Bed Wetting 8 1/2 yr. old

[camillem2]

My daughter is wetting the bed everynight and by wetting I mean soaking. We wake her up every few hours but still can't seem to catch it. She does once in a while wet during the day too. We had a complete medical work-up including ultra scan and can't find anything wrong. Should I be concerned or will she grow out of it? How can I deal with the nightly clean-ups?   Two bits of info.  She is ADHD and I was a bed wetter too (but I can't remember to how old).

[tejodouro]

Is she on ADHD med?  if so, that might cause this issue. I have a friend who has a boy on ADHD medicine and he has the same issue.  The mom does not seem to be able to get him to stop.  I am not sure if it is the ADHD itself (inpulse control) or the medicine.
Now, I have a child who is now 9 years old who used to wet her bed up to 1.5 years ago. This is what I did:
(1) Reduce liquid intake after 4 pm / no milk with dinner.  It seemed that every time she had a glass of milk with her dinner she wet her bed.
(2) Make sure she uses the bathroom right before going to bed.
(3) I layered 3 sheets back to back on the bed.  Between each sheet, I used a "puddle pad" and a mattress cover.  This way, in the middle of the night, I pulled the wet sheet  and other wet linean.  The bed ready for her without mom having to do much work.
(4) In the morning or even in the middle of the night, I made sure that she was the one that had to carry the wet sheets to the laundry room.  I did not say anything to her. I did not scold her or even talk much to her. I just told her to please take the sheets to the laundry room.
(5) When I had to make the bed again, I made sure that she helped me make the bed again.
Hope this helps. I think that with maturity she will outgrow this problem.

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

Approximately 5-7% of children this age are enuretic at night. This is not regarded as indicative of any problem, either medically or psychologically. I'm inferring from your note that she has always been enuretic at night. That is, I'm assuming she's never had long stretches of remaining dry at night. If that is the case, you can pretty much rule out the the enuresis is a side efect or complication of her medication. One way or the other, it eventually  will stop. You should not be waking her - that is adding to the problem. Not only will she be enuretic at night but she will also have interrupted sleep and that will not be good from the point of view of her cognitive functioning at school. She is old enough now to try medication, so speak with her doctor about that. You can see that the apple does not fall far from the tree, and that is the case with many children who are enuretic at night.