Help with bed wetting regression in 5 yr DD?
My daughter has been night-potty trained for over 2 years now, and has always and consistently been able to wake up in the middle of the night and go to the bathroom if she has to pee. In the last week she has wet her bed 3 times at night, and I am perplexed by this. The first night she woke up b/c of the wet bed, but other two nights she slept right through the bed wetting until I discovered it when I checked on her before I went to bed. I know this is common, but it just doesn't follow with her prior habits? Could it just be that the air conditioner in her room is making her go ( it gets pretty chilly after being on for several hours)? or could it be anxiety of starting kindergarten in September ( she seems excited, but...)? or could it be some sort of kidney/bladder problem or infection and I need to take her to the doctor?
She also has had a couple of incidents where she has peed in her underwear a little when going to the bathroom during the day (like not getting there fast enough).
Please share any experience with this, including possible reasons, ways to stop it, and how to get urine out of a mattress ( my waterproof mattress pad has failed me 2 out of the 3 nights)?
Re: Help with bed wetting regression in 5 yr DD?
I would be very surprised if this had anything at all to do with the A/C or with kindergarten anxiety.
I also think that a UTI or bladder infection would possibly have triggered other symptoms that a 5 y/o would notice. But I would keep an eye on this just in case.
But here are some other things that might explain this issue:
--I would make sure she's actually going to the bathroom and emptying her bladder fully before bed. My son occasionally wets the bed at night and has since he was day p/t. Around the time he turned 7, though, it started to get a LOT better. He went from wetting nearly every night to wetting the bed once a month. Then, this past spring, he went back to wetting nearly every night. We were really perplexed until we noticed that he -- ahem -- WASN'T PEEING when he went into the bathroom before bedtime because his sister was using the bathroom at the same time. We changed the bedtime routine so that he had more bathroom privacy and stressed how important it is for him to empty his bladder. Since the spring, he's had maybe 2 accidents at night.
--My pediatrician says that kids sometimes struggle with night wetting when they go through a growth spurt. Their bladders can lag behind the rest of them, causing them to be less able to hold it through the night temporarily.
--She could be drinking more during the day if she gets hot. If you're spending a lot of time at the pool and/or she's learning to swim, she could be swallowing a lot more water than she normally would.
--Being really tired or really off schedule can cause a child to sleep so soundly that they can't wake up. My son has more accidents during school holidays because I let him stay up later at night and he's more tired.
I use febreeze on the mattress. If it's SUPER-funky, spray it down with febreeze and drag it outside into strong sunlight. Strong sun will really cut down on urine odors in clothes and bedding. The mattress is hard because it holds moisture deep inside. It may take a few treatments. I rinse bedding that gets peed on in the laundry sink before washing. Then I wash in hot and add a cupful of febreeze to the load. This works on 75% of all bedding and clothing. For really stubborn odors, or if the stuffed animals or pillows get soaked (poor, stinky stuffed animals!) I set them out in the sun and a oxy-based pet odor remover + febreeze. Works like a charm.
HTH! She'll probably get back to normal in a few days!