Global Courant 2023-05-03 16:00:54
If a child over the age of five still wets the bed from time to time, doctors speak of nocturnal enuresis.
In this case, the German pediatrician Ulrich Fegeler advises keeping a voiding diary and a calendar with the child.
“Since children also suffer from enuresis and are ashamed of it, parents should refrain from blaming or punishing their children, as this only leads to additional stress,” says Fegeler, who is a member of the expert panel of the Professional Association of Pediatrics and Adolescents (BVKJ) of Germany.
The specialist emphasizes that parents cannot force children to control bedwetting.
Instead, the most sensible thing to do is to keep a voiding diary. Parents write down all types of fluids that their children drink over a period of at least 48 hours. They also record the amount they drink and the number of urinations they do in the day.
In this way, a good overview is obtained, which will later help the doctor in the diagnosis.
A child-friendly calendar can also help: Parents and children write down dry nights together, for example, with a particularly cute sticker. In this way, the child becomes aware of her objective and perceives it in a positive way.
Praise from parents can positively reinforce dry nights. The nights when the child wets the bed are not highlighted in the calendar in a negative way, but remain blank.
According to the BVKJ, between 15 and 20 percent of children stop wetting the bed at night after just a few weeks of keeping a calendar.
If after two weeks only humid nights were registered, it is advisable to interrupt the calendar. Meanwhile, if a clear improvement is observed, the calendar can be extended by more than four weeks.
Both the urine recording diary and the calendar provide a good overview and can encourage children. However, the documents are mainly used for diagnosis in the pediatrician’s office. In addition to the exploration, they help rule out physical causes and develop an appropriate therapeutic plan.
