Stay relaxed when the child wets the bed

Bedwetting - this refers to the involuntary loss of urine during sleep. Many parents are surprised when they learn that a child has until their fifth birthday to become dry at night. Of course, many children manage it earlier, but bedwetting does not occur before their fifth birthday.

However, bedwetting is not uncommon in children from the age of five. Around 20 per cent of all children are not yet dry at night. But if the child is dry and clean during the day, there is nothing to worry about from a medical point of view and no special diagnostics are required.

In principle, this is a maturation disorder that often runs in families. If you ask closely, there is almost always a relative who also became dry very late. Overall, bedwetting is mainly an issue for boys.

If everything else is okay, from the fifth birthday onwards, primary "enuresis nocturna" - the technical term for bedwetting - depends on how much the child and the family are suffering. In practice, we tend to simply wait if the child is between five and six. The child should then put on a nappy and very often it gets better on its own and the issue disappears.

There are two treatment options if the child is suffering. One is the so-called bell pants. The other is a hormone tablet, which the child takes in the evening and which regulates the water balance so that the child produces less urine and therefore becomes drier.

Overall, the tendency to improve over the years is very good. The proportion of adolescents who have not yet become dry is far below 1 per cent. At this age, additional psychological therapy is sometimes required. My old head physician, Professor Burkhard, always said: "The most important thing is that everyone stays relaxed. Because everyone gets sober one day.