathroom. She did pee but her pullup was still wet in the morning. I think she drinks a normal amount of water. I have to use the bathroom at least 3 times a night (weak bladder???) but my friends say that's a lot. I guess it's normal for me and maybe my daugher and I are just the typ of people who have to pee a lot. Does anybody have an idea how to potty train a five year old at night ? anon

Is there some reason you feel the need to train your daughter NOT to wear them? My daughter is 5.33 yrs and still wears pull-ups at night. Lilke yours, my daughter is almost always wet in the morning, and her pull-ups are quite full. Once in a blue moon they are completely dry. This has nothing to do with her fluid intake before bed. At her 5 year appointment, I asked my pediatrician about this and she said, of her three girls, one was out of pull-ups at night by age 4, one at age 5 and the last at age 7. Kids develop at different rates. My ped says that some kids just don't produce enough of the hormone that tells their body that they need to wake up and go potty, like my daughter. As for you, getting up 3 times in a night is A LOT, and not to scare you, but I would get tested for diabetes if I were you. It's a classic sign. I think you can stop worrying about your daughter, though. Good luck. OK with pull-ups

Don't worry about your daughter. My daughter was potty trained during the day quite easily at 2.5 years. She was a very sound sleeper and just simply did not wake up to feel the signals about needing to urinate at night. She stayed in pull ups also, and partly because we didn't want to get up and change the sheets in the middle of the night. Her pediatrician assured us it was nothing to worry about and pretty common. One day she said she wanted to try going without the pull ups. She was dry all night and hasn't worn them since. Sometimes she gets up to go, but mostly she sleeps through the night and doesn't need to go until morning. Maybe it has also to do with bladder control in some kids -- being able to ''hold it'' longer or something. Anyway, don't worry, she'll give them up when she's ready. Maybe check with your pediatrician if you are worried. been there

If the pull-up is wet in the morning, I suggest she's not ready to give it up. My daughter was 4 1/2 or so when dry pull ups started appearing in the morning. Before that they were loaded, sometimes leaked, and she had worse diaper rash on her butt than at anypoint prior. Once the dry pullups started occuring in the morning we attached a reward (a new barbie I think) to multiple nights dry. I think some people's bladder sphincter to brain control starts later than others. We do insist on her peeing before AND after stories. If sitters forget the second or skip the first we do have the occasional wet sheet. it tends to be in the wee am hours. Personally, as someone who wakes to pee at night, I decided to try and avoid taking her in her sleep or teaching her to wake up to pee at night. And she for now sleeps through and is dry unless she sleeps an extra 45 minutes to an hour, but even then she wakes herself up before there's any damage beyond pjs and tears into the bathroom. To alleviate shame/frustration, we keep a rubberized flannel on under the top sheet just in case. If you can wait a few months it might resolve itself is the short version of my reply. anonymous

My daughter wore pullups until she was just shy of her 6th birthday. My husband and I argued about the situation, my mother-in-law weighed in on the situation and was furious with me for allowing her to still be in pullups. I decided that the stress of waking her in the middle of the night; the humiliation of a wet bed for her; and the pain of frequent sheet changes for me was not worth it for any of us. She was also a deep sleeper and clearly was not able to rouse herself. The situation was resolved when a cousin, a year younger, came for an overnight. My daughter was humiliated to note that her little cousin wore big girl underwear at night. There was suddenly an incentive for her to correct the situation on her own and this clearly coincided with the development of her ability to hold her urine in her bladder throughout the night. Within weeks pullups were ancient history. ANON anon

I say, let her outgrow it. My older son stopped pull-ups around 9 years old, he was ready to work on the problem himself. My 7 year old still wears pull-ups, and I don't fret about it. He says some of his friends tease him at sleepovers, so last time he took a sleeping bag and no pull-up and we laundered the sleeping bag after. But he doesn't seem ready to stop the pull-ups at home. Certain kids just have more tendency to this: we come from a family of ''bedwetters'' and deep sleepers; with time, the issue will resolve itself. Not so worried with the 2nd child

Don't fret! My 5 year old son is still in Pull-ups at night and they are almost always wet in the morning as well. I have been told by many that this is fine and normal. Some kids wet the bed at night for years. When my son is really engaged in something, he has occasional accidents during the daytime hours, so imagine how hard it is to be that kind of kid and have to wake up, get out of bed, and use the potty. Be grateful that she is such a good sleeper and that you don't have to get up in the middle of the night to change her sheets! anon

Dear Pull up Mommy!

