Children who are starting to learn to use the potty sometimes have accidents. We get up in the middle of the night to change the bed but it happens again. Even after a child is toilet-trained, usually between ages 2 and 4, it’s normal for him to wet the bed at night as often as a few times a week. And after that, he may occasionally wet the bed because of stress or other problems within his family, in which case it’s important for parents to be sensitive and patient and avoid making their child feel guilty or ashamed.
This can be prevented. Bedwetting is an issue that millions of families face every night. It is extremely common among kids who are under the age of 6, and it can last into the preteen years. Bedwetting usually goes away on its own. But until it does, it can be embarrassing and uncomfortable for your child. So it’s important that you provide support and positive reinforcement during this process.
It’s a good idea to reassure your child that bedwetting is a normal part of growing up and that it’s not going to last forever. It may comfort your child to hear about other family members who also struggled with it when they were young. In rare cases, when bedwetting begins abruptly and is accompanied by other symptoms, it can be a sign of another medical condition, and you may want to talk with your child’s doctor. Children usually achieve nighttime dryness by developing one or both of two abilities. There appear to be some hereditary factors in how and when these develop.
One is a hormone cycle in which a minute burst of an antidiuretic hormone happens daily about sunset reducing kidney output of urine well into the night so the bladder doesn’t get full until morning. This hormone cycle is not present at birth. Many children develop it between the ages of two and six, others between six and the end of puberty, and some not at all.
The other is the ability to awaken before sleepwetting. For some children this is a natural extension of learning to be aware of and control their bladders while awake.
For others, a variety of factors suppress or disrupt this awareness when asleep, and they are unlikely to develop it. Taking children to use the toilet while not fully awake can prolong dependence on that by encouraging them to urinate while asleep. Many parents use night time diapers to battle bedwetting, and while these work great in preventing the bed from getting wet due to the accident, they actually do very little in the way of helping resolve the issue. Although it is obviously very important to focus on this part of bedwetting, it is also very important to try to prevent future occurrences. This is why is a good idea to try and step in as early as possible to use many basic methods of prevention. Then, when these don’t work, you may decide to take your child to the doctor. You should know, though, that children younger than six years of age are usually not treated by doctors if bedwetting is the only problem.
