Why is my child bedwetting during the night 5 to 7 years?

What the evidence says

Bedwetting, also called nocturnal enuresis, is very common between ages 5 and 7. The Canadian Paediatric Society explains that it happens because the child is in such deep sleep that their brain doesn't wake up even when their bladder is full. This is not something your child is doing on purpose, and it is not caused by emotional or behavioural problems in most cases.

Some children also have a smaller bladder than average, or their body makes more urine overnight than their bladder can hold. Both of these are just part of normal development that catches up over time for most kids. Genetics play a big role too: if one parent wet the bed as a child, there's about a 1 in 4 chance their child will too, and that rises to roughly 2 in 3 if both parents did.

Constipation, when a child has trouble having regular bowel movements, can also contribute to bedwetting. This happens because a full bowel can press on the bladder and make it harder to hold urine through the night. Rarer causes include urinary tract infections or sleep-breathing problems like snoring or enlarged tonsils, which is why a doctor may check for these if bedwetting is frequent or comes with daytime symptoms.

The good news is that bedwetting usually goes away on its own. Rates drop from about 15 out of 100 children at age 5 to about 10 out of 100 at age 7, and keep falling with each year. If your child has always wet the bed and is dry during the day with no other symptoms, there is usually nothing wrong, and most doctors recommend simply waiting it out with support rather than jumping to treatment.

If bedwetting starts again after 6 months of dry nights, or your child has daytime symptoms like urgency or pain, it's worth checking in with your doctor, since that pattern can sometimes point to an underlying cause worth treating.