Don't worry about your daughter's age and the fact that she is still not out of pullups at night. My own daughter was also a VERY HEAVY sleeper and no matter what I did - limit water, chocolate, sugar, wake her up multiple times a night - she would rarely have a dry morning. Her pediatrician never worried about it (but I did!) and kept telling me that she would eventually outgrow it which she did. Some kids outgrow this quickly and others do not (my daughter was 10 when she finally stopped wetting). It was a test of my patience, but like the doctor said she did outgrow it and is no longer wetting the bed. My best advice is not to worry about it and let your daughter's body figure it out. As long as we all got a good nights sleep was all that really mattered.

One thing that helped with the constant wet sheets was moving up to Goodnight's - they seem to be more absorbent than pull ups and fit better (more like underwear) so the leaking factor is less of a problem.

Good luck to your family from someone who has been there. anon

Sounds like my daughter. Please do not stress about it. I was just grateful that they invented those pull-ups for nighttime use. (pull-ups were wet every morning) I think I remember researching and discovering that there is a hormone that needs to come into play that decreases the amount of urine during sleep hours and that the age at which the hormone starts being produced in adequate amounts is very variable. So I think it is simply a developmental issue. If her doctor is not concerned, you should just relax and let nature take its course. It is unusual, but probably if everyone were to come clean, not that unusual. I actually remember consulting the Huggies on line site for reassurance. My daughter probably wore pull-ups at night until she was about 9. I understand some kids (maybe more often boys) are not completely done until 12. She won't go off to college needing them! As for us, my daughter has stopped even getting up at night to use the bathroom. I am not sure when that happened, but she is 16 now and it is all a dim memory. Good luck, don't stress and don't let her stress either. everything will be fine

How do you night train a heavy-wetting, heavy-sleeping five year old? You wait about two years. ;-)

And you thank your lucky stars that you live now, when night- time pull-ups are readily available, instead of a generation ago, when you'd've been washing cloth pads and sheets all the time!

I've heard that devices like pee alarms can help, but really, it's too early for you to worry about it. Some kids (more often boys, but sometimes girls too) just aren't physically/neurologically ready to stay dry at night until they are 6 or 7 or 8 years old. Any push to train your 5yo now will only lead to stress and upset, for no purpose. Also still buying GoodNights

Our almost 6yr old daughter is also still in pull ups. The facts around my d sound just like yours. I'm interested in what others have to say, but for now I have decided it is just perfectly OK. I wet my bed until I was 6 or 7 because I was a deep sleeper and just couldn't or didn't wake up. I was ashamed of the wet sheets and smell etc. I think just not having it be a big deal is the way to go, since I can't think of any way to change it. And from all I know of life most of us learn eventually how to wake up! Seems like no big deal

The ability to wake up to pee is a purely physical development that is not under conscious control in any way. I also think that the normal range for this development is up to 7 years old. I really wouldn't worry about it until then. (What does your pediatrician say?) I think it would only be a problem if she were to be too embarrassed to have a sleepover that she would otherwise enjoy. In that case, my advice would involve either the discreet use of pull-ups and possibly sheet protectors and/or talking with the other kids and parents. (BTW, I had a 6 1/2 year old friend of my daughter's pee in her bed during a sleepover and it was not a big deal.) --also took a long time to develop that ability

What we did was to cut our kids off from liquids at 5:00. We were very clear with them that it was their choice, but that if they wanted to stay dry (which they did) this would help them. We explained to them that if they drank no liquids in the evening, their bodies would really need a lot of liquid during the day to make sure they stayed healthy and hydrated. Also, we took them to the bathroom (essentially in their sleep as they are very deep sleepers) around 10 or 11 at night (whenever we were going to bed ourselves). Even though the night time diapers had been soaking wet every morning before we tried these things, we took away diapers cold turkey when we started and the kids woke up dry almost every time right from the start (a puddle pad on top of the bed sheet worked to handle any wetness and meant no hassle of changing sheets). Good luck! Julie

My daughter who just turned 6 in December is also still wearing pull-ups all night and our situation sounds identical to yours. I was concerned so I discussed it with her pediatrician at her 6 yr old check-up. He guessed that she was a very heavy sleeper - which she is. He wasn't overly concerned and said that if she is still not able to sleep without pull-ups when she is 7, there are things we can do to help her with it. So, we have just decided to let it go and see if it gets better before she is 7. Her older brother did not have this issue and was completely dry at night by the age of 4. I have a waterproof mattress pad on her bed and sometimes put a towel under her sheet to absorb any leakage. She isn't bothered by it, so I decided I shouldn't be either. I hope this helps. Mom of heavy sleeper

We had the same issue with our daughter and received the same advice you have been getting here, except one- to try a bedwetting alarm. We did, with excellent results. Our daughter had her first dry night ever the third night, and used the alarm a total of 2 weeks before going it alone. She has been successfully waking herself to use the restroom ever since.

