Hi Amanda – unfortunately there are a lot of myths out there about bedwetting, the most common being that children wet the bed because they are lazy and just can’t be bothered getting up to go to the toilet. There are a number of reasons why children may wet the bed at night – and laziness is not one of them. Some children wet the bed because their body produces larger than normal amounts of urine overnight and their bladder is unable to store it until morning. This usually continues until the amount of urine produced decreases or children learn to wake-up in response to a full bladder. Others do so because they are unable to wake in response to the signals that their bladder sends to their brain telling them to wake-up and go to the toilet. One of the most successful forms of treatment is the conditioning alarm however it is important that you have your daughter assessed first by her GP just to rule out any possible underlying physical cause.

Regards,
Dr Cathrine

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