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Dr Catherine
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Girl
4-7 years

My son is 6.5years old and wets between 2 to 4 nights a week. Our GP recommended a reward chart but we feel it's not a behavioural choice to improve/stop. The next step recommended is an alarm and then medication. What are your thoughts??

You are absolutely spot on - rewards and incentives have no effect when it comes to bedwetting and in fact can have the opposite effect impacting negatively on children's self-esteem. Offering rewards to stay dry are a bit like offering a chronic snorer one million dollars to stop snoring – the only way they could ensure they didn't snore would be to stay awake! One of the most successful treatments for bedwetting is time. In general we find children will stop wetting the bed when their bodies have matured to a point where they can either hold on until morning or wake-up in response to a full bladder. Given your sons age and the lower frequency of his wetting (i.e., he doesn't wet every night) he would be a very good candidate for the conditioning alarm. Can I recommend that you introduce this under the guidance of a continence specialist, the alarm can be quite demanding to use however it does produce the best outcomes in terms of achieving permanent continence. All the best! Kind Regards, Dr Cathrine