A 7-Year-Old Boy Wets His Bed Every Night And Refuses To Go To Sleep-Overs. What Should A Parent Do?

July 1, 2009— -- Question: A 7-year-old boy wets his bed every night and refuses to go to sleep-overs even with his best friend. What should a parent do?

Answer: Bedwetting is a rather common problem among children. Even though the typical child will be totally dry at night between ages three and four, it's not uncommon to have children wet the bed up until age eight and sometimes even older. It's estimated that eight percent of children between six and eight actually have trouble with bedwetting. The most important thing for parents to do is to understand that the child really has no control over bedwetting. So you don't want to punish them or make them feel guilty.

What you want to do is employ some simple techniques that will allow the family to continue as normally as possible until your child does become dry at night. Some of these suggestions are to limit the amount of fluid that the child drinks two hours before bedtime, to cover the mattress with plastic so that the mattress will remain dry and this will also facilitate clean-up. Children can also help with stripping their mattress when there's been a nighttime accident and they can take that to a place that the parent and child agree mutually is the place for soiled items.

Again it's important to realize that about 15 percent of children who bed wet will outgrow this problem every year. So parents need to be patient, they need to be supportive and their child will eventually be dry at night.