How Do I Help My Kids with Night Potty Training

My Ped told me that night time training isn't so much "training" as readiness by their bodies. Some kids take until 5 or 6 for their bodies to recognize the need to go and get up and go. If this response isn't there physiologically (spelling???) then you can't train them and you have to wait until they are ready.... Having said that if they are dry sometimes, they are getting there. After they are dry more often, then you can try it... also if they wake at night, take them directly to the bathroom to get them in the habit. Don't push it however, because they likely just can't control it if they are wet that often!

With both of my boys I just put them in undies at night and the first time they pottied themselves at night they woke up horrified. They never peed in bed again, they get up and go if they need to. Hope this helps.

It's not a matter of a child's willingness or willpower. Until bladder and nervous system have matured enough, night dryness will be a hit-and-miss affair. Some kids just sleep too heavily for this signal to get through when the bladder is full. That can actually be seen as a good thing, because sleep is so incredibly important for health.

HI C..

You can always limit liquids several our before bedtime, and get them up and put them on the potty before you go to bed...

I didn't do anything for night training with my two. My son was potty trained at two and a half and getting up on his own to go pee at night. But he is a much lighter sleeper than my daughter, and for whatever reason was able to sort of train himself. Now at age 5 he rarely gets up in the night to pee, and his body is able to hold it.

My daughter at age six and a half had just recently stopped wearing pull-ups to bed, and very occasionally has accidents. Her body is mature enough to hold her urine unless she drinks a lot in the evening. But she is an extremely heavy sleep and has NEVER gotten up at night to pee. She just isn't awakened by the urge and will wake up to a cold wet bed instead.

It's up to you whether you decide to o different things to promote night training. I just wanted to share with you that all kids are different, and that some will take considerably longer because their bodies are just not ready. It seems like I read that intervention is recommended if they don't potty train at night by age 9 or 10.

Good luck!!

I am not sure there is much you can do to help them...I think it is all about how their lil' bodies have developed?

Luckily for me, all 3 of my kids were fully potty trained (day and night) right after they turned 2...they basically potty trained themselves, but my 2 stepsons took way longer to get the night-time dryness down, we had to just wait it out...sorry!

As others have said... their nervous system has to wire for it.

One thing that helps is NOT to restrict fluids at night. When fluids are restricted, the bladder almost never fills, and so they periodically just leak a little out at a time. When the bladder actually FILLS, more nerves are triggered, which cements the pathways faster as they learn to wake up to deal with it and the body learns to hold it consciously, even while asleep.

We did this out of necessity (kiddo is hypoglycemic, the only way to get him through the night was 12-20oz of hot chocolate w/ whole milk before bed), but I know an increasing number of families that are doing this intentionally. According to them, it means 2-3 really wet nights, a couple nights of "Gotta go!" 1/2 made it 1/2 didn't, and then are fully trained by the end of the week.

Of course, no matter what method gets used, kids still have occasional accidents for several years on average (dreams of going to the bathroom -btdt-, nightmares, etc.).

Some kids just take awhile. I have a 6 year old who so badly wants to wear underpants to bed. But for now, I just won't let him. I have tried not letting him drink after a certain time, going to the bathroom when he goes to bed, waking him up when I go and it still doesn't have an affect yet. I just borrowed a urine alarm from a coworker and he said it worked on his son who just couldn't train his mind to wake up when he need to go to the bathroom. Some kids just sleep so soundly. I am going to try this alarm on my son and see if it works. What I have read about it says it is help the child to understand when they need to get up and use the bathroom. He said it could take up to 30 days. Good luck in trying to find what works best for your children.

I think some kids can't wake up to potty and others can. I trained both my girls at 2 1/2 day only. a few months later I bought the waterproof mattress pad and gave it a go. For my first she had a couple accidents and was fine. She would wake after/while going and it sucked changing sheets in the middle of the night but in a few noghts she was fine. There may have been the occasional incident every now and then but she is fine. The second DID NOT WAKE UP WHEN SHE PEED. If she pees hersilf and does not wake up what makes me think she will get up before she pees??? In the moring I had a wet kid and a wet bed. so we had to do a bath and laundry all the time. I did that for a week and a half and put her back in the pullup. She is almost 3 and I think we are nearly ready to try again. When they are having dry nights I think it is time to give it a go. get the waterproff sheet and be ready to do laundry a few times. Its the same thing with accidents when they are first toilet training. they have to have the accident to feel the sensation of before, to learn what it feels like before they need to go so that they can go.