The brand we used was WetStop, but there are several to choose from online. The alarm has a moisture sensor that attaches to underwear and sets off an alarm to wake your child at the first sign of wetness. It helps your child learn to identify the sensations of needing to urinate while sleeping by waking them immediately. Sharon

Bed wetting alamd for 5-year-old deep sleeper?

March 2005

My 5 year old daughter is trying very hard to stay dry at night. (Although my husband and I initially suggested that she try, this is now something that is very important to her and not something we feel that strongly about because it seems that she may not be ''ready''). Unfortunately, she is very determined to sleep in underpants AND she is a VERY deep sleeper. About 3 nights out of 7 she wakes up wet. Over a year ago our pediatrician mentioned that for children who really want to sleep in underpants, but whose bodies are not waking them up when they need to go pee, a ''bed-wetting alarm'' may help ''train'' their bodies. Has anyone had experience using these? How do they work? Are they likely to work for someone who sleeps very heavily (through her younger brother crying/screaming, through alarm clocks, etc...)?
tired of changing the sheets

Our son was still wearing Pull-ups to bed as he was approaching his 7th birthday.

We tried wearing underwear at night, but he just didn't seem to care if his bed was wet. He would just sleep right through it into the morning. I happened to be at the Ped's office for something else and saw a brochure for an alarm called Wet-Stop.

You attach one part of the alarm to the underwear and the speaker part attaches to the shoulder of the pajamas. (All the pouches and velco comes in the kit) When the sensor feels the wetness, the alarm sounds, waking the child. At first the parent goes to the child and helps to finish emptying the bladder, change underwear and go back to bed. Eventually the child can do this alone. With my son, he taught himself to just sleep through the night without needing to use the bathroom until the morning. It took him about a week of being awoken, then a couple weeks of occasional wakings and then permanently dry. I think that in his case, he just didn't know how to stop the flow when he was asleep. So, yeah, they do work. You can find the kind that we used at www.palcolabs.com.
Sleeping Better

We used bedwetting alarms and it was like magic. My son was 6 at the time, slept like the dead, and was wet almost every night. Using the alarm, he was dry on his own in about 9 nights. We haven't had a single incident since. My daughter was four at the time and not as sound a sleeper, and she was dry within two weeks. It is hard as the parent to get yourself out of bed and take them to the bathroom ( a must even if they are already wet at that point), and my son hated the alarm by about night 4 or 5, but we stuck with it and had great great results. If your room is far away from hers, you might want a baby monitor in your room and hers so you wake up when the alarm goes off. The funny thing is that they both manage their bladders differently at night: my son just goes before bed time and then as soon as he wakes (still pretty much sleeps like a log, although on the very odd occasion he will go to the toilet at night), and my daughter gets up regularly in the middle of the night to go. But it worked equally well with each of them.

Follow the directions carefully and good luck!

We used one I found on the internet -- It had ''starry'' in the name, I can't remember the exact brand but I believe they were in Santa Cruz. I called them and they shipped it out immediately and we received it within a couple of days. happy dry nights

We used a bedwetting alarm very successfully with our younger daughter. We used one by StarChild Alarms which hooked onto her underwear and when it got wet the alarm went off. The point is that the alarms wake up you and you wake her up to get up, go to the bathroom and change the bed.

I do have to add that my daughter was 7 when we did this; some children just are not ready to be dry at night until that age. But if your daughter is motivated then you should give it a try, it really worked quite well for us in a matter of weeks. Glad we tried it

We did not have success with one of these alarms. I think they do work with some kids, but it's definitely not 100%. If the bedwetting is secondary to psychological issues, your success rate may be lower. Our older child was traumatized by a divorce when she was young and we found out way down the line that her bedwetting was due to this. In the end, time pretty much cured it. anon

Night-time toilet training for 5YO

Nov 2004

My 5 year old son has been toilet trained by day for almost 2 years but has NEVER had a dry night. He's still wearing pull- up's and shows no interest in giving them up. I'd hoped he'd have a few dry nights which would be the start to sleeping in underwear. Has anyone been through this? Should we start waking him up to pee, putting him to bed in underwear or continue waiting for him to show some readiness? All we've done so far is limit drinks in the evening, have him pee before bedtime and talk vaguely about rewards... Thanks! Tired of Pull-Up's

