DS1 is 4 and although we cut him off at dinner (around 6pm) and make him go potty right before bed, he seems to always wet the bed/his pull-up at least once a night.
When he does wear underwear to bed, he usually doesn't pee until at least 330am and it isn't much, sometimes not enough to reach his sheets, only soak is undies. Some days he is fine after that, others he might pee again right before getting up.
Is it still normal for him to be wearing pull-ups to bed/peeing the bed? I'm thinking his bladder might not be mature enough yet OR he inherited the bed-wetting from my DH who was a bed wetter until 10 years old. Any advice helps TIA!
Re: Not staying dry at night @4 yrs?
It's not out of the norm yet.
My DD1 is 4.5 and is still night-training. She wasn't waking up dry, but brought up wanting to wear underwear at night herself and really wanted to (she's been day-trained since three). So I offered to wake her up when I go to bed so she can go to the bathroom.
We've been doing that for about a month now and she's dry 90% of the time as long as she gets that pee break. She still doesn't wake up on her own to go potty, but this is working and she's proud of herself, so we're sticking with it.
The issue we run into is that we're at altitude and so sometimes she gets really thirsty at night (so do I, I keep a cup by my bedside) and can't sleep if she doesn't get a drink. So sometimes we do have an accident. I've been keeping the Goodnights disposable pads on her bed and those work well for helping keep the laundry from accidents to a minimum.
DD1, 1/5/2008 ~~~ DD2, 3/17/2010
Charlotte Ella 07.16.10
Emmeline Grace 03.27.13
This is not uncommon at all, especially if one parent also wet the bed.
My son wet the bed pretty consistently even after he was potty trained. So did my DH. When my son was 4 or 5, he wet the bed more nights than not. At age 6, he seemed to go through longer stretches where he stayed dry at night and then hit a rough week where he'd wet the bed 3 or 4 times in a week. Being overtired or off his normal schedule seemed to trigger these bedwetting streaks.
Then around age 7, things got even better. He still occasionally wets the bed, but it's weeks of dry nights punctuated by one night of wetting, then back to weeks of dry.
My pediatrician (who is a mom of 4 boys and the practice expert in boy potty training and bedwetting) assured me that I would see a big drop-off in wet nights around age 8, and that between ages 10 and 12 this would naturally go away.
My son is almost 4.5 and still wakes up soaking wet through a pull up. Just last week we tried going in undies for naptime and it took 2 slightly wet days and now he can stay dry for his 2 hour nap.
We also limit water after dinner, have him then go twice before bed, and often wake him up to go at night. His pedi said there is no way to rush it.
GL!
www.facebook.com/TryVermontFirst
I love these two beautiful children!
June 2010-April 2012: Lots of trying, chlomid, gonal-f, with triggers, without, IUI's and tons of BFNs
May2012: Letrozole + IUI = BFP!!!! Due 2/10/13
FWIW, I wet the bed on and off until I was 10. I know it frustrated the hell out of my parents. They would often offer a reward if i didnt do it for a month straight. I never earned the reward once. I wasn't allowed to drink anything after dinner and I wasn't allowed to go to bed until I used the bathroom. I wasn't allowed to go to sleepovers because there seemed to be no pattern. I was just a really deep sleeper. I felt absolutely horrible about it and swore that I would never make a big deal about it with my own child.
Pps gave perfect advice. Just keep doing what works for both of you. As long as everything is physically normal, it's just something a child will grow out of when the body is ready.