Hi, my 9 year old girl was night time trained at 3 years of age, and as far as I can remember, was dry at nights for a few years. Since then, she's been having random bouts of wetting at night. Sometimes nothing for weeks, then often a run of wet beds every night for a week or two. The things that seem to exacerbate it are when the weather gets colder, when she's gone to bed earlier than normal and when she's unwell, but sometimes there doesn't seem to be any reason for it. She drinks a reasonable amount, doesn't need to rush to the loo (as in her bladder seems okay) She doesn't have any stressors that might have affected her (no significant changes, and things seem to be runing quite smoothly). I had an aunt and cousin who bed-wet til quite late (teenagehood), but not my immediate family). She hasn't had an accident at a sleep over, so is she just more aware or sleeping less deeply? Do we just wait it out or do we need to do something about it?
It’s great that you’ve been able to identify a pattern to your daughter’s nighttime wetting. From what you have written it appears that you daughter wets when she is in a particularly deep sleep pattern, which can occur on those nights when she sleeps longer than normal or when, she is warm and cozy on a cold winters night. It is not unusual for children not to wet when attending sleepovers or while away on holidays as they do tend to sleep less deeply. The fact that she has family members who also wet the bed as children suggest that there may be an underlying genetic link to her wetting. With respect to treatment and management you can either hold off until she outgrows this on her own, using either plastic sheeting or DryNites on those nights that she is more likely to wet or you can look into introducing a conditioning alarm which will help her to learn to wake in response to a full bladder. The success of the alarm increases among children with lower frequencies of wetting so your daughter is likely to respond well to this form of treatment. Before embarking on the conditioning program I would advise that you speak with your doctor just to make sure there is no underlying medical condition (this is rare but always important to rule out first).
Regards,
Dr Cathrine
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