Bed wetting - the Stats

Thousands of Children in New Zealand wake in the morning to a wet bed and more than 100 000 Australian children will wet the bed tonight.

Bedwetting is extremetly common in children under 6 and is considered a natural part of development and most children eventually grow out of it.

Wetting the bed at night (nocturnal enuresis) is very common in young children. It affects approximately...

15% of 5-year-olds
5% of 10-year-olds
2% of 15-year-olds
1% of adults

Bedwetting is common...
In a school class of 30:
• at the age of five there will be five or more children in the class who are still wetting the bed at least twice a week
• at the age of seven, there will be about two in the class who are still wetting the bed at least twice a week
• at the age of 10 there will be one or two
• in the first year of secondary school there will be one
• in Year 10 (15 years olds) there will be one in every two classes


Your child is likely to have 2 -3 other children in his or her class who also wets the bed

Bedwetting occurs slightly more in boys than girls and some children wet their pants during the day.

Bedwetting is not considered to be a problem until children are about 7 years of age. That is a good time to introduce treatment programmes if the child wants to do something about it.

Almost all children grow out of bedwetting.

About 1% of adults may still have occasional problems.

Source: The Dry Night, Continence Foundation of Australia and www.continence.org.nz