Dr Catherine
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Girl
4-7 years

Our daughter hasn’t had to wear nappies throughout the day for a year now (although she does occasionally have accidents). She goes to the toilet before nap time so doesn’t wet the bed during her nap. However we haven’t had the guts to try her at night without a nappy as her nappies are always so full in the morning. Should we try anyway or wait until she naturally is waking with less wet nappies (however long that may be)? She turned 4 at the end of May. Thank you.

it is perfectly normal for your daughter to still be wetting the bed at night. The time between achieving daytime continence and nighttime control is different for every child. While some achieve this in a matter of weeks, others take months or years - and yes a really good indication of nighttime readiness is an increase in the number of mornings where your child wakes up dry. There are a number of reasons why children continue to wet at night. Some do so because their body produces larger than normal amounts of urine overnight and their bladder is unable to store it until morning. This usually continues until the amount of urine produced decreases or children learn to wake-up in response to a full bladder. Others do so because they are unable to wake in response to the signals that their bladder sends to their brain telling them to wake-up and go to the toilet. Nighttime wetting occurs when children are asleep so the same methods that we use to encourage daytime continence no longer apply. Most children do outgrow bedwetting on their own by the time they turn 6 years. Until then continue what you are doing and perhaps you could try her in DryNites rather than nappies as these are better suited and more appealing to older children. All the best! Kind Regards, Dr Cathrine