I really wanted to respond to your request because I've gone through the same thing. Our son did not become dry at night until he was 7 yo. I read books, tried waking him, tried using the cloth training pants at night (he would just sleep all night in a wet bed)... I finally tried to let it go. It didn't bother him at all, even when he understood that other friends didn't wear pull-ups at night. And everything I read stated that until a boy is 8yo, it's not usually a physical problem, but rather an issue of developemental readiness. Every few weeks, we would ask him if he was ready to try to stay dry, but he never was. I started worrying that maybe he was afraid to try. Anyway, one day at the ped's office (for something else) I picked a brochure for a bedwetting alarm. It's called Wet-Stop and is made by a company called Palco (www.palcolabs.com). It fits on your child's underwear and when s/he wets the pants an alarm sounds, waking the child to (hopefully) finish emptying the bladder in the toilet. Well, I showed it to my son, explained to him that I thought that he was ready to try and that this would help him. He was game and so we did it. He set off the alarm about 3 nights in a row, and got a little discouraged. But he kept trying and within the week he was staying dry (he can actually sleep all night without needing to go to the bathroom). I think that, for him, the issue was understanding how it felt to have a full bladder at night, and what to do about it. Hang in there. Keep trying things gently, but don't give up. Chances are good that one day soon it will all come together for you and your child. ruth

we went through the exact same thing with our 6.5-y.o. son who had a similar attitude. a 6.5 y.o. friend of his had success with wearing a monitor/alarm (made by malem). his friend gave our son the device, and our son was interested in being dry. it seems cruel and our son was upset when the alarm sounded in the middle of the night, but he did really well and has been consistently dry after just a few weeks. we'll be passing that monitor on to another 6-yo friend of ours who has the same problem. no more pull-ups!

I strongly recommend getting a bedwetting alarm (clever device that, soon after urination starts, senses the wetness and sounds a buzzer and wakes the child) Sears used to sell them. They are everywhere. They cannot electrocute your child. They just sit under the sheet and wait for wetness. It helps to sleep naked (the alarm gets the wetness quicker) but is not necessary.

As a child I went through many silly privations (no water late in the day) and probably harmful recriminations (if you don't...) BUNK and a waste of time. Your kid is very likely a sound sleeper and needs help training to recognize the feeling of a full bladder and to have that sensation stimulate waking up. All you need in most cases is some classical conditioning which is what the bedwetting alarm provides.

A quick explanation to your child that he or she is a sound sleeper (a good thing probably) and the alarm is to help them learn how to wake when they need to use the toilet. It takes a little time but you can usually sense the progress as there are usually ''almost got it'' nights on the way to success... If your child has a scientific bent it might be interesting for them to keep a log of how it is going. This could give them more sense of control and efficacy.

Please do not make this a ''growing up'' issue if you can avoid it. If it is treated as a learning project like kicking a ball or drinking from a cup (you just develop a feel) you'll get farther faster with less of a downside.

Remember standing near your child as they climbed up and down stairs? They did so with greater and greater facility but still occasionally fell. You gave advice but they still had to do it over and over and get the sense in their body. Here you are again training a different part of the nervous system (and at a less convenient time of day, sorry to say, but the process is the same: they try, you give feedback and cheer.)

I wish someone had told this to my mom and dad. dry dad

Our former developmental pediatrician pointed out to us that some children have bladders that need to be trained to hold urine throughout the night and the muscles need to strengthen in order to keep it in. With these children, rewards for staying dry throughout the night are not enough because their bladders just don't have the control. Her recommendation to us was to have our child pee before he went to bed, get him up to pee before we go to bed, and then set the alarm for 4:30 (or whatever interval your child is able to successfully stay dry), wake the child up and have them pee again. Stick with this interval for about a week, and then move the time back to 5:00 a.m., 5:15 a.m., 5:30 a.m., etc. until the child is able to go all night without wetting. We did not use this method with our son since he was only 2-1/2 when it was recommended to us (this was our last visit before our beloved pediatrician retired and she was filling us up with information), but it does sound logical and might be worth a try for a 5 year old. You might also want to check with your own pediatrician to see if he/she has any other ideas. anon

5-year-old girl with bed-wetting phases

May 2002

Anyone out there with a 5 year old girl who goes through phases of regularly wetting her bed? She has had urine tests-- everything normal. No unusual stressors. The pediatrician says she will outgrow this, but in the meantime, any advice? Thanks!

