Punishing him will only make things far worse. Wetting the bed is normally a sign of some insecurity that a child has, could be at home, or creche. Has anything changed in his life recently? New school, teacher, have you moved house? I suggest scrutinising every facet of what he is exposed to, and seeing if something is making him stressed.

Do not punish him, you will only make him feel like its his fault. The reasons for him wetting the bed could be physiological or psycholgical. I suggest chatting to a doctor to gain some more insight on the matter. They may suggest other methods of reducing the bed wetting. Just make sure that he doesn't drink any liquids 2 hours before bedtime, and make sure that he goes to the loo right before he goes to sleep. In the meantime, you should get mattress protectors so that your mattress doesn't get ruined. But please, please, do not punish him. I know what it feels like because I was a bedwetter when I was a kid.

No punishment will not help, in fact it will probably make it worse. Rather refer to the following:

http://www.health24.com/...h/833-853-872,28028.asp

http://www.health24.com/...to_Z/777-4198,12736.asp

http://www.health24.com/...th/833-853-871,15123.asp

The last thing you must do is punishing him. That will just cause more anxiety and aggravate the problem. Put him back on nighttime nappies. Make sure he doesn't drink anything for a few hours before going to bed. Make sure he goes for a wee just before bedtime. Try to take him for another wee at about 22h00 or just before you go to bed. Do this until he wakes-up the next morning with a dry nappy. This can even take a few months. The most important thing is not to put any pressure on him. That will just stress him out.

While doing this, try to figure out if he is unhappy or worried about anything. This is usually the problem with any bedwetting.

If this does not work, take him to a pediatrician to make sure there is nothing physical wrong with him.

I did too and a simple device solved my problem. It was not an emotional issue - I simply slept too deep. The device has an electrode that you button into your underwear, connected to an alarm in the shirt pocket. The moment the electrode gets wet, the alarm goes off. After a few weeks of using it, problem was solved. It is more often an issue of simply not being woken up by a full bladder than any emotional issue, though the latter could be present. Try a physical solution first ebfore assuming emotions...

Good luck!

My son is 4 and we started rewarding everynight he did not wet his bed. When he got 10 stickers in a row he received a gift. If he wet his bed he lost 2 stickers. This had immediate results. We still make him wee before he goes to bed but no longer use the sticker incentive.

It is not something he can control - DO NOT PUNISH HIM! My 5 year old also had the same problem - in that she had not achieved night time dryness. After a little internet research this is what I learned:

It is often many things combined that make this happen so could need a many sided approach.

One of the elements is a sleep disorder where they sleep to heavily and can sort of squirt the wee out in a sort of contraction related to the sleep disorder.

There are a variety of medications out there that are very helpful (you need to go to a doctor for this) but they have an 90% relapse rate when the medication is stopped but they are brilliant for sleepovers!

I used an alarm (Malem make a good one). This has worked a treat with my child who was also 5, however it is actually not recommended at this age as THEY ARE TOO YOUNG. They recommend from age 8 or so. But as I say it did work for my daughter. It requires (especially at this age) a lot of parental intervention. It work on the principle of teaching the child the feeling of needing to urinate and helping make this a trigger to wake up. As a parent, you then need to hear the alarm, wake the child up, take it to the toilet and then reset the alarm - at 5 they will not ever be able to reset the alarm so you will have to do this, but older children learn to do this for themselves in the night.

The biggest problem with the alarm system (which has a very high success rate) is that they are shockingly expensive between R1000 - R2000. I bought mine online from the UK slightly cheaper - but still an expense. I have heard of places that rent them out but have not found any in SA.

The most important thing that I found out tho is that is actually very, very common for 5 year olds not to be dry at night something like 15% of all children.

Hope this helps and give your child a big hug, he really doesn't mean to make all this work for you.

We had the same issue with our son.

This is what worked for us:
1. Line the mattress with waterproof sheets.
2. Give him a nice talking to. Go down to his level, ie bending your knees and talk to him face to face. Tell him exactly what you expect and how he will be rewarded when he does not wet his bed.
3. Slow down on any drinks at least 2 hours before bed time. If this is difficult, then just give him tiny bits to drink at a time.
4. Make sure he goes to the loo often, even if you have to take him there by hand.
5. Make sure he goes to the loo right before bed time.
6. He should not wear any tight fitting shorts and jamies. The looser it sits around the waste the better. Sometimes the pressure on the waste can put extra pressure on the bladder...
7. Buy some nice looking Ben10 stickers or whatever tickles his fancy.
8. Print out a monthly calendar.
9. When he does wet his bed, say nothing -ignore it completely!
10. When he does not wet his bed, reward him with a sticker! Stick it onto the specific day he did not wet his bed.
11. When he has 5 nights in a row in which he did not wet his, reward him with a small toy.

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, ALWAYS KEEP YOUR COOL!!!

This absolutely worked like a charm for us. After 1 month, all problems went away however children do from time to time wet their beds as they do not have that same exceptional bladder control adults have.

@HotSpotStudio,
i DISAGREE on your one statement - you cannot reward your child for not wetting his bed. He does not have direct control over this. You can reward him if he do go to the loo before bedtime etc (i.e for obedience)

Bed wetting at that age is normally a sign of emotional problems, boys seems to be more difficult than girls regarding bed wetting, at age of 3 he should not be sleeping wearing nappies, I used a bed protector, it is not a big deal to just wash the sheets and sometimes the blankets, and no most of the times people think that there is something wrong with the child and run off to a doctor.
I actually found that my son was afraid of dark and was to scared to go to the toilet, I eventually fitted a light dimmer to the passage light and leave the dimmed light on at night, since then he stopped, he had 1 accident when he was 6 and that was because his mother visit them and left with out saying good bye, that you can clearly see is emotional.

They are shy to talk about wetting the bed, so please do not discuss it with others in front of him, but speak to him alone and explain to him that he must get up and go to the toilet when he feel like urinating, ask him if there are any problems that bug him ect.