My 5 yr old son's night time bed wetting seems to be getting worse. He went from being dry 3 times a week 6 months ago, to being wet everynight 4 months ago, and now in the last 3 months he is so wet every drynite nappy leaks. In fact every nappy i try leaks because there is so much urine. I think the reason for this is because he is so much more tired during the day and so sleeping more heavily at night (he started school around 3 months ago). He has adjusted to school extremely well and has lots of friends, so i dont think he is anxious about school, but i have noticed that he visits the toilet less often during the day (some days at school he doesnt go to the toilet at all). My questions are; 1) does this pattern happen with other children ie getting worse? 2) what other alternative nappies (or similar) can u recommend to hold in all the urine (i have even tried thick tena lady pads inside the drynite nappy but this doesnt always work).
Hi Georgie, sometimes there appears to be no rhyme or reason to children’s bedwetting, which can be incredibly frustrating! It is not particularly unusual for children to experience an increase in nighttime wetting when they do start school. There are a number of simple explanations for this. Firstly, children certainly becomes more overtired adjusting to the additional demands of a school day – this even occurs among children who have attended day care 5 days a week. There is less very little rest or down time and the demands of learning lots of new things both socially and academically means children are both physically and mentally exhausted when they go to bed. This typically results in them sleeping more deeply. You can try managing this by shifting his bedtime earlier about 30 minutes to ensure he gets a better night sleep. It is also very common for children to drink less and eat less when they start school – with children consuming the majority of their daily intake in the afternoon and evening. This places additional pressure on the bladder at night, particularly if during the day it has become conditioned into holding less urine. Given his marked increase in urine production at night it would not hurt to have your son assessed by his GP just to make sure there are no other contributing factors. In the meantime, you need to encourage him to drink more water more frequently throughout the day. You could mark his drink bottle with a permanent pen with a number of lines showing him how much he should drink by recess, then lunch etc. Have a quiet word with his class teacher so that she can remind him to drink throughout the day. With respect to absorbant pants – DryNites are really your best option with respect to absorbancy levels. Have your tried him in the larger size? Sometimes children’s DryNites begin to leak when they are ready to progress to the larger size. You could request a sample off the website to see whether they provide a better fit and reduce leakage. All the best!
Regards,
Dr Cathrine
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Yes my five year old has so much wee at night that we go through TWO dry nites a night. I don't think the larger size will solve the problem. We do everything we should be during the day to reduce the chances of a leaking dry nite pull up but to no avail. He obviously has very low ADH levels at night, but surely there could be higher absorbency dry nites made by KC?. I've talked to other Mums with the same problem, and the best that they can offer me is there is nothing that you can do except lots of washing!
Rebecca – about 1 year ago
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Oh Gosh, what a relief to read this query and comment. You are not alone and as it turns out neither am I. After a long time of mostly wet nights, my child was 99% dry at night at 4 (admittedly he had a bad cough at this time, on reflection he was possibly dehydrated) and then he got sick, school started and backwards we went, such that many nights now the nappy can hardly hold the wee. If you are not using a BROLLY SHEET already - do get one. Try www.thesleepstore.co.nz, they often have specials. This transformed my washing world. I confess that after daily washing, I had to buy another and now I use one on top of the other, as sometimes he has already gone through a Pull Up and wet the top sheet before midnight. We have tried all the tricks mentioned. His 2 elder siblings were straight forward with toilet training. I am now going to relax and try to ignore the daily cost and effort of my son's sleep and just bide my time. Thank you to the Dry Nites site for such wonderful information.
Julie – about 1 year ago
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