If your 5-year-old is still wetting the bed, and all the tests are normal, then don't worry about it. It takes some kids longer to awaken at night. My daughter didn't start staying dry at night until about 5-1/2. We just kept her in Pullups, made no big deal about it. To keep your/her stress level low, I strongly recommend the Pullups. There's no evidence that having a child wet the bed shortens the course of bedwetting. There's nothing ''wrong'' with your child, he/she just sleeps heavily, or has a small bladder capacity, or both. These resolve with time. margery

Both my daughters wet their beds - only at night, not even naps - until they were 6 years old. It can/does just stop abrubtly. The older one stopped right at 6 years, the second one was going past that and I was frustrated and tried the ''wetting alarm'' because I believe they were both deep sleepers and just didn't feel it until it was too late.She did stop wetting not long after using the alarm, but I am not sure if that was it or if it was just the time she would have stopped anyway. I would use water proof pads (made for this) and a towel or two on top so that I would not have to change the whole bed each time, especially in the middle of the night. Neither of my daughters has had any problems with this since they stopped. lynn

Bedwetting can recur when the diet is too high in sugars. Even 10 year olds can have recurrences, much to their dismay and social embarassment. When I mention sugars, keep in mind anything that tastes sweet--including fruit juices, dried fruit, sweeteners (even natural ones like honey, although stevia appears to be safe), juice squeezes and sodas-- would be best avoided. If you have no progress there or your child doesn't have much sugar in her diet, try a Jin Shin Juytsu practitioner who can address the underlying cause, be it emotional (very common in illnesses), digestive or other physical stress. Self-help is freely given to parents and the children accept this bodywork as they know it is helping them. Nori

5-year-old son needs diaper at night

How do you get a child out of pull-ups at night? My 5 year old son potty-trained just fine but still needs a pull-up at night. He routinely wakes up with it very full. We haven't pressured him to lose the pull-up or anything, but he's starting to feel a little embarrassed about it now. He is an extremely sound sleeper and is afraid of the dark, so it's hard to figure out how best to help him to learn to wake up and go pee. Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Our 5 year old is still in pull-ups at night and I am just going to wait until he's more ready. He is also a very deep sleeper, but for the first time ever, he has recently mentioned that sometimes he wakes up at night and just decides to pee in his pull-up rather than get up. So I suppose if I wanted to get up, I could tell him to wake me, but I'm not ready for that yet. I wet my bed til I was 7, my husband was also a bedwetter and we both remember just growing out of it. My sister was 11 or so before she outgrew it and my mom would send her to sleep-overs in a sleeping bag that she could just roll up and bring home.

In reply to the issue of the five-year old still in pull-ups at night: we have a daughter who got out of nighttime pull-ups at age 9 1/2. It seemed at times she would never be able to do it. We played it real low-key and waited for her to start being really unhappy about it, which she began to be quite a long time before she could do anything about it. Every few months we would give it another try for two weeks, but after the lack of sleep both she and I experienced stripping wet beds and pj's we would give it up for a while. It was helpful to log on to the web site that is sponsered by I think Huggies. Although it is not really discussed much, there is a fairly high percentage of kids, esp. boys, not dry up to the age of 12. I know that sounds like forever to you now, but something does happen when they are physically ready. My daughter also slept very soundly, I've personally watched her throw up in her bed and hardly rouse. But for many of these kids, there is a hormone not yet produced in their bodies that concentrates the urine in the bladder at night, so the volume is greatly reduced and the kid can make it through the night. Some physicians actually think this is the biggest cause of night wetting and can prescribe something to help this along. (But as soon as the drug is stopped, the wetting recurs) In our case, our daughter did get out of pull-ups, but does get up 2-3 times a night to go to the bathroom. I wonder sometimes if she has just trained herself in spite of the lack of the production of the urine-concentrating hormone. I also wonder if she didn't get a better-quality night's sleep when she didn't have to get up 3 times. However, this is just to say that if you really polled everyone, you would find there are many of you out there- kind of like finding out how many people actually let their kids in bed with them for the night. Somehow it is just not what we think everyone else is doing. Someday, he'll be out of them and that will be that.

