5.5 Year Old Still Wearing Night Time Diapers??

I remember wetting the bed for a LONG time....... I remember going on sleepovers and having them put a plastic sheet under me.. how embarrassing! We didn't have anything like pull-ups back then... (I'm 54).

I don't know when I finally outgrew it, but I did.....

I also remember dreaming at night that I was getting up to go to the bathroom... and would pee.... and dream that for some reason, I was sitting on the lid! Needless to say, I was wetting the bed instead of actually getting up to go to the bathroom....

At times I feel embarrassed about this, but I have to remind myself that medically-it is normal. My 6 year old wears a "goodnight" pull up, and every morning it is wet. She doesn't drink past dinner, and always pees before laying down at night. Yet, still it's never been dry in the morning. We are dealing with it day to day and I know eventually it will be ok. I have a 3 year old boy who has been dry at night for months. He's in underwear and that is hard for my daughter to understand.

I do not think it is a bigger problem. I think you have a very normal boy.

my son is 13 and still has a bedwetting problem. i did it till i was 15. he will outgrow it. it might take awhile, but it will happen.

Night Time Dryness... is not something that is biologically attained, until even 7 years old. And is normal. Some are later.

My son is 5 and still in night time diapers.
My daughter when 5 was in night time diapers as well.

I do not withhold liquids at night.
I do not wake them from sleep just to go pee.
I rather them not get lack of sleep, just to be woken up for peeing, from me.

Your son is NORMAL.
You cannot 'train' for night time.
Night time dryness is not the same as, day time pottying.
It is TOTALLY different. Not the same at all.

I have, for my kids, waterproof bed pads to put under them.
THEN that makes leaks, much easier to clean up because then the sheets do not get soiled.
I have 4 of them that I rotate, and I got it from Amazon.

My kids do not and did not... get 'confused' about night time diapers but not for daytime. Because, I simply explained to them that their body is still developing and not ready to be dry at night, yet.
They understand.

Night time dryness... is about ORGAN development/brain & bladder connections and nerve myelin sheath development. Not about age.

AND even if daytime and night-time pottying is mastered, pee accidents DO happen still.
My daughter at 7 years old, still had had pee accidents at night.
ALL of her Teachers, from Preschool to Kindergarten to 1st Grade... ALL Unanimously said... this is NORMAL. Kids these ages, wear night diapers. Accidents happen. They are young. It is normal... but the parents won't admit it and feel embarrassed.
But they all said, it is normal.

Nighttime dryness is not a "training" issue...it's a physiological development issue. Lots of kids aren't dry all night til 5-6-7-even 8 or 9. When his body is developed, he'll be dry in the morning.
As for waking him up so his diaper doesn't leak? Not sure I would bother. Try a Maxi Pad in there or a diaper doubler.
And you can layer waterproof pad/sheet/pad/sheet so the bed changes are easier. Get large waterproof pads. Definitely make sure to wash his body off in the morning, too!
Good luck!

Absolutely not a training issue.
It is pretty normal actually.
My brother wet the bed until he was 11 or 12 and then he simply grew out of it.
One day their brain's just get the message.
Relax and don't allow your child to feel any shame over this.
I know my brother struggled w/ that for a long time.
But I can tell you now he is a intelligent and well adjusted man.

Don't stress - it WILL happen when your boys' bodies are ready. My eldest daughter wore a pull up until she was almost 8. Trust me, we tried EVERYTHING. And the poor kid wanted so badly to be dry at night. She just could NOT do it. One day she woke up dry and said simply, "I'm done with pull-ups." And seriously, she was. From that moment on she wore underwear to bed and hasn't had a single accident (that was over 2 years ago) Now my younger daughter will be 8 next month. She still wears pull ups (actually, she's a lot bigger than my older one, so we had to go with Good Nites recently) I'm not sweating it. When her body is ready it will happen. You can try every trick in the book, but it won't really work until your child's body is ready to do it. I wouldn't even bother trying to wake him to pee before you go to bed. That's not teaching him anything, and it's just annoying for you. Hang in there :)

Perfectly normal. It won't help to wake him up, his bladder doesn't stop producing urine during the night and there is nothing he can do about it. It's like saying you can control you heart beat. It does it's job with or without your help. Get some sleep and use pull ups for overnight accidents. Many kids continue having these accidents until 10-12 years old. There is NOTHING they can do to prevent them, they have NO control over this.

