Is your child wetting the bed at night? Bedwetting is a common problem, one that affects approximately 5 million children annually. In fact, the Mayo Clinic says that 15% of children still wet the bed by the time they’re five.
Want to help your child out of the bedwetting stage now? If so, try these parent-tested and approved tricks to help your child stay dry throughout the night so you can all get a better night’s sleep.
If your child is older than five, something else could be going on. So, the first step is to find out if this is a normal part of growing up, or something more serious.
1. Rule Out a Medical Problem
It’s embarrassing, and it’s an inconvenience. In fact, for parents who are changing the sheets every night at 3 a.m. bedwetting can seem like a huge problem. However, for most kids, it’s not a big problem at all. The Mayo Clinic says only 5% of children who wet the bed are older (between 8 – 11), and most children grow out of it.
But, in rare instances, bedwetting can be a sign that something serious is going on. You should talk to your doctor to see if the bedwetting is a symptom of something more serious if your child is older than five, or started bedwetting quite suddenly. Urinary tract infections (UTI’s), stress or trauma, and diabetes are all illnesses related to bedwetting in some children.
Bedwetting is itself a medical condition. The National Institute of Health defines nocturnal enuresis (also called nighttime incontinence or bedwetting) as involuntary urination after the age of 5 or 6. If your doctor rules out illnesses like diabetes, then they may tell you that your child has a delay of their nighttime bladder control. In other words, they’ll grow out of it eventually.