Bed-wetting At Night: What To Do?

Bed-wetting at night is very common, especially among children. But adults are also sometimes affected. This problem can persist for different lengths of time. Here’s what you can do.

During early childhood (i.e. up to the age of about 5), bed-wetting at night is an uncomfortable but quite normal thing. During this phase, urinary incontinence can also occur during the day. But it can be that the problem persists (i.e. becomes chronic) and only occurs at night. Then bed-wetting at night can be a real burden for everyone, be it children or adults.

Below we tell you more about this problem and everything related to it. So just read on here!

What exactly is bed-wetting at night?

The medical term for regularly wetting children, for whom this should no longer happen, is enuresis. This is an involuntary process. This can happen during the day, but this is less common. Because in most cases these “accidents” happen at night.

This is a problem that is very common in young children. It affects 12% of six year olds and 7% of ten year olds. It’s also more common in boys. And the good news: bed-wetting at night usually disappears by puberty at the latest.

However, there is a small percentage where involuntary wetting persists and occurs in those over 20 years of age. Then the cause usually lies in various social and psychological problems of those affected.

This involuntary urination occurs in certain developmental stages of children, it is quite normal. Because most of the little ones are not able to control their bladder and sphincter muscles before the age of 3.

Therefore, enuresis is not considered a disease in this phase. Because it is a normal physiological state. This is simply due to maturation processes that are not yet fully completed.

At this age, however, children learn to control urination and they notice when their bladders are full. Then you can empty them in a controlled manner. But things are more difficult at night. It sometimes takes longer to stop wetting your bed at night completely.

It can very often happen with children up to the age of 6 that they unintentionally go to bed at night.

When is bedwetting at night considered a disease?

There is currently no agreement as to when involuntary wetting is considered a disease. Among other things, the question is how often this problem occurs.

The criteria for diagnosing enuresis in a child go quite far: Sometimes one speaks of two nights a week in which the bed gets wet. Then again from just one night a week, or from 4 nights a month. Therefore, for a correct diagnosis as well as appropriate treatment, it is necessary to assess each case individually.

One thing is clear: the treatment and criteria for children under 5 years of age are not the same as for adolescents. Because with the former, bed-wetting at night is considered quite normal. In the case of adolescents, however, a single incident of this type can be a cause for concern.

Causes of bedwetting at night

Most of the time , the problem is due to the child not having sufficient control of their bladder while they sleep. It then simply does not notice that it is full and involuntarily empties it.

Only in a small percentage of cases is wetting related to other health problems. For example with diabetes or diseases in the urinary tract system. In these cases involuntary wetting occurs during the day and then the appropriate treatment is different.

How can you treat involuntary wetting at night?

In many cases, basically no treatment at all is needed. Because if night-time bedwetting occurs in children under the age of 5, it is considered to be a perfectly normal and temporary problem that comes naturally as the child grows.

That said, there are a few things mom and dad can do to help the child and reduce the frequency of night wetting. The main purpose of this advice is to help both parents and child understand the cause of the problem and thereby reduce it.

Some tips that you may find useful:

• First of all, it is important that you explain to your child that they need not be ashamed of being wet. It should understand that it is not “to blame” and that it is something perfectly normal. Because his body is not yet sufficiently developed to properly control the urinary bladder.
• You should also not scold your child for this, or make him feel as if he should be embarrassed about the mishap.
• Also, you shouldn’t wake your little one up at night to make them pee. Nor should you make him drink less fluids.
• But you can set up a kind of “pee plan”. Because this can help the child gain control over urination.
• And you can tell your child to drink more during the day. But in the evening you should drink less fluids.

• The use of diapers should be avoided. This could confuse the child and make it more difficult for them to learn to control urination.

Treatment with medication is usually only used in very special cases. The drugs used are aimed at reducing the urge to urinate (antidiuretics) or at controlling sleep.

In summary, the following can be said: Bed-wetting of toddlers at night is common. Still, it’s important to pay enough attention to the problem.

To solve it, there are behavior therapies on the one hand. But constant family support is also crucial in overcoming this phase. It is also important to have a professional investigate each individual case. Because this can determine whether there are other problems hidden behind the nocturnal wetting.