# Night dryness and bedwetting

**When should a child be dry at night, and what do we do about bedwetting?**

Staying dry overnight is a separate step from daytime potty training and usually comes later. This is about how you handle nights: pull-ups until it happens by itself, training day and night together, lifting the child to pee, alarms, or medication.

In short: Parents choose between 5 main approaches: Wait for dry nights with pull-ups; Train day and night together; Scheduled lifting; from about 6-7, reassurance; Alarm; Medication. Evidence: well established. Guidance and evidence agree. The real question is whether you'll follow it. Best settled: preschool.

- Area: Health, body and toileting
- Evidence: Well established
- Best settled: Preschool
- First published: 2026-10-03
- Last updated: 2026-10-05
- Page: https://www.raisingyourchild.com/topics/health-body-and-toileting--night-dryness-and-bedwetting

## Night dryness and bedwetting: what are the options?

1. **Wait for dry nights with pull-ups**: You use pull-ups at night until the child is dry without effort.
2. **Train day and night together**: You train for day and night at once.
3. **Scheduled lifting; from about 6-7, reassurance**: You wake the child to use the toilet; and from about six or seven you mainly reassure.
4. **Alarm**: You use an alarm that wakes the child when they start to wet.
5. **Medication**: You use medication prescribed by a doctor.

## Night dryness and bedwetting: what does the evidence say?

**Well established.** Guidance and evidence agree. The real question is whether you'll follow it.

Night control is developmental and not expected until 5-7; the alarm is the most effective first treatment. Staying dry at night can take months or years longer than daytime training

Sources:

- [Royal Children's Hospital](https://www.rch.org.au/clinicalguide/guideline_index/Enuresis_-_Bed_wetting_and_Monosymptomatic_Enuresis/)
- [CPS](https://caringforkids.cps.ca/handouts/behavior-and-development/toilet_learning)

## What else is worth knowing?

Night dryness depends on the body maturing, so it cannot be trained in the way daytime use can. Many children who are reliably dry in the day still wet at night for years, and bedwetting runs in families. Limiting drinks or waking a child may reduce wet beds but does not speed up the underlying change. Doctors generally do not treat bedwetting before about five to seven, and an alarm that wakes the child is the usual first treatment after that.

## Questions to ask each other

- What would we do if our child is still wetting the bed at six?
- How would we avoid shame?
- Who would we talk to if it keeps going?

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General information, not medical advice. Two parents can each answer this and compare: https://www.raisingyourchild.com/explore?cat=health-body-and-toileting&topic=health-body-and-toileting--night-dryness-and-bedwetting