Nightly Bedwetting Prevention Tips for Parents

Techniques to tackle bedwetting

Time and patience are generally your child's greatest allies, but you may naturally wonder how you can help them. Solutions for treating bedwetting range from simple tips to try at home to prescription medical treatment.

Here are some ideas to treat bedwetting:

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Motivational techniques

One way of encouraging your child not to wet the bed is to record every night when they have not had an accident. The record will clearly show that the child has had several consecutive dry nights, and will visibly chart their progress. If this is not yet the case, you can always save this technique for later.

Limit drinking in the evenings

Avoid drinking too much in the period before bedtime. Try not to give them drinks (especially carbonated or caffeinated) in the two hours before their bed time. Ensure however that they have drunk enough throughout the day and remember that you should never refuse a drink to a thirsty child.

A wake-up call

Use of the bedwetting alarm should be reserved for children aged 10 and over who are determined to stop bedwetting for good and have tried all the usual methods to no success. The device is based on sensors which are placed in the child's underwear which sound an alarm when the child begins to urinate in order that they will wake up and take themselves to the toilet. This method should only be pursued if the child will tolerate it and does not suffer from tiredness or stress. Other members of the family may also be disturbed by the sound of the alarm in the night.

Medication

In certain cases, doctors can prescribe a treatment such as Desmopressin (issued on prescription, in the form of sublingual tablets) which reduces the amount of urine produced at night and, consequently, the need to go to the toilet.

Complementary therapies

Parents of bedwetting children also have a range of complementary therapies available to them, including hypnosis, acupuncture, homeopathy and chiropody.