Complaints & connections · borters.ch
Enuresis
Not a question of upbringing or defiance but of maturing — patience works better than pressure.
Also known as: bedwetting · nocturnal enuresis
Open in the tool — with search and all the links →This compilation is for information and replaces neither medical diagnosis nor treatment. If you have symptoms, see a doctor.
Bedwetting is more common than many think and as a rule neither a sign of laziness nor a parenting failure — it is a step of maturation that simply takes a bit longer in some children. Up to primary-school age occasional night-time wetting is normal; night-time bladder control develops at each child’s own pace. Often a family predisposition, a particularly deep sleep, a still-small bladder capacity or a high night-time urine output combine. Crucially important is a loving, pressure-free approach: scolding or punishing does not help and only harms the child’s self-esteem. The vast majority of children become dry on their own. A medical look is worthwhile if a child starts wetting again after a longer dry phase, if daytime symptoms appear, or if the wetting clearly distresses beyond primary-school age.
No pressure, no blame — encouragement and understanding carry most.
Less to drink in the evening, toilet before bed, an accessible loo at night.
A calendar of dry nights motivates without pressure.
With distress there are effective aids (e.g. bedwetting alarm) — with medical guidance.
Pick the child up, speak calmly, distract; cool small injuries and stay there.
At five, about fifteen out of a hundred children wet the bed at night; at ten, about five; at fifteen, one to two. With no treatment at all, about fifteen out of a hundred stop by themselves each year. The alarm works in about two thirds and needs six to sixteen weeks, consistently every night; desmopressin works at once, but only for as long as it is taken.
Desmopressin mimics the night-time hormone that reduces urine volume — it works for the night it is taken and no further; after stopping it is as before. The alarm works differently: it trains waking and holds in about two thirds even after it ends. It needs six to sixteen weeks, every night. Cutting out evening drinks achieves little on its own; what matters is the amount across the whole day.
Bedwetting is a question of maturing, not of upbringing — each year about 15 in 100 affected children stop on their own. Sharply restricting drinks does not help.
Neither laziness nor parenting — bladder control matures individually.
Family predisposition, very deep sleep, small bladder, high night urine.
Scolding doesn’t help and harms self-esteem.
Relapse after dryness, daytime symptoms, pain/thirst or distress → doctor.
The first and often the only test needed. It looks for an infection and for sugar in the urine — two causes that can be treated.
If a child starts wetting again after dry years, drinks a lot and loses weight, that is the most urgent question of all.
Only needed with hints of a disease of the kidneys or the drainage system — not with ordinary bedwetting.
A sufficient amount of urine across the day dilutes what would otherwise crystallise or irritate. Spread evenly it works better than in two large portions.
With reduced kidney function it rises and becomes dangerous for the heart rhythm; under water tablets it falls. In both directions it belongs measured and not guessed.
Cutting out calcium is the wrong route with stones: it binds oxalate already in the bowel. Calcium with the meal instead of between meals is the lever, not avoidance.
Much salt drives calcium into the urine and so raises stone formation; it also lifts the blood pressure that strains the kidneys. Most of it sits in bread, cheese and ready meals.
The most often overlooked fixable reason in a child is constipation: the full bowel presses on the bladder. Soft stool over 4–8 weeks resolves more cases than any bladder remedy — the amount follows age and weight.
Offered for children who sleep very deeply. There is no evidence for bedwetting itself; what is studied is falling asleep, not waking to a bladder signal.
The heart of the matter: normally this hormone rises at night and throttles the amount of urine to about half. In some children that rise is not there yet — the bladder is not too small, simply too much arrives.
The deep sleep in which growth hormone is released is the same sleep a child wakes from least easily. That explains why deep sleep and bedwetting go together so often — and why waking the child is seldom the answer.
The total stays the same, it is only shifted: two thirds by the afternoon, little in the last two hours. Caffeinated drinks — cola and iced tea included — drive urine production further.
A full bowel presses on the bladder and makes it smaller. In children who wet the bed treating constipation clearly improves part of the cases in studies — this is often overlooked.
The amount drunk is shifted, not reduced: two thirds by the afternoon. And an often overlooked point — treating constipation clearly improves bed-wetting in some children.