My 5 year old is a deep sleeper and still wets his bed. What can we do?

You had a question about your 5 year old and bed-wetting, and you want to know what you can do to overcome this, what might be causing it. And it's actually a very common issue, especially at the age of 5. 5 Million children in the United States still wet the bed after they've been potty-trained. Most kids are potty-trained between 2 and 4 years of age, but 20% of 5 year olds continue to wet the bed at night, 10% of 7 year olds, and even 5% of 10 year olds. So as the child gets older, then the incidents of bed-wetting usually goes down.

Causes can range from having too much to drink at night (which isn't actually the most common cause) to having a really small bladder that's not capable of holding a lot of urine to being anxious or stressed and it's a response to things that are going on in the home. Sometimes children just haven't learned how to hold their urine at night, and that's what is contributing to the problem. In some instances, it's because the child just sleeps so well and so deeply that they don't wake up in response to feelings that they have to go to the bathroom. Sometimes it's due to constipation. As the bowels get full of stool, it puts extra pressure on the bladder and causes them to wet the bed at night. Sometimes it's due to family history. Often, if your child wet the bed, then either you or your partner wet the bed when they were children too.

I suggest starting out by talking with your pediatrician, and based on their ability to ask you more specific questions and perform an exam, they'll decide if further investigation or treatment is warranted for underlying medical conditions. Be sure to tell them if your child is having pain with urination, urinating during the day, has cloudy urine - sometimes, these are signs of urinary tract infections, which can make it harder for the child to hold, and this might be the issue. Also let the pediatrician know if you've noticed that your child is having mood swings, if they're constantly damp, if they're having bowel problems, or if they've been having problems with walking. Those are also things that your pediatrician would want to know about. After taking all things into consideration, they'll give you advice about what you can do from this point forward in order to help your child overcome it.

But, generally speaking, one of the most important things you can do is to not hurt your child's self esteem over it. Be positive. Talk with them openly about it. If they wet the bed at night, enlist their help in changing the sheets, and it will teach them responsibility. Get a liner on the bed so that it won't damage the mattress. And if you need to change the sheets in the middle of the night, then that's fine. You could even have a an extra set on hand so that it's not that big of a deal. Enforce a "no teasing" policy in your house so that your child's self esteem is not damaged over this.

Try not to let your child drink a lot before bed-time, and maybe even try waking him up 1 to 2 hours after he's gone to sleep to see if he can wake up and empty his bladder. Pull-ups might be a good option at this point while he's still wetting the bed, and this will make it easier for everyone, it makes clean-up easier. And then as he gets older, he should be able to gain better control. Good luck with it, and if you have more questions for me in the future, feel free to ask them on our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/IntermountainMoms, and recommend us to your friends and family too.

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