A Simple Bed-Wetting Intervention Can Work

Complex behavioral interventions for primary nocturnal enuresis, such as training with a bed-wetting alarm, can be expensive and time-intensive for families. Researchers in the Netherlands randomized 570 children (age range, 4–5 years; 60% male) with nocturnal enuresis (bed-wetting 2 or more nights per week during the past 3 months) to receive no active intervention by parents or one of three simple interventions: waking the child about 2 hours after falling asleep and asking for a password (to check that the child is awake) before taking the child to the toilet to urinate, waking and taking the child to the toilet without asking for a password, or implementing a star-chart reward system. All parents kept enuresis diaries. Achievement of co…