Why

your child?

Understanding the reasons behind bedwetting can help you and your child deal with the issue. A visit to the doctor can rule out any urinary infection and determine if there are any physical reasons to explain your child's bedwetting or whether it is simply a stage of development that your child will eventually outgrow.

Here are some of the common reasons to explain why bedwetting occurs:

The Heavy Sleeper

Children who wet the bed are often described as deep sleepers. These children sleep so heavily that the urge to urinate will not wake them up. One doctor describes the condition to children like this: "Part of your brain is supposed to stay awake while you're sleeping to let you know if you have to go to the loo during the night. At the moment, that's not happening with you". Doctors sometimes recommend sleep conditioning as a way of overcoming this.

Hereditary Factors

Bedwetting often runs in the family. If one parent wet the bed as a child, there is around a 40% chance that their child will too. If both parents wet the bed, the odds can rise to around 70%.

Hormones

Each night our bodies secrete a hormone called vasopressin which stimulates the re-absorption of water through the kidneys during sleep, producing small amounts of concentrated urine each morning. Some children with nocturnal enuresis do not yet produce enough of the hormone and continue to produce large amounts of urine during the night.

Bladder development

Bedwetting can be dependent upon your child's development. The process of recognising when the bladder is full is a skill that has to be learned, in much the same way as walking and talking have to be learned, and children achieve these skills at different times and different speeds. A medical examination may rule out other causes such as a weak sphincter muscle, UTI or diabetes.