Five year old still in pull ups at night

Sept 2003

My five year old still wears pull ups every night. He hasn't needed diapers since he was about 2 1/2 and is generally a pretty mature guy. I didn't want to work on his going without pull ups at night during the kindergarten transition, but now that that has happened I'm wondering when to do something and what to do. Also, he sleeps in a top bunk so I'm wondering if getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom will be more difficult for him. Should I keep waiting until he stops needing a pull up on his own, or try to do something to help him make this transition? Any advice? Anon

I would say wait it out. You're already ahead by having him wear pull-ups so you aren't washing sheets everyday. As for being in the top bunk it's a possible but not likely situation. Plus if you take him out because he wets the bed it well make him hurt and angry. Some children aren't ready until they are in a ways to grade school. So just wait for him to be ready. Five is still pretty young. Anonymas

5 1/2 year old still occasionally wetting bed

July 2008

Hello, I'm not sure if this should concern me or not but I have a 5 1/2 year old who occassionally wets her bed at night. It happens maybe 1-4 times a month. She's a highly anxious kid and lots of things worry her. I'm not sure if this is a symptom of her anxiety. Anyway, I just wanted to know if this is a normal occurrence for a 5 1/ 2 year old. She's not too concerned about the bed wetting. We never reprimand. Any other bed wetters out there? When should I start to worry? When should I expect her to be completely potty-trained? Thought we were over potty-training

My son is 5 and stays dry a few nights, wets a few nights. We tried the Gerber pants because he still fits a size 4T, but they really only hold a little. We were giving his last drink of the night an hour before bed, peeing just before bed, getting him up every night once or twice to help him to the bathroom to pee, hoping to instill a pattern he'd catch on to. Tried that for about 3 months, didn't work. He's a really sound sleeper and barely remembered getting up with us. We didn't want to change the bedding every time, and our child doesn't care what he wears, so we save ourselves the work and stick with the pull ups for now. I'm going to read up on it and hope to hear other good advice from your post, but sounds like we're in the same boat. anon

My 6 year old son is still in pull-ups at night. I don't know whether this is normal or not! But our friend's son was also in pull-ups at age 6. anonymous

Please see my response to a similar question above. I wrote the one recommending waterproof sheet protectors.

5 1/2 yr. still wants diaper at night

Jan 1999

My healthy 5 1/2 yr. old daughter still uses Good Nights(the big kid version of Pull Ups), and has no interest in kicking the habit! And, she refuses to go to the bathroom before she goes to bed to reduce the chances of her peeing. The Good Night usually has been used by morning. I think she's afraid to try to go without a diaper though I've tried to make it a completely non-judgmental endeavor. She doesn't want to discuss this topic at all. Is this something that she'll grow out of? Thanks in advance for any responses.

My 41/2 yo son still has some trouble staying dry at night, too. I'm told that this is normal, especially for boys, and that he will eventually out-grow it. He wears pull-ups to bed. We put him on the toilet when we go to bed (11ish). He doesn't usually wake up, but if we carry him in and put him on the toilet (running water in the sink), he will pee. We have been doing this for the last month or so, and he has been dry in the morning for about 15 nights. He is so proud of himself for staying dry that he makes sure that he pees before bed, and one night he got up on his own at 3 am and when to the bathroom. Good luck!

 

My daughter is also 5.5 and still wears a diaper at night. My pediatrician has told me that 12% of kids still use diapers at age of 7 so in his view my daughter was doing fine (well within the range of normal) and I shouldn't worry. He said that some kids are such heavy sleepers in their early years that they are not developmentally able to rouse themselves to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. My question is--are there diapers larger than size 5 for bigger kids? Where do you get them?

I have a suggestion for the parent who wrote about the 5-and-a-half-year-old wearing Good Nights to bed: Good for you for not shaming her about it. I have a thought that hypnotherapy might really help get to the bottom of the why of it, and also get to dry sleeping. Probably your hunch about fear of going without a diaper has a good basis, but the way I read what you you wrote, it sounds to me as though she is happy with the way things are. Maybe she keeps on this way because she feels comfortable peeing without getting up during the night, and is afraid to go without the diaper because then the bed will get wet. If she is happy this way, there will have to be some motivation to change before change will happen. Maybe outgrowing the largest size of the GoodNights would be motivating? Until then...hypnotherapy works principally by finding appealing ways to attract the mind to the desired direction. It could help find a fun (i.e. motivating) reason for or approach to dry sleeping.

My daughter wore disposable diapers until she was eight, but after many nights of dry diapers and her no longer choosing to wear a diaper at night, she stopped. Several years ago (when she was five or six), my pediatrician told me that some children do not experience light sleep cycles while sleeping. So in my daughter's case, since she didn't experience light sleep, she was incapable of waking herself up to go to the bathroom even if she needed to. This may or may not be the case for your daughter.