He's fine. I was almost 12 when I was able to wake up at night. I was perfectly "toilet trained" but just would not wake up at night for the bathroom. My younger sister was the same way. We did have prescriptions and were not allowed to drink before bed, but I don't remember that that helped. We mostly just did out bedding laundry in the morning if we had an accident.

my son is freshly turned 5, and he still wears pullups at night (i recommend the goodnights pullups over diapers - they hold a lot more. we switched when it was coming down to 2 diapers each night, OR laundry every day due to wet bedding - it was cheaper to get the pullups...) my son is dry occasionally and i start to get excited, then something happens and he backslides again. oh well...eventually...!

(i don't hold with the getting up at night thing, it's not teaching them anything, just makes more of a headache for you, either i have to physically manhandle my 45 lb son to the bathroom and back, including undressing him, holding him up while he pees, and dressing him again, or if he really does wake up, my son is a GROUCH, i learned that the hard way...i opt for patience and letting nature take it's course.)

My daughter seemed to take a while before she did not need a pull up at bedtime and she was the same way I would try to wake her and instead of her waking up she would just start to urinate. The dr told me that bed time "training" is completly different then during the day and they should eventually start to wake up if they need to go. I did stop letting her drink close to bedtime and made sure she went before going to sleep and that helped but all of a sudden she would wake up herself and go and stopped wetting the bed. Best Wishes

I don't think this is unusual. My daughter is 5 and still wears a night time pull up. She is a very heavy sleeper and just doesn't wake up. I know that one day she will grow out of it. I try not to make a big deal out of it, I don't want her to feel embarrassed. I tell her if she were the only one they wouldn't make pull ups for big kids (we use underjams and the picture is a kid that looks about 9 or so).

I could have wrote your post! My 6 year old still wears a goodnights. He leaks 1-3 nights per week and doesn't remain dry....maybe twice.... I think it is normal also. He is such a sound sleeper... I often wonder if my 3 year old daughter will be night time trained before he is. Good luck!

Not a problem. Not considered a problem until at least age 7-8. Both of my boys were 6. One never had accidents after that, one had accidents occassionally until age 8-9. And there's not much you can do about it. It's developmental.

My 9 yo son wets the bed. His pedi told me it was common till age 8 and we could address it then if he still wet the bed. When I brought it up at his 8 year well child she admitted it was actually common till age 12 but they tell parents 8 because it freaks them out to hear 12, lol. My son is a very heavy sleeper, he just doesn't wake up to the cue that he needs to urinate. Waking your son periodically to have him use the restroom is not teaching him to hold his urine and respond to the 'have to go' cue, it's just teaching him to go when mom or dad get him up whether he has to or not. Worse, by holding a sleeping kid over the toilet you are reinforcing urinating while he's asleep. If it doesn't bother him then just let it go. If he gets upset by it before he outgrows it then you can try other things to stop the bedwetting.

There are medications available when your kids are older (8+). We chose not to use them because our pedi only saw 50% success rate and they can stunt growth. When my son decided he was tired of wearing goodnights we bought a bedwetting alarm. We started it last weekend; he wears a sensor in his underpants that triggers an alarm when it senses wetness - the alarm is loud, and it flashes, and it vibrates, and my son can sleep through it like most bedwetters lol. They recommend a parent sleep with the child for the first week or so, so I'm sleeping with ds. The first time it went off I had to pry him from the bed. Second time was a little easier. Last night I just gave him a gentle shake and he got up to use the bathroom, change his undies, reattach the sensor, and come back to bed - so I know he's learning to react to it. I'm hopeful that I'll be out of his bed by Monday and that he'll be dry this time next month - 90% of kids using alarms are dry after 3 months.

