Hi Rebecca, the age at which children achieve nighttime continence is quite variable. There are a number of reasons why your sons continue to wet the bed. For some children there is an underlying genetic link (which is why it is common to find more than one child in family who wets the bed), others do so because their bladder has not developed to a point where they can store sufficient urine until morning, while other children wet the bed as they are unable to detect and wake-up to the signals that their bladder sends to their brain telling it is full and needs to be emptied. In is not unusual for parents of children who wet the bed to comment on how deeply they sleep – while this is not a cause of bedwetting it certainly contributes in that it makes it even more difficult for children to wake in response to a full bladder. Given his age and the fact that both he and your younger son were late to toilet train it may be worthwhile just having them checked by your GP just to see whether their wetting has anything to do with their bladder capacity. In the meantime, it is fine to continue to use DryNites at night to help manage their bedwetting. You can encourage healthy bladder habits by ensuring both boys drink regularly throughout the day (preferably water) and eat a diet high in fruit and vegetables.

Regards,
Dr Cathrine

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