My pediatrician also said that bladder size is a factor. As a child grows her bladder gets larger and her sleep patterns change, all of which contribute to fewer wet beds (or diapers). Your daughter may just need the security of a diaper at night right now, but I bet that when she is ready to give them up, she will. I would encourage you not to make a big deal about it. The only thing I don't understand is why your daughter won't pee before bed. Maybe if you let her wear the diaper even if she pees before bed, then she'll get in the habit of peeing before bed, and after many dry diapers will decide to give them up.

This is in response to the questions about diapers at night. We just got our daughter out of the Good Nights about 6 months ago right as she turned 6. She had been able to get up and go by herself at 3-31/2, then just started having accidents over Christmas while we were traveling. After changing sheets every night and getting her up to go before we went to bed, we started using the Good Nights after a couple months. That lasted about two years. We checked several times for urinary infections, but there was no medical reason for the change. It seemed like she was sleeping so heavily that she didn't even wake when she wet.

Some friends in the same situation gave us a device called a Potty Pager that they used with success. It is a pager-sized device that has a moisture sensor and vibrates when it gets wet. I sewed a little pocket into her underwear to hold it in place. She hated it because it woke her up, cried and complained everytime we put it in her underwear, but within a couple weeks she wasn't having any accidents and after that didn't have to wear the device. She later said she liked wearing diapers better because she didn't have to get up. I loved the thing because it put the responsibility on her - if she took the Pager out after we put her to bed, she had to clean up the accident. Now when she wants a big drink before bed, I make sure she understands that she is responsible for getting up to go or cleaning up.

I, too, have a 5 1/2 yr old daughter who wears pullups at night and shows no real urge to get rid of them. She's not even in a hurry to take them off in the morning when they're soaking wet. She was dry, wearing the pullups, for several weeks last August and then kindergarten started and she started being wet almost every night again. I suppose that was a natural response to the stress of starting school, but there hasn't been any improvement as the school year goes on. Our pediatrician, whom I trust completely, says just wait, don't worry, and if she's still wet at night by her sixth birthday she can try those electronic wake-up sheets that buzz when they get wet. My daughter is a very sound sleeper--sleeps right through the loud wails of her baby sister, and I wonder if that's part of the problem. Do any of you have kids who magically became dry at night at age six? I guess I'm just being lazy, partly, taking a laissez-faire attitude, but I also don't want to put her through a lot of traumatic effort if her body's just not ready, as her doctor suggests. Any advice?

July 1999

I know this is going to sound odd, but have you looked at the ADULT diapers such as Depends? They are probably TOO large, but it's easier to fold down something large than stretch something small...

We use Good-nites pull-ups, 45-65 lbs. We started these when our son was 40 lbs. When we first started these, he wet through them maybe once a week. Now at age 4, it's maybe once every 2-3 weeks. You can get them at most grocery and large drug stores, but not Berkeley Bowl. They weren't at costco last time we were there, either.

I was grateful to find that Huggies and Pampers have both introduced SIZE 6 diapers. Also, one of the major brands makes big kid overnight pullups that come in a HUGE sizes -- definitely for kids over 40 lbs. Often they don't carry these sizes in grocery stores. Rite-Aid has has them. As does Pack-N-Save.

Two thoughts came to mind. How come that there is still so much pee at night? Are liquids consumed past dinner time? If so, decide to serve only water after dinner and then gradually cut that back to 3 ounzes. Worked well for us. In the early days, we created better sleep for all of us (you can doze through feedings, but diaper changes ensure waking up) by wrapping the baby in 2 diapers, with a hole cut into the bottom of the first one, so the overflowing pee can be absorbed into the second diaper. Gradually switched to just one diaper for the whole night as pee decreased. Never had to change sheets at night so far.

I think I've seen size six diapers at Toys R Us. If not there, then definitely a big store (like Target) which has a lot of diaper inventory.

I was grateful to find that Huggies and Pampers have both introduced SIZE 6 diapers. Also, one of the major brands makes big kid overnight pullups that come in a HUGE sizes -- definately for kids kids over 40 lbs. Often they don't carry these sizes in grocery stores. Rite-Aid has them. As does Pack-N-Save.


some thoughts: 1) There's something on the market called diaper doublers, which are strips of the absorbent stuff you find in diapers. You place these inside the regular diapers to increase the absorbancy. I saw them at Longs a while back. 2) I have found Huggies Overnights to be quite effective for nighttime, but she hasn't outgrown size 4 yet, so I don't know how they work in the next size up (I assume they are available in a size 5, but they weren't at the Safeway near us when I looked the other day). 3) Huggies also makes some thing called Good Nights which are overnight pullups for larger kids. But I think these are for kids 45 lbs and larger. Depending the shape of your son's legs, they might work now, though. I got a coupon last week at the Safeway to try these free (one of those that are mounted on the store shelves, with the flashing lights). Good luck!

