CONTINENCE FOUNDATION OF AUSTRALIA: TIPS TO BEAT BEDWETTING

CONTINENCE FOUNDATION OF AUSTRALIA: TIPS TO BEAT BEDWETTING

The Continence Foundation of Australia publishes a quarterly magazine called the Bridge. The summer 2022 edition of Bridge, focuses on children, and particularly on toilet training, with tips and guidelines around a child’s readiness and ability, and how to ensure this is a positive experience.

There is one article providing tips to beat bed wetting with contributions from physiotherapist Sue Croft and Dr. Janet Chase. Among many things they say that “after the age of 7 years, treatment should be considered. It has been shown that becoming dry at night has a major beneficial impact on children’s self-esteem and sleep quality. Treatment consists of addressing contributing factors firstly. One of the most effective treatments for bedwetting is the use of a bedwetting alarm. Basically there are two sorts of alarms – a mat that lies on the bed attached to alarm box, and a body worn alarm. They both work. We know that treatment is more effective if the use of such an alarm is supervised by an appropriately trained health professional and research has shown us that after 10 to 20 weeks, 66% of children maintained 14 consecutive dry nights using an alarm compared with only 4% with no alarm treatment. There are also medications that can be helpful, especially if there are day problems as well, or in an older child.

For children and adults to be reliably dry at night two things are needed – a bladder that stores a good amount of urine and a brain that wakes us if we need to empty the bladder during the night. There are many factors that affect both of these abilities. Bed wetting can be treated, even in older children who have not succeeded in becoming dry previously.”  Read all the tips to beat bedwetting here ….

For sensitive and confidential advice, the Continence Foundation of Australia has many free resources and you can speak confidentially to a Nurse Continence Specialist on the Continence Helpline on 1800 33 00 66.

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