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Mum, I’ve wet the bed

Most children are dry at night by the time they’re five, but some still have accidents and call for help. Coram Family look at ways of helping a child when they wet the bed

As a parent you tend to assume that once your child bids farewell to nappies, they’ll soon learn to hang on for the loo at night. The truth is that some do and some don’t. If your child is five, six or seven years old and is still struggling to stay dry at night, it’s important to realise that she or he (more likely he) is not alone. Bed-wetting affects about half a million 6-16 year olds in the UK. The specialist support organisation ERIC – The Enuresis Resource and Information Centre reports that surveys conducted in 1998 in the UK, The Netherlands and New Zealand, showed bed-wetting to be a common problem:

• About 1 in 6 five year olds still wet the bed
• 1 in 7 seven year olds
• And 1 in 11 nine year olds are still having trouble

Specialists in this area would not view children as genuine late developers until they were seven or eight years old. So, be confident that, no matter what your friends may say, your five or six year old is not the only one still wetting the bed. Of course, that doesn’t mean that parents can’t find advice and support. At this age, children will be aware that many of their friends manage not to wet the bed, and they may be concerned about staying overnight with friends or relatives.

It’s important to realise that there are two broad problem areas with bed-wetting:

1. When children were dry and have now started to wet the bed again
2. When children moving towards middle childhood have never managed to become dry at night

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