Bedwetting...7 year old girl

LegacyUser

My daughter has only ever had one dry night since I tried night time training her at 3.5 years old.
Just after I tried night time training her she had surgery to remove her tonsils. The recovery was long and tough on her, alot of medication & painkillers afterwards....alot of sleeping during day & night so when she didnt progress with the night time training I put it down to that and didnt worry about it again until she was nearly 4.5 years old.

So she is 7 now and has been in pull ups every night. She literally floods the pull up & sometimes the bed too every night. I tried every couple of months to see if she was ready to learn without the pull ups...bed mats, plastic sheets, night lifting, fluid intake limited, reward charts (she got no dry nights so the chart was blank, so I got rid of that)...have researched everything, went to doctor last year, he said she will grow out of it...she has the ususal issues you would expect a 7 year old to have with wetting the bed, but not majorly messed up over it! We are kind and understanding about it at all times, we explain to her what happens when the body makes urine etc. We get her to help change the sheets etc.

She is a very heavy sleeper, always has been, also is terrified of sudden noises (panics when someone uses a hand dryer in a bathroom etc)...so I am reluctant to spend money on bedwetting alarms as I know she would'nt agree to it...

Its getting to be a major task as the washing machine is always on the go, our electricity bills are big, I am also 15 weeks pregnant and my husband works irregular hours so I am seriously wrecked from lack of sleep.

So 2 months ago we all agreed to try again without pull ups and she asked if we could never buy them again...she has flooded the bed every night since then, usually twice a night...she will wake after wetting herself and get up to change herself...I dont know what to do anymore...we're all like zombies in the house! Its nothing to do with the pregnancy that is pushing us to get her dry...but since finding out I was pregnant I do worry (in silence!) about what things will be like after baby arrives.

Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated...am thinking of buying pull ups again and asking her to wear them with a pair of knickers underneath to keep the sensation of being wet but containing the wetness perhaps...

Thanks!

Roselm

Hi OP,
Once a child turns 7 Public Health Nurses will see children who are bedwetting and can give you advice.
Contact your local HSE health centre and ask to speak to a Public Health Nurse. I'm not sure if all of them do it or if there is one who specialises in this.
Best of luck.

kelle

OP, I was in the same predicament last year. We tried lots of things, like limiting liquids in the evening, getting her up during the night but no joy.

I got advice from the PHN who recommended a bedwetting alarm which would sound when the first drop of urine was detected. We tried it for 2 weeks. At first she would sleep through the bleeping (but would wake me up even though I was further away!), by then it would be too late! Then she started to awaken but the bleeping sound would scare her (she has Aspergers) that I had to abandon it and it was back to the pull-ups (I was SICK of constantly changing her bed in the middle of the night!).

Then, suddenly it happened - she started waking up when she felt her bladder full and would get up herself to go to the toilet! She was 7 years and 9 months by then.

She is now nearly 9 and has not had a wet night since.

Her little sister is 5 and while she was toilet trained at 24 months (the earliest I had toliet-trained), I can't get her dry at night yet! But I'm not going to worry as I know my older daughter eventually got there! (I hope nobody remembers a thread I started here about "No more nappies", because I thought she had achieved her "dry at night" status but on hindsight it was only because we were getting her up twice nightly!)

So my advice to you is - don't despair! Just bulk buy PullUps when they're on special offer, and soon this will be be a distant memory!

cynder

I wet the bed till i was 11 and it suddenly stopped, i never woke up to go to the toilet, my bladder could hold it till morning, same happend with my brother and my dad, we were all 11 by the time it stopped.

I now have the same problem with my youngest his almost 5 and wets the bed 4 out of 7 nights. His in pull ups at night and his happy enough with that.

kelle

That's the thing Grindelwald, the brain has to be able to register when the bladder is full while in sleep mode and some children just take that little bit longer than others!

OP, can I just mention Pull Ups are half price in Tesco at the moment!

LegacyUser

Thanks everyone, I went back to the doctor and she said she'd send a letter to the public health nurse...so I guess it'll be the pull ups til then, I am enjoying being able to sleep through the night again though so the guilt I had about returning to pull ups is gone...I'm not sure about the bedwetting alarm...i know she'd be scared waking up to something like that!
I was offered medication for her from the doc but she suggested it may not work as she is probably wetting because she is such a heavy sleeper...I was'nt into putting her on meds anyway...I'll post back here with any news on this as I know I searched long and hard for answers on this topic & I know I'm not alone out there!

Thanks again

Nellie cork

I know exactly how you feel I have seven year old twin boys with the same problem it is so exhausting for everyone. They are just after the chicken pox I insisted they wear pull ups because of all ths spots. It gave us all a rest and some mornings they wake dry with them. Thanks

up for anything

I second speaking to your public health nurse about it. My daughter was the same and the PHN was thrilled because it gave her a chance to try out something new she'd just learned on a course for with regard to bedwetting in older kids. I really didn't think it would work as it consisted of information and facts that a child could understand, some worksheets and that was it! However, it worked like a dream within a week.

KittyeeTrix

I had this problem OP with my 2nd son who is now almost 16. He rarely had a dry night and his two younger siblings became dry at night while he was still bedwetting....

I had the alarm for a while when he was about 7 but he'd sleep thru it while the rest of the house was awake. Tried the hormonal spray "desmopressin" or "vasopressin", can't quite remember...that didn't work either. He had scans, diabetes tests, everything you can imagine and nothing worked..

The only thing i suppose was that he was a damned heavy sleeper and he never ever woke when he wet. Not much you can do about that I'm afraid:(

He's gotten better as he has gotten older and now would have this type of event maybe 2-3 times in a month