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Dr Catherine
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Girl
4-7 years

Hi K.M., please be reassured it is perfectly normal for your daughter to still be wetting the bed at night with many children continuing to do so up until school age. The time between achieving daytime continence and nighttime control is different for every child. While some achieve this in a matter of weeks, others take months or years. There are a number of reasons why children continue to wet at night. Some do so 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. While deep sleeping is not identified as a key cause of bedwetting, we do know that children who are particularly deep sleepers, do find it more difficult to wake in response to a full bladder. The best way to encourage healthy bladder habits is to encourage your daughter to drink water regularly throughout the day, about 1 to 1.5 litres is encouraged for children her age. The best indicator that your child is moving toward achieving nighttime continence is an increase in the number of mornings she wakes-up dry. Whether or not children use absorbent pants will typically have very little impact on this process – DryNItes should ultimately be viewed as a form of management as they neither prolong the bedwetting stage nor do they help children to achieve continence. Regards, Dr Cathrine