What can parents do to assist their children in getting dry overnight?

1. Drink more water.

Drink more water

It’s really important to emphasise that wetting the bed is not the child’s fault, and night-time dryness cannot be taught or trained in the same way daytime toileting can be. However, when Maria meets with new patients, she looks at a few things including their water intake.

While you might think that decreasing fluid makes sense, Maria finds that in around 95 per cent of cases, it actually needs to be increased.

“The whole idea is that if you increase water intake throughout the day, number one: they’re not going to be as thirsty at night, gulping down heaps of water because they’re going to be well-hydrated, and number two: the theory is that the bladder is strengthened,” she explains

“The bladder is made up of muscle, so the more they drink water and wee, basically getting that bladder working increases the strength of the bladder and increases the strength of the signal that gets to the brain at night. It seems counter-intuitive, but the more water they actually have, the stronger the bladder and also the stronger the signal to the brain.”

2. Make sure it’s just water.

Okay, we’re increasing fluid intake. But what they’re drinking can also factor into the equation.

Samantha*’s eight-year-old son, Ollie*, had been mostly dry overnight for years, but suddenly started wetting the bed again.

“It was a bit frustrating, because he often comes in overnight to sleep with us,” Samantha says.

“We’d wake at 3am in a huge puddle and have to change the whole bed. We were tired and he was upset and feeling babyish, but he couldn’t control it.”

After a couple of weeks of intermittent bedwetting and disrupted sleep for the whole family, Samantha linked the onset with the hot chocolate Ollie had recently started enjoying as a treat after dinner. After cutting it out, the bedwetting stopped immediately. Maria says this is common.

“Soft drinks, cordial and hot chocolate aren’t recommended in the evening for children who wet the bed because it can make the bladder sort of twitchy, and expel the urine involuntarily,” she explains.

“That’s an additional thing we talk to children about, particularly at the end of the treatment when we’re talking about relapse prevention.”

3. Don’t punish or chastise them — they can’t help it.

Punishing or chastising your child for bedwetting — something they can’t control — doesn’t help. Instead, Maria says you can reward and reinforce behaviours that children do have control over, that support long-term dryness, such as adequate water intake and regular toileting.

4. Help them feel comfortable and safe at night.

“Discuss and remedy any barriers to using the toilet during the night, like keeping night lights on and encouraging your child to call out to you if they need support with getting up to use the toilet during the night,” she says.

Also using DryNites Night Time Pants are a great way to make your child feel comfortable at night, alleviating any stress about ‘what-if’ scenarios.

5. ‘Liftings’ won’t train them.

“Parents do ‘liftings’, where they sort of half-wake/half-drag their children to the toilet before the parents go to bed,” Maria says.

“That’s not really a strategy to get them dry permanently, that’s more of a strategy to get them through the night.”

Parents Anonymous: Midday Adult Cuddle Time Gets Creative

Sam Mac On What Instagram Doesn’t Tell You About Parenting