In response to the person looking for larger diapers, Pampers (I believe that's the brand) makes a size 6. The Lucky's in Montclair carries them. I would also like to say that it's most likely that your child just needs a larger size diaper. However, if your child is peeing excessively, please check for diabetes. My daughter was leaking through her diaper at night even though it fit fine--it got to the point where she needed two a night and had accidents at nap time--and she was diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. Other symptoms include excessive thirst and weight loss. Good luck.

5 1/2 yr. daughter still wearing diaper at night

Jan 2002

How ridiculous is it for a 5-1/2-year-old girl to still be wearing diapers at night? Is it fairly common, or unheard of? And how does one break the habit? The diapers are definitely wet in the morning. Pullups seem silly to me - just a different form of a diaper - or am I missing something about them? Is there a way to use them that would be helpful? I'd appreciate any ideas and suggestions!

My 6 1/2 year old is still in pull-ups. I think the only advantage of pull-ups over diapers is that they are kind of socially acceptable among the kids. Jennifer

Our 6+ year old daughter just had to start wearing night-time pullups. She was wetting the bed on a regular basis and so I was washing the sheets, her quilt etc. everyday. Not only was this tiresome, but nothing we tried seem to help correct the problem. She would sneak in to get drinks before she went to bed, if we got her up early to use the bathroom, she often went in her pants again. This got worse after her baby sister was born a year ago. Anyway, we have been putting her in nighttime pullups for 2 weeks and have found that 1/2 the time they are still dry in the morning, so maybe it is helping? CT

The alarm is a moisture detector which clips on the front of underpants. It detects the very first few drops of urine, and sounds a buzzer next to the childs ear. This wakes them up, and then they go to the bathroom. After a while, there is a Pavlovian conditioning linkage - instead of a full bladder leading to a few drips leading to a buzzer leading to waking up leading to going to the bathroom, the full bladder leads directly to going to the bathroom.

A few caveats: your daughter may still be too young for a buzzer system. I think it really works much better if the child is self-motivated, and 5 1/2 is still, I think, well inside the age when being wet at night is pretty normal. Also, the first week or ten days, the parent has to get up with the buzzer to make sure the child really goes to the bathroom. Our son was such a sound sleeper that he would have just lain there with the buzzer by his ear and never gotten up. Finally, there will be backsliding. The particular product we had measured success as 30 consecutive dry nights. Our son probably was dry 50% the first week, then went about 10 days in a row, then 15, then the full month. So it was about 2 months before we could declare victory and stop using the alarm. Since we borrowed our alarm, I can't tell you who sells them or what they cost, just that it did work with a (then) 8-year-old. David

Some children regularly wet the bed as late as the onset of early adolescence (11-13). More often the very late ages is a boy phenomenon. Generally this is related to a hormonal issue - the hormone that tells you wake up, your bladder's full hasn't developed yet - in our experience the child is SO asleep that sometimes there is no realization that the bed is even wet until the morning. The child WILL outgrow it (unless there's a underlying physical problem, which can be ruled out by your pediatrician - usually if the uncontrollable wetting is only at nite, its hormonal). You can help by limiting evening fluids, making sure that your daughter goes to the bathroom right before bed, setting an alarm or waking up your child at night, etc. but quite frankly that only helps some. There IS a prescription nasal hormonal spray which can be applied each night which will take care of the problem. Personally, I rather a child naturally outgrow it but bed wetting ends up being such a BIG self-esteem problem as the child gets older that I understand why some parents opt for the spray. Its no comfort to the child that alot of kids have this problem - but the truth it is a rather common problem that's just not talked about. I'm glad that our family's experience with this is just about over.

Our take on this situation was that the diaper itself was preventing our daughter from learning not to go to the bathroom during sleep hours. Diapers are so absorbent, so that it is not uncomfortable to sleep with a wet diaper. My daughter was still in diapers at night LONG after she was potty trained. Eventually we surmised that the diaper's absorbency was the issue, and once we stopped using diapers, it only took a very short time before she stopped wetting the bed. Daphne

Our son just turned five and still wears a diaper. We don't make a big deal about it, sometimes it's wet, sometimes it's not. It doesn't seem to bother him and we'd rather do the diaper thing than change sheets, etc. I figure he'll get to the point where he'll outgrow it. Lisa