My daughter wet the bed less and less frequently until it happened about 4 times during age 8 and twice in the seven months since turning 9. This is not unusual. Her father was a late bed-wetter. It usually runs in families. It is more likely to happen when my daughter is very tired and sleeps deeply. I don't withhold liquids in the evening, but I do restrict sugary drinks since that seemed to be a trigger.

It's normal for some kids to need extra time before staying dry at night. My nephew is 8 1/2 and still wears goodnight pants, where my son hasnt wore diapers since he was about 2.5 years old.

Night dryness, for most kids, just happens when certain physiological functions mature enough, just like your doctor said. Reportedly, a few families have success with the alarms that get clipped to underwear. But mostly, kids need whatever time they need to grow out of it. And late maturation tends to run in families. Occasion kids need nearly until puberty to be consistently dry at night. Fortunately, that's relatively rare.

One thing you might try, if possible, is taking the boys to the bathroom approximately 1 1/2 hours after they fall asleep. Sleep cycles run in cycles of about that length, and they may be transitioning into a lighter sleep phase at about that time. I tried it with my grandson when he was here on a sleepover, though, and even though he answered a couple of questions, he was semi-sleeping during the whole bathroom trip, and didn't remember any of it the next morning.

Anyway, hang it there. It's got to be frustrating. I'm sure your kids will start wishing they woke up dry, especially as they start getting invited to sleepover parties. But it generally just takes whatever time it takes. It's not a matter of will power.

According to my mom, I was day trained at 19 months but I still remember wetting the bed until i was about 6 or 7 years old. It's completely normal--i don't went the bed now at 24 years :) You're getting a lot of great feedback on here and I hope it helps you out to know that your boys are not alone in this.

Pretty normal. He seems like a heavy sleeper whose body does not wake when the bladder is full enough to signal "Hey, go to the bathroom." Do continue to get him up to use the toilet before you go to bed; we did with our daughter and very rarely did she have any accidents at night at that age. The fact he's still very sleepy is normal but it's better to hold him up than to have wet beds night after night.

If he has good daytime control you're doing OK.

My son who will me 6 in January also wets the bed. He is still wearing Goodnites at night. My doctor told me that bed wetting is not a concern until the child is 8 years old. If he is still wetting the bed at 8, then he will examine him. I also found a pamphlet at the doctors office that also stated that it was not a problem until 8 years of age. The reason is because from newborn to 8 years old your child is growing very rapidly. Sometimes their bladder is unable to grow fast enough to keep up. Once the child is 8, their growth will slow quite a bit and the bladder can catch up in growth.

Bed wetting also can be an inherited issue. My brother wet the bed till he was 15 and my sister in law wet the bed until she was 13. So my boy could have inherited the problem. I sure hope that I don't have to deal with it that long. I am sick of washing sheets and blankets so often. He almost always leaks out of his pull up.

I will say, that my 5 year old boy is very tall for his age. He is only a about 5 inches shorter that my 10 year old. My 10 year old is average height for his age. In fact, he is taller that about third of the kids in my 10 year olds 4th grade class. My 5 year old is over the 98th percentile in height. I am guessing that he will be about 6 ft. 3 inches as an adult based on the theory of doubling the height at 2.

Before I even clicked on your question, I knew this would be about boys.

This is not uncommon in boys and you shouldn't worry too much. My 10 year old had the occasional accident until he was about 8.

I strongly advise that he not get any liquids two hours prior to bedtime, that you require he empty his bladder before bed, and that you get a Malem Bedwetting Alarm. They are worth EVERY PENNY and will teach your child to wake up when they get the urge to urinate...before they wet the bed!

All the best!