6 Yo Still Having "Accidents" at Night

Really, there's no such thing as night time potty training. When his body is physiologically ready, he'll be dry forever.
Until then, I'd make it easy for myself, whether that means Good Nites, waterproof pad/sheet/waterproof pad/sheet layering for quick bed changes, etc.
Nor would I restrict his hydration, or take him to the bathroom in the middle of the night!
Good luck.

He's normal.

My daughter was 7 and still having accidents and wet at night.

My son is 5 and still is wet at night and needs night diapers.

It is a physiological, development.
Their body/brain/organs/myelin nerve sheath development.

Ditto everyone else below.

Some kids, boys and girls, are not able to asleep dry throughout the night at his age, it's physically impossible for them. You are aware he is difficult to wake up, that's a major reason, he isn't feeling he needs to go and waking up. Talk to his pediatrician at his next checkup and see what's recommended, meanwhile put him in nighttime pull-ups (Under Jams, I think) and use waterproof pads under him. Don't continue to put him in underpants, it isn't helping him feel the need to go, and may undermine his self-confidence in a situation he cannot control.

Do you know what time he pees? Is it right before he wakes up or is it in the middle of the night? Once you know you can make changes. If it's the middle of the night, I'd withhold liquids a little earlier. If it's right before he wakes up, I'd go in and jostle him awake 30 minutes earlier than his normal wake up time and get him to the toilet.
It's very normal for 6 yr olds to sleep through and pee the bed occasionally so dont fret about it too much. I guarantee he wont be peeing the bed in highschool :)

The only thing that will help is time. He has to grow out of it. for most kids this happens younger, but some kids are older. My nephew was 8, my cousin was 12.

I know it is frustrating but my best advise is not to stress about it so much and do not make a big deal about it to him.

One of my boys had this issue and I at first would lose patience and it really would tick me off but then I came to my senses when I looked at the poor guy and thought, what's the big deal! I brought out the pads for the bed and if he had an accident, change the pad/underwear and no biggie. He hasn't had an issue for a long time so I guess he outgrew it, so there is hope ;>)!!!!

Try to be in their shoes, you wake up wet, smelly, cold and out of sorts, that has got to be horrible in itself for them. Teach him where to put his wet clothes, find his underwear, change his pad and climb back into bed. We had him throw it all into the tub, go potty and get back into bed.

Hang in there, frustrating as this may be, it will pass.....

It is a normal occurence for a percentage of children. Yes, that is why nighttime diapers and pull-ups come in those sizes. My daughter wet the bed, less and less frequently, until she was 8. There is nothing you can do to make them sleep dry earlier than they are physically able to. Stop waking him up at night and let him sleep. Withholding liquids at night does not work. Put pull-ups on since he is still wet more than he is dry at night. This is all perfectly normal. If you do some research, you will see that most doctors don't even discuss this as an issue until a child is 11 or 12.

H.:

Night time training is NOT the same as day time training...there is a chemical protein that the body needs to develop in order to hold the urine the hold night.

Waking them up to pee in the middle of the night doesn't do anything other than upset everyone. Using the alarms that the market sells doesn't do anything either.

One of the boys that is over to our house frequently - who is 11 - still wets the bed. Not every night and not every time...

My 6 yr old daughter has/had the same problem. We did everything you did with no positive results. Just frustration for us and tears for her. My husband looked up online for help with this and he found a doctor that said depriving kids of water will not help. Also if your child is a dead sleeper, waking them up at night to use the bathroom only works if your child is fully awake. Otherwise their bodies just register it as urinating while sleeping. This doctor( and I wish I could remember his name!) said that the best thing to do is during the day, train their bladder to hold more. Have your child "hold it" as long as possible. This will eventually grow their bladder enough to make it through the night without an accident. With my stu born daughter it has taken about 9 months, but our accidents are down to 1 or 2 a month! I wouldn't suggest it if I hadn't seen it work with my own eyes on my own child. Good luck and whatever else, keeping letting your child know that he is not alone and you love him!

