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Still wetting the bed

Your support can help your child deal with the stress of bedwetting

By
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Originally published in Today's Parent June 2009

Tends to run in families

The research says that bedwetting tends to run in families, and Karen Martin* sees plenty of evidence in her own household. She remembers wetting the bed occasionally until she was 10, and knew that one of her nephews was 13 before he was dry at night.

So she wasn’t shocked when her son James (now 14) and her daughter Gabrielle (now 10) continued to wake up to damp sheets from time to time until just after their 10th birthdays.

While the majority of children will be dry at night by the time they are five or six, about six to eight percent are still wetting the bed at age eight. The percentage goes down each year, leaving two percent still not dry every night at age 15. What may not have been a big deal with a five-year-old can be an awkward and embarrassing situation for a preteen.

“I have tried to handle the situation with tact, discretion, respect and dignity,” Martin says. “I have always been very matter-of-fact about it. Kids don’t wet the bed because they want to.”

Martin is absolutely right, says paediatrician Mark Feldman of Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children. “Bedwetting is not a disease or bad behaviour. There’s nothing wrong with these kids and they aren’t doing it on purpose — it’s not in their control.”

*Names changed by request.

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