How to stop your child from peeing at night

How To Help Your Child Stop Wetting the Bed – Cleveland Clinic

You’re frustrated. You’re exhausted. Your child is already in school — but they’re still wetting the bed at night. You’ve tried limiting liquids after dinner. You’ve woken your child up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. Still, no luck.

But you aren’t alone. Parents often worry about bedwetting in their children, a problem defined as “involuntary urination in children 5 years of age or older.” But in reality, about 15% of children in the U.S. are still wetting the bed at age 5.

To help parents deal with this challenge, we turned to pediatric nephrologist Charles Kwon, MD, and pediatric urologist Audrey Rhee, MD.

When your child is older than age 7 and still wetting the bed, you might want to talk with their primary care physician or a pediatric nephrologist or urologist.

Also, keep in mind that about 15% of children age 5 or older actually stop wetting the bed each year.

“When I meet a child who is wetting the bed, it’s twice as likely to be a boy. He usually presents with no other medical problems,” Dr. Kwon says.

What causes bedwetting?

“The underlying issue is usually a bladder that’s not yet matured,” says Dr. Kwon.

Other possible causes for bedwetting include hormone imbalance, constipation or more serious issues, shared below.

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Your child may be at a higher risk for wetting the bed if:

They experience a lot of stress and anxiety.
There is family history of childhood bed-wetting.
They have ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder).

How to stop bedwetting

To combat bedwetting, doctors suggest:

Shift times for drinking. Increase fluid intake earlier in the day and reduce it later in the day, stopping fluid intake after dinner.
Schedule bathroom breaks. Get your child on a regular urination schedule (every two to three hours) and right before bedtime.
Be encouraging and positive. Make your child feel good about progress by consistently rewarding successes.
Eliminate bladder irritants. Start by eliminating caffeine (such as chocolate milk and cocoa). And if this doesn’t work, cut citrus juices, artificial flavorings, dyes (especially red) and sweeteners. Many parents don’t realize these can all irritate their child’s bladder.
Avoid thirst overload. If schools allow, give your child a water bottle so they can drink steadily all day. This avoids excessive thirst after school.
Constipation may be a factor. Because your rectum is right behind your bladder, difficulties with constipation can present themselves as a bladder problem, especially at night. This affects about one-third of children who wet the bed, though children are unlikely to identify or share information about constipation.
Don’t wake children up to urinate. Randomly waking up your child at night and asking them to urinate on demand isn’t the answer. It’ll only lead to more sleeplessness and frustration for you and your child
An earlier bedtime. Often, children are deep sleepers because they’re simply not getting enough sleep.
Cut back on screen time, especially before bedtime. Improving sleep hygiene can help their minds slow down so they can sleep better.
Never resort to punishment. Getting angry at your child doesn’t help end bedwetting. The process doesn’t need to involve conflict.

Are there medications for bedwetting?

“Although there are medications (including a synthetic form of a hormone) that can address bedwetting, I don’t prescribe them unless a child was already put on the medication by another provider,” says Dr. Rhee.

“There are side effects,” she says. “Plus, it’s a temporary fix, a quick remedy, when what we want is an overall solution.”

Is my child bedwetting on purpose?

Families often wonder if a child is bedwetting on purpose. Dr. Kwon often tells parents that it’s typically not their fault nor is it their child’s fault. “I tell them not to get too stressed because this issue often resolves on its own,” he says.

Dr. Rhee adds that it’s also important to talk to your child to see if there’s motivation to change. If they’re motivated to change, a bedwetting alarm can be the solution.

You can clip the alarm to your child’s underwear or place it on the pad on the bed. Once the device detects any moisture, the alarm goes off. But if your child isn’t independently motivated, the alarm may have no benefit and may just further frustrate the family.

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“If they’re still sneaking drinks late at night and eating what they shouldn’t, then it doesn’t make sense to invest in an expensive bedwetting alarm. So, I directly ask a child if bedwetting bothers them, to find out if it’s the parents’ frustration that brought the child to the appointment or their own,” Dr. Rhee says.