I didn't think my 3 year old son was ready (he wasn't waking up with a dry diaper), but he really wanted to try. I put down a waterproof mattress pad, and let him go without his diaper. He pleasantly surprised me. He went for about 3 days without an accident. When he had an accident, we just cleaned it up and moved on. He has the occasional accident still, but he's getting better and better. I think if your kids want to try to go without diapers, it's better to let them. If they're dry more than 50% of the time, let it continue. Yes, it's a pain to clean it up -- but it really helps them when they can feel it, and it gives them a sense of control back (it's their choice whether they want to wear the diaper or go without).

What Carrie says. You have to train them to wake up at approx the same time every night. Eventually they will start waking on their own. And if you find they are peeing before you get there to wake them up, go in 1/2 hour earlier and make that the new time. Good luck!

You can train for night time dryness once the child has achieved daytime dryness, but it takes longer or more intensive methods with some kids than others. With my son, I switched him from disposable diapers at night time to cloth diapers, which let him know when he was wet, when he was a little over 3. After he was staying dry with the cloth diapers pretty well (a few weeks) we let him stay in underwear for naps, then a few weeks later did underwear for night time. He did well. With my niece who was 8, I did a chart where she got to color in each night she was dry. After 5 nights she got a small reward, 10 nights a medium sized reward, and 15 nights a large reward (I think the small one was a small toy, the medium was going out to eat, and the big one was a sleepover if I remember correctly). Both of these methods worked well. If the usual methods don't work, I know some parents use an urine alarm and it works well and relatively quickly. Good luck.

The following has worked GREAT for my little ones . . .

Have them go potty right before bed. Let them go to bed with underwear on. Before you go to bed, wake each one of them up and take them to the bathroom to go potty. Then put them back to bed, still with their underwear on. This teaches them to recognize the feeling of waking up to go potty. Depending on what time you put them to bed and what time you actually go to bed yourself, you may have to wake up EARLY in the morning to wake them up and take them potty again. I did this for about a week to 10 days with each of my kids and after the 10 days they were keeping dry through the night. They will either wake up on their own to go potty in the middle of the night or they will learn to sleep through till the morning. Hope it works for you!

problem is, you're putting them in night diapers.
They do not need that.
If you worry about getting sheets wet, you just need to get the plastic/vinyl mattress cover, or just layer towels down before they hop in bed.
THEY NEED TO FEEL When they are urinating, because that will alert them to wake and run to the bathroom.
My boy does this from time to time.. he'll get the underwear soaked, but at least he's running to the restroom where he can then put the soiled clothing into a sink/bucket of water to soak ... changes to new clothes and tells mommy in the morning :)

This was my experience with my now 4.5 year old son.
We potty trained just before 3yo. He was fully trained with a couple of weeks - because he was ready. This is daytime training. We were worried about nighttime and said the same thing you did....after you wake up dry several days in a row, we will try it. We would get a couple of days but never 3-4 in a row. Finally decided to try it anyway. Made him go pee right before bed. No liquids after dinner. He had a couple of nighttime accidents - yes they were a pain, but he could FEEL it, which was key to learning, I think. Told him - be sure to get up and go potty if you feel like you need to go...even in the middle of the night! He never did get up....Once I tried getting him up before I went to bed....that was a total disaster! He was so "out of it"...freaked out, couldn't pee anyway. Decided not to do that again! After a week or so and only a couple of nighttime accidents, he was done!

Just give it a shot and let him know his role in making sure it works. He is 4.5 yo and probably ready. He sounds motivated/excited. Let him try!

Part of making it through the night is how deep of a sleeper the kidos are. Do they take naps still and can they make it through the day time naps? What worked for us was we took off the diaper, have our daughter ( 31/2 at the time) go potty right before bed, then I would get home about 2 am from my job and have her go potty, then we got up about 7 and have her immediately go potty. It took us about a week with a few nights of accidents and she was able to make it. That being said she has always been a light sleeper and was able to wake herself when could hold it till morning. I know my friend has a little boy who is a really deep sleeper and couldn't wake himself enough until he was closer to 6. All you can do is try. Also the vinyl or waterproof mattresses are lifesavers. Good luck.

we woke our boys up to go to the bathroom just before we went to bed. then they began doing it on their own