Question

My son is five years old and occasionally still wets the bed. How should I handle this?

Answer

A five-year-old who still wets the bed may have a functional or organic issue. Functional bedwetting often relates to psychological factors, such as overexertion, stress, or discomfort in a new environment. For functional bedwetting, parents can take the following measures:

  1. Treat your child’s bedwetting issue correctly; do not punish or reject your child but offer sympathy and assistance.
  2. Relieve your child’s psychological burden and let them know that bedwetting is a temporary functional disorder that can be cured.
  3. Establish a reasonable daily routine; avoid overexertion during the day, limit fluid intake after 4 PM, have your child urinate once before bedtime, and wake them up at night to urinate to help establish a conditioned reflex. For organic bedwetting, it is important to seek medical treatment promptly. After curing the disease, the bedwetting problem usually resolves as well. In most cases, functional bedwetting is curable.