As your child gets older and has opportunities to go to slumber parties and weekend trips, bedwetting can affect their confidence and social life. This’ll most likely motivate your child to solve the problem and avoid feeling embarrassed.

Is bedwetting serious?

Occasionally, bedwetting is a sign of something more significant, including:

Sleep apnea. If your child snores a lot or otherwise shows signs of sleep apnea, further investigation through your child’s pediatrician should be pursued. Otherwise, this isn’t a first course of evaluation of your child’s bedwetting issues.
Urinary tract infections (UTIs). A urine sample can detect these infections, which is a typical test doctors will order when bedwetting is an issue.
Diabetes mellitus. A urine sample can also detect diabetes in children.

Bedwetting may be a sign of a sleep disorder, as well, in which case, a sleep study can be conducted.

If you have additional concerns about your child’s bedwetting, make an appointment with your pediatrician.

How to Stop Bed-Wetting: In Kids

Medically reviewed by University of Illinois — By Kristeen Cherney on July 11, 2016

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Overview

You’ve successfully potty trained your child. At this point, you’re probably relieved to no longer be dealing with diapers or training pants.

Unfortunately, bed-wetting is a common occurrence in many young children, even if they’ve been potty trained well during the daytime. In fact, 20 percent of 5-year-olds experience bed-wetting at night, which means as many as 5 million children in the United States are wetting the bed at night.

Bed-wetting isn’t restricted to kids 5 and under: Some older kids may not necessarily be able to stay dry at night. While younger children are the most likely to bed-wet, 5 percent of 10-year-olds may still have this problem. Here are some steps you can take to help your child overcome bed-wetting for better quality of life.

Step 1: Acknowledge the bed-wetting

Potty training doesn’t simply help stop your child from having accidents. When you teach your child how to use the toilet, they are also learning bladder training mechanisms. As potty training progresses, children learn to recognize the physical and mental signs and symptoms of when they have to go.

Nighttime bladder training is a bit more challenging. Not all children are able to hold urine during their sleep or are able to wake up when they need to use the toilet. Just as daytime potty training success varies by age, so does the battle against nighttime incontinence, or bed-wetting. Some children have smaller bladders than other children of the same age, which may make it harder.

Certain medications may offer relief, but the results are often temporary and never the first step. The best way to treat bed-wetting is through long-term solutions that can help your child learn how to wake up when they need to go.

The results of bed-wetting are frustrating for parents who have to constantly wash sheets and clothing. But the most damage is psychological. Children (especially older kids) who still wet the bed can experience embarrassment and even lowered self-esteem.

While your first impulse might be to avoid discussions about bed-wetting and to wash the sheets in silence, such lack of acknowledgement can make things worse. The best thing you can do is to tell your child that accidents are OK, and reassure them that you will find a solution together. Also let them know that many other kids wet the bed, and this is something they will grow out of.

Another thing to consider to help your child feel better is using bed protection or a room deodorizer.

Step 2: Eliminate drinks before bedtime

While your child may be accustomed to drinking a glass of milk or water before bedtime, this can play a role in bed-wetting. Eliminating drinks an hour before going to bed can help prevent accidents. It would also help if your child goes to the bathroom one last time right before going to sleep, and you can remind them to do this. It can help to make sure your child gets most of his fluid intake during the morning and afternoon, and a smaller portion with dinner. You may also want to eliminate nighttime snacks and desserts, as your child might get thirsty after eating more food.

Also, consider readjusting your child’s beverages. While milk and water are healthy choices, juices and sodas can have diuretic effects, which means that they can lead to more frequent urination.

Step 3: Set up bladder training

Bladder training is a process where your child goes to the bathroom at set times, even if they don’t think they need to go. This type of consistency can help stimulate bladder training and will help with bladder control.

While often done during the waking hours for daytime incontinence, bladder training for bed-wetting happens at night. This means you will wake up your child once or twice a night to go to the bathroom.

If your child still wets the bed on a regular basis, don’t be scared to try training pants again. Some brands, such as GoodNites, are even designed for incontinence in older children.

After going back to training pants for a while, you can start bladder training again. These “rest” periods can also help prevent discouragement in your child from several nights of bed-wetting.

