Wetting the bed

The bladder is a muscle and needs to be exercised to work effectively. The more a child drinks in a single sitting, the more the bladder will hold. If a parent was a bet-wetter, there’s a 40 per cent chance their child will do the same, and this increases to 70 per cent if both parents were bed-wetters. Some children sleep so deeply they don’t wake to the signals that the bladder is full. Others may not produce enough vasopressin, the hormone needed to stop the production of urine overnight. For some children, the bladder needs to be stretched during the day so that it can hold more urine while they sleep.

Aim for them to have six to eight glasses of water at regular intervals through the day, instead of sipping all day long. This helps stretch the bladder and trains it to hold more urine. Make sure each glass is between 150 to 200 ml.

Children aged four to eight should have around one to one-and-a-half litres per day and nine to 13-year-olds should have around one-and-a-half to two litres per day.

They should have at least three drinks during the school day. Mark their water bottles at 200ml intervals so they and their teachers know how much they need to drink at break times. Talk to the teacher about encouraging your child to drink. Avoid giving fizzy and caffeinated drinks, including hot chocolate.

‘Tanking up’ is when children drink large amounts after school. If your child hasn’t had enough to drink during the day, don’t encourage them to drink the whole water bottle after school. We want children to have at least six drinks throughout the day, paced out. Ask them not to drink in the 90 minutes before bedtime, so if they go to bed at 7.30pm, their last drink would be at 6pm.

With so much drinking during the day, your child will need to empty their bladder regularly. Encourage them to do this after they have a drink. Ask the teacher to remind them to have a wee after they’ve had their break time and lunchtime drinks.

Ask them to sit on the toilet and have a wee, and then get them to count to 20, or sing a song, or get off the toilet and do a ballerina twirl. Then ask them to sit back down on the loo and try again. This helps make sure your child’s bladder is completely empty before bed.

Buy a toilet insert and a footstool if your child’s feet are not flat on the floor to make sure they can sit comfortably on the toilet.

Make sure your child can get to the toilet if they need to in the night. If they sleep on the top bunk, are they okay about climbing down to go to the loo while half-asleep? Could it be too dark? Is the toilet on another floor? All these things can make night-time toilet trips worrying for your child.

Nappies and pull-ups draw urine away from the skin, so when your child wees in them they feel dry. If your child needs weaning off them, put a mattress protector on the bed and take off the nappy for a few nights. Hopefully your child will start waking to wee, because they can feel the wetness after they wee. That might help them get into the habit of waking up to use the toilet instead of wetting the bed. You can put a pair of pants on your child underneath the nappy so they still feel the wetness, and that might also encourage them to wake up and use the loo if you don’t want to take the nappy away.

Some parents use bed-wetting alarms, devices that are triggered at the start of a wee. They are designed to get children into the habit of waking so they can finish their wee in a toilet.

‘Lifting’ is the act of picking up a child at night for a toilet trip. It might not stop them bed-wetting, so it’s not recommended as a solution. If this is something you want to do, vary the lift time so your child doesn’t become accustomed to a particular time.

If your child is constipated, the bowel can press against the bladder. Visit our page on constipation and what to do if you think this could be an issue for your child.