Getting preschoolers to brush their teeth is easier said than done. To get your child to brush longer than the eight seconds she usually does, name all the foods that she ate that day (or the previous day in the case of early morning), and ask her to remove each of these from her teeth. You’ll get a few extra precious brushing moments out of her.

If the two of you brush together, see how many faces the two of you can make as you brush - make a game of it; she’ll end up brushing her teeth for longer. Sneaky, but may work (at least for a while!).

Call out the names of family members, her favorite cartoon characters, her dolls, and ask her to look for these at the back of her mouth with her toothbrush. It might make those much ignored places easier to reach and clean.

Bed wetting is one of those problems that don’t have right or wrong answers. What works like a charm for one may leave another completely unaffected. Most parents do the best they can to cope with the situation or train their child, until one day, they find that their child has outgrown the habit. (The chances of your child going to college and still wetting his sheets are slim to nil, so don’t stress about it. For that matter, few kids will continue to wet their beds past preschool).

Heredity has a lot to do with it, so if you or your partner had bed wetting issues as kids, the chances of your child following in your footsteps is quite high. Doctors will tell you that bed wetting is nothing to worry, and that you should be patient till your preschooler outgrows the habit. That doesn’t mean that it’s just a matter of waiting it out, however.

In any case, bed wetting in your preschooler (and we’re only discussing bed wetting in kids of this age here), is nothing to worry about – more kids do it now than at any other stage in their lives. Extreme methods like medication, and hypnoses are simply not necessary at this point in time.

It’s also necessary to differentiate between potty training and bed wetting. A child could be fully potty trained – urinate, and have her bowel movements in the potty most of the time - and still have a problem controlling her bladder at night. Bed wetting is simply a matter of lack of bladder control. It’s completely involuntary, and it’s got nothing to do with stubbornness or being lazy about using the bathroom (which potty training can sometimes be about).

Contrary to what many think, it’s also got nothing to do with psychological problems or behavioral issues, so don’t blame yourself. I like these facts about bed wetting – they should put your mind at ease.

Even if you have been a little tough on your child about potty training, it must be avoided in the case of bed wetting. Not only do pressure and threats of punishment not work, but they actually make it worse.

A child who wets the bed at this age is in all probability a sound sleeper, which explains the inability to tell if she needs to go to the bathroom.

If your child has bed wetting issues, try a few of these tips to help control bladder movements.

• Restrict fluids after a certain time in the evening. It doesn’t have to seem like punishment, and it shouldn’t. This works well if your preschooler is dependant on you to give him his water at regular intervals. Also remember, some kids are just naturally thirstier than others their age. Try making sure she gets her fill of water when she gets back home, and early in the evening, so she won’t feel so thirsty later. (This actually didn’t work for me – when I told my son he couldn’t have too much water after 6, he decided he was thirstier than ever).

• Make sure that your child uses the bathroom just before bedtime. Wake her up at least twice after she goes to bed for a potty visit. If she goes to bed at least 2-3 hours before you do, then all you have to do is wake her up to make a visit to the toilet before you go to bed. Set your alarm to 3 hours later to wake her up, and have another go at the potty. I know this can seem like a chore, but it worked for me. You don‘t have to wake her up – if she’s light enough, just carry her over to the toilet and set her down. Often you’ll find the pressure of the flow so high, you’ll know she would have wet her bed if you had left her in a little longer. That was always enough reason to make me get up and walk over to my son’s room. This doesn’t cure bedwetting per se, but you will have dry sheets in the morning. Plus, your child gets used to waking up whenever he needs to empty his bladder.

• Make sure she’s covered up warm. I never had this advice when my son was in preschool, and wetting his bed. He hated covering up, and I’d find him sprawled out on the bed in the morning, covers off … on a wet sheet. You tend to pee more often when the weather is chilly, and the same goes for bed wetting too. In my case, I simply made sure my son went to bed all bundled up in a warm sweater and thick pants. Problem solved!

• Some pediatricians advise telling the child to change and clean his sheets himself, but I wouldn’t recommend. It just seems too much like punishment.
• Other expert advice includes increasing the length of time between bathroom visits in the day time. (I hear this one bandied about a lot, but I am not sure if it works for preschoolers). The logic is that when she isn’t going to the bathroom at frequent intervals in the daytime, the bladder learns to hold larger amounts of urine. I wouldn’t recommend this either. Many preschoolers are still at some stage of potty training, and might find it confusing when they are suddenly stopped from going to the bathroom in the day time. Plus, retaining urine has been found linked to urinary infections. If you’re trying this, let me know if it’s working for you.

• There are also natural remedies like St. John Wort’s Oil massaged on the inner thigh before bedtime, although I am not sure how effective these are. Plus, natural remedies take the longest to work.

• In very rare cases, bedwetting could be a sign of bladder problems. Some kids have bladders that are formed smaller, so they can retain only small quantities of urine. If you find that none of these methods work, and she’s having accidents more than twice a night, consult a pediatrician to rule out any deeper causes.

Never humiliate the child, and don’t use words like “dirty” and “lazy.” It only gets worse. Since we’re talking preschoolers here, there’s really no need to get worked up about it.

Coping with Bedwetting

If you’d rather not have her getting used to pull ups, place a plastic sheet (use an old plastic table cloth, or a shower curtain cut down to size) or rubber pad under her sheets to protect the mattress.

If she’s wetting the bed more than once a night, provide extra protection by placing a thick towel between the plastic and the sheet. The towel will absorb the additional wetness, and the mattress will stay protected.

To avoid having to change sheets in the middle of the night, have two sets of bedding for her when she goes to sleep, including two rubber or plastic pads and two bed sheets. Then, you can easily pull off the wet set, and have the fresh set already laid out for her.

If you’ve tried other methods to cope with bedwetting, I’d love to know about them.