Step 4: Consider a bed-wetting alarm

If bladder training doesn’t improve bedwetting after a few months, consider using a bed-wetting alarm. These special types of alarms are designed to detect the onset of urine so your child can wake up and go to the bathroom before they wet the bed. If your child starts to urinate, the alarm creates a loud noise to wake them up.

An alarm can be especially helpful if your child is a deep sleeper. Once your child gets used to the process, they may get up on their own to use the toilet without the alarm going off because the alarm helps train the brain to recognize their urge to urinate and to wake up for it.

Alarms have about a 50-75 percent success rate and are the most effective way to control bed-wetting.

Step 5: Call your doctor

While bed-wetting is a common occurrence in children, not all cases can be resolved on their own. If your child is over the age of 5 and/or wets the bed every night, you should discuss different ways to address this with the pediatrician. While uncommon, this could indicate an underlying medical issue.

Let your doctor know if your child:

frequently experiences constipation
suddenly starts urinating more frequently
starts having incontinence during the day, too
urinates during exercise
complains of pain during urination
has blood in the urine or underwear
snores at night
exhibits symptoms of anxiety
has siblings or other family members who have a history of bed-wetting
started bed-wetting again after no episodes for at least six months

Q:

When is it time to see the pediatrician if your child is wetting the bed?

Anonymous patient

A:

If your child is still wetting the bed at night after the age of 5, you should discuss this with your pediatrician. They can help come up with a plan that works best for your family. Your pediatrician will also help see if there is an underlying problem leading to it.

Another time to see your child’s pediatrician is if your child has already been fully potty trained during the day and night for over six months, then starts bed-wetting again. That may indicate a stressful event for your child is causing this to happen.

Nancy Choi, MD Answers represent the opinions of our medical experts. All content is strictly informational and should not be considered medical advice.

Next steps

For most children (and their parents), bed-wetting is more of nuisance than it is a serious problem. But it’s important to look for the above signs to see if a medical issue is interfereing with your child’s ability to control their bladder at night. Be sure to discuss your concerns with your child’s pediatrician.

It can also help as you’re trying these steps to keep a calendar of wet and dry nights, to keep track of whether there has been improvement. If these first steps don’t work, your pediatrician can discuss other ideas as well as some medications that may help.

Last medically reviewed on July 11, 2016

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Medically reviewed by University of Illinois — By Kristeen Cherney on July 11, 2016

Children's bedwetting: how to help your child

Nocturnal enuresis in children is common. And there can be many reasons for bedwetting in children. However, it often happens that parents underestimate the scale of the problem, unwittingly exacerbating the situation and the fragile child's psyche. In the article we will talk about the causes of incontinence in children, which are worth paying close attention to. We will tell you what to do and how to help your child cope with nocturnal enuresis.

Why does a child urinate at night

To begin with, it is necessary to understand in which case children's incontinence becomes a problem or a wake-up call. In pediatrics, the age norm when a child should not urinate in bed at night is considered to be the turn of 4-6 years. But for some reason, parents are so desperate to wean their child from a puddle in bed in almost a year or two. What is the risk?

The fact is that up to 1.5 years old, babies do not have a bladder and bowel control system. Therefore, attempts to teach the baby at this time to the potty may be in vain, or they will form the wrong reflex in the child. When the sounds of “ps-ps” and “scheduled planting” become a signal not to empty the bladder, but to fill the pot. And later, at 3, 4 or 5 years. There is a violation of this system, and the child again begins to write at night in bed. For parents, this causes surprise, and sometimes indignation.

Therefore, parents should not make this mistake - to compete in the development of their baby among peers, to rush physiological events that should proceed at a natural pace. In particular, to rush the “relationship” of the child with the pot.

Main causes of childhood incontinence

If a child of 4-6 years old regularly goes to the toilet during the day, but at night either wakes up in a puddle or sleeps without waking up wet, then you should pay attention and help your baby if necessary.