My son had accidents at night until he was 12 years old. It was very frustrating, because of spending the night with friends or going to camp or traveling. My pediatrician says it is not really considered an issue until they are 8 years old and not considered a serious concern until after age 12. It is somewhat common, especially with boys.

My son had less accidents as he got older and would even go for several months without an accident and I would think, "YEA!" we are done and then it would start again. Sometimes he would go a week or two dry and then have accidents 3 or 4 nights in a row. I could not find any rhyme or reason to it! Even on nights when his dad would buy him a huge Icee on the way home from an activity, I couldn't be sure if he would have an accident or not! (I always told my husband on those nights, YOU have to change the sheets!)

At age 6, he is still pretty young and it is very common at this age. My son was also a very hard sleeper also. At that age, he would often not even wake up when he wet the bed. If your son can wear the pull-ups, then that is helpful, but can get kind of expensive over time. I know my nephews had to wear pull-ups until their teens! My son hated to wear the pull-ups (didn't even like to wear underwear until we started using boxers) and the boxer type pull-ups would leak. Since it he did not wet the bed every single night, just once or twice a week, I didn't make him wear the pull-ups. I just put a heavy waterproof mattress protector on his bed and also bought a waterproof pad that was like a big rectangle, maybe more of a crib pad. I would put a sheet over the mattress protector and then the big loose rectangle pad and then a second sheet over that. That it made it easier to change the bed in the middle of the night. Just take the top sheet and pad off and you already had a dry sheet underneath. I also used this loose mattress pad when we traveled. I think a time or two I even bought some disposable waterproof pads to use in hotel rooms.

As my son got older, it did happen much less frequently, but it was still a problem. I don't remember for sure how old he was (definitely after age 8) that my doctor gave him a pill to try. One of the problems can be that they are not producing enough of a hormone that shuts down their urine production during sleep. He took this pill for a month or so and it worked like a charm! Unfortunately, you can't stay on it indefinitely. But it was obvious that this was the problem and as soon as his system matured and produced enough of the hormone on it's own, then he didn't have any more accidents. The hope is that by taking the pill for a while, it will jump start the system or retrain them to stay dry. We would try this treatment once a year and I chose to do it in the summer, so that he could go to church camp and on vacation and to spend the night with his friends. My pediatrician also suggested the alarms, but we didn't really want to try that.

My son is a great kid and I hated for him to go through this. Never any discipline problems and such a sweet and loving child. Please do not blame your son or make him feel bad about this problem, because he can not control it. It can be really humiliating for them and your understanding is really needed. It is hard not to get really frustrated with the constant washing and be awakened in the night. As my son got older, we worked out a system to make it easier for both of us. He had a sleeping bag on the floor in his room and so if he had an accident, he just got up and changed his clothes and went back to sleep on the sleeping bag. He didn't have to wake me up or disrupt his sleep by trying to change sheets during the night.

Hopefully, your son will outgrow it in a year or two. Most kids do. But if your son if one of the unlucky ones like my son, then you need to help and support him.

why doesn't taking him at night work? Are you too late??
I was going to suggest just walking him in when you go to bed, even if he still asleep, you'll have to physically lead him but i would think he would be able to empty his bladder.
Grandma T's advice was enlightening to me, so maybe just waking him up early would do the trick.

Good luck.

Put pull ups on him so everyone can get the rest they need. Sometimes kids have accidents until they are 13 or even older.

I think if you search the answers on this page you will find page after page of the same questions and the same answers over and over.

Nothing you are doing or going to try will make any difference. His brain has to turn on the chemical signal to tell his kidneys to stop producing urine while he is asleep.

When that happens he will go to the bathroom before bed, when he falls asleep his bladder will still be empty, his kidneys will stop producing urine, then when he wakes up he will stand up and feel his bladder fill. Then he will be able to go to the bathroom and not be wet anymore.

Sometimes we all are so sleepy and we may wake up briefly. Then fall back asleep and have an accident but until his brain sends that chemical response there is nothing that will stop the urine from happening while he is sleeping.

Limiting his fluids won't influence his wetting. It may even make it worse. If he is getting dehydrated his urine will be stronger and harder to hold.

When kids are wetting their bed at that age, there could be many reasons. It could be psychological or emotional. It can also be because they have fallen on their buts or have hurt themselves in their bum area causing some compression on the nerves that allow for voluntary muscle control. I am a chiropractor & have seen many children for this condition. I would highly recommend a check up from a chiropractor to make sure that he doesn't have any alignment issues causing this problem. My office is in Allen, ###-###-####. If its not in your area, I can certainly find someone thats closer to you.

S. Rahimi, D.C.

Just put him in pullups at night till he wakes up dry 2 weeks in a row.
My son out grew it at 7 1/2.
Young kids sleep deeply because they need that sleep.
It's important for their growth/development.
He can't 'feel' any wetness when he's sleeping (basically unconscious).
I just didn't want to deal with a pee'd up bed all the time, so the pullups worked great for all of us.
You have to be patient - he's growing fast as he can.

Sounds like he is an extremely deep sleeper.

First - he can't control this and is not doing it on purpose.

Second - it's completely normal up to the early teens; 2 urologists told me this. It is very often linked to constipation; stool backs up and presses on bladder reducing the space for urine so they have to go more often. The pressure also desensitizes the bladder so they don't recognize the 'gotta go' signal. Frequently if they are constipated and you treat that the bedwetting goes away, but it takes time, so have him checked by a dr to rule it out.

Put him in goodnights or underjams and be patient. When he's ready to try being dry at night look into some of the alarms on www.thebedwettingstore.com. Prior posters are wrong - for many kids alarms DO work. It worked with my son, but he had to want to do it and it was a long process (he was 9 and it took 2.5 months to be totally dry).

I would strongly advise against waking him up to go to the bathroom; he's probably not really awake and all you're doing is reinforcing to his subconcious that sleep & urination go hand in hand - not something you want to do.

I've read in multiple sources that bed wetting is normal until age 8.

Normal, but frustrating. It does get better. I promise.
Mine got remarkably better around age 8/9. So much so, in fact, that I thought he had licked it, until he'd have a string of 2 or 3 wet nights in a week. Then he'd be dry again for 2 months. Then have another string of 2 or 3 nights, sometimes right in a row, sometimes with a night in between.

It is a growth thing, but also, he is a very deep sleeper. VERY deep. He sleeps through smoke detectors and such, and sometimes talks in his sleep. The talking in his sleep is much less frequent in the past couple of years (he's almost 14 now)... so I sometimes wonder if there is any correlation to the sleep talk and the deep sleep rhythms and the bedwetting...
I did the "wake him up just before I went to bed" thing for a long time too. Eventually, I quit, and just reminded him to "go" when doing bedtime routine stuff. Then, last thing before lights off, he went again. To be sure he had fully emptied his bladder as much as was possible.

I can't remember exactly what age he was when he last had a wet night, now. It has been some time. Couple of years at least.
At 6, it was fairly regularly an issue. Not on a 'schedule' mind you, just not at all a surprise, either.
Hang in there, and do whatever you need to to help him rest well and keep his self-respect intact. If that means underjams (or whatever they are called) so be it. If that means letting him deal with wet stuff and cleaning himself up, so be it. If that means you setting an alarm and waking him up an hour before he is due to wake up, so be it.
Just be matter of fact about the whole thing with him, because he certainly isn't doing it on purpose, and would change it if he could. It is physiological. Can't control that.

A theory exists that links bedwetting to constipation. http://www.wakehealth.edu/News-Releases/2012/Bedwetting_C...

Back off and give that boy a pair of pullups. If he's that deep of a sleeper, he's not developmentally ready for nighttime dryness. Try cutting liquids after 6pm. Other than that, my pediatrician said not to worry and wait until age 8 to try interventions. I was more than happy to give the poor bedsheets and washing machine a rest! Someone just posted a question about bed wetting alarms, so you may want to check that out.