Wearing diapers

Often parents are too lazy to get up at night or they get tired of constant washing and changing bed linen for a wet child. Therefore, they are in no hurry to remove the diapers from the child, hoping that everything will come by itself. Will not come. Diapers prevent the baby from learning the physical reactions of his body, they do not allow him to establish a logical connection in time: I'm wet - I'm uncomfortable.

Such a connection begins to form in a baby after 1.5 years, and this can be seen by paying attention to the child's behavior. It becomes uncomfortable for him to walk in wet sliders or panties, and he demonstrates this in every possible way, gives a signal that he wants to go to the potty and distinguishes what it is to pee and poop. That's why it's important to wean your baby off diapers at this age.

Read about how to choose the right diaper HERE...

Diseases of the kidneys and bladder

Another reason why childhood enuresis occurs. Inflammatory processes are often accompanied by frequent urination. Infections and bacteria that affect the genitourinary system can also contribute to bedwetting. In girls, a disease such as cystitis occurs due to the structural features of the urinary canal (it is wider than in boys). Thus, girls experience discomfort and frequent urge to urinate, which they may not even control.

The kidneys are an organ for the distribution of “heat” in the body and in itself a “heat-loving organ”. When hypothermia occurs, or due to an inflammatory, infectious process, their function is disturbed, enuresis develops in children.

Pathology of the nervous system

There are a lot of pathologies that can lead to problems with nighttime urination. This may be a delay in the development of urination centers in the brain, and the immaturity of the nervous system as a whole, and profundosomnia - a sleep disorder in which the child sleeps very soundly and cannot wake up on the “signal” of the nervous system to urinate.

In this case, you definitely need to consult a specialist or a doctor who will prescribe physiotherapy and select medication.

Chronic stress and psychological trauma

A common cause of childhood enuresis.

The availability of modern gadgets, the availability of social networks and not always correct and useful children's content, parental stress, the emotional situation in the family and kindergarten can provoke bedwetting.

Psychological stress, pressure and rigidity of upbringing lead to the fact that the child is tired in the same way as any adult. Children equally experience mood swings, as well as adults, experience anger, apathy, joy, longing. Accept your child as your equal.

Chronic diseases

Severe illnesses such as diabetes or epilepsy can lead to enuresis. In the first case, due to excessive drinking of water. This can be seen in the behavior of the child and undergo the necessary research. In the second case, urination may occur during nighttime cramps, which the child may not remember in the morning.

How to wean a child to write to bed

To begin with, to understand if there are serious reasons for concern and in any case, contact a specialist. It is important not to establish diagnoses and treatment “by eye”, but to identify the cause. The success of the treatment depends on this. This will require research, analysis and tests.

More often, enuresis has neuropsychological roots. The simplest thing that parents can do in this case is to understand their child and pay attention to the situation within the family. Perhaps nighttime urination is an attempt by the child to draw attention to himself. This phenomenon occurs in hyperactive children or children with attention deficit disorder.

Support from parents is very important in terms of suggestions, open conversations and psychological assistance to your baby, no matter what age he is.

How to help a child

Give the child sedatives, sedatives to reduce his daily activity and improve his psycho-emotional state, remove
stress and tension. Suitable drugs such as motherwort tincture (necessarily diluted in drinking water according to the recommended dosage), children's tenoten, Magne B6, Edas-306 Passambra, Nervochel, Glycine.
Enter the drinking regime. Limit fluid intake during the day and stop taking liquid food and water after 6 pm.
Organize the correct daily routine. The baby should go to bed no later than 21.00
Organize sleep hygiene. Mandatory reception of water procedures. Well, if it is a bathroom with herbal preparations. Mandatory absence of gadgets and TV an hour before bedtime. It is important to organize a quiet evening leisure immediately before bedtime, but an active evening - walks, outdoor games.
Try the night awakening method. Have your child go to the toilet on an hourly basis. It is very important in this case not just to take the baby and put him on a potty or toilet to leave the bed dry. And it is important to wake up the child so that he does it consciously! Regular awakenings accompanied by a trip to the toilet will quickly teach the child to do it on his own.
Try to give your child more time and be sure to monitor your emotional state. Children are sensitive to their parents like no other.
Be sure to pay attention to the child and encourage him if he woke up dry. It is important here to do it without fanaticism and not to put the achievement on a pedestal.

What not to do for parents

Do not lecture your child and do not shame him. Just understand that he does this not intentionally and not on purpose. The kid may not even understand that he peed in bed.

Do not invest in him a sense of guilt and do not scold for the damaged sheet, for your nerves. Your nerves are your nerves and only you can spoil them. But without that, the existing feeling of guilt and shame can alienate the child from the parents, aggravating the internal complexes.

Apply punishment. For example, you won't get it, or you won't watch cartoons, or you won't go out, or you won't get sweets because you did it in bed. This is how extremely negative attitudes and connections are formed in the child: in order to be good, I must do this or I am not good enough to be loved. This will be very harmful in the future. The child should feel unconditional love and support from adults.
Let it go on its own. Despite the fact that the age of 5-6 years is considered the norm for enuresis, waving your hand in the hope that it will not go away on its own. By spending more time with your child, you will understand if he has complaints and physical discomfort, how often nighttime incidents occur and how the child behaves. You can’t panic, but you shouldn’t leave it “as is” either. If you have any concerns about nighttime urination, you should take action and seek the help of a specialist.
To deprive a child of childhood and load the baby with classes, circles and sections, creating pressure of adult responsibility on the fragile child's psyche. Everything has its time. Constant stress, strict daily routine and lack of time and opportunity to fully meet the needs of the child can provoke enuresis. So in pursuit of public opinion and standards, take care of your children who once chose you!

5 tips on how to wean a child from writing at night

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Once your little one is up to the task of getting used to the potty during the day, he will most likely be ready to sleep without a diaper at night in a very short time. It is quite normal for a child to urinate at night for a while, and it may take a little longer to get rid of this habit. With our 5 helpful tips, you will learn how to teach your child to get up at night on the potty, and say goodbye to changing diapers in the middle of the night for good - hooray!

1. Wait until your child is ready for potty training

As with many other aspects of child development, it will take you much less time to potty train your child at night if you wait for the right moment.

When the baby wakes up, he asks to go to the toilet.

Baby's diaper is dry after sleeping several nights in a row.

Night panties only slightly damp in the morning

2. Prepare before how to teach your child to wake up at night on the potty

There are a few things to do before you teach your child to get up at night on the potty. Getting up at night will be much easier if you think about what obstacles may arise. Our tips on how to potty train at night will help you prepare for this process in advance and make your nightly trips to the potty more comfortable:

Place the water-repellent mattress on the child's bed.

Place the potty next to the baby's bed if the toilet is far from the baby's room.

Instead of leaving a light on a flight of stairs, use a night light instead. It will light the way for the child to the toilet.

Leave a light on a flight of stairs if you have several floors, or just a portable lamp in case of moving around the apartment to the toilet.

Before going to bed, be sure to teach your child to go to the toilet.

Ask your child to use the toilet as soon as he gets up in the morning.

Prepare an extra set of bedding and pajamas in advance to be prepared for emergencies.

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3. Talk everything over with your child

Take some time during the day for a few weeks before weaning your child to urinate at night to explain to your baby why he needs to get out of a warm bed and go to the toilet and show how this works in practice. Offer incentive prizes for successful night-time bathroom trips, and if your child has older siblings, include them in the process. So things will definitely go faster.

Your child may have questions such as would he be able to call you for help if something happens if he doesn't see something at night? Explain that it is just as important at night as during the day to follow all the same rules of personal hygiene: wipe, rinse, and wash hands after using the toilet.

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4. Consider ways that work for you personally

Different parents have different approaches to weaning their child from pissing at night. Some ask the question: "Is it necessary to wake the child at night for a potty?" and use the “going to the toilet while dreaming” method, while others limit the intake of liquids by the child before bedtime. No two children are the same, so it's always best to focus on the method that works specifically for your family. Try a combination of different methods until you find your own - the most effective.

5. Calm, only calm!

Unpleasant accidents in the process of how to teach a child to get up at night on the potty cannot be avoided. Sometimes they happen even when you have already begun to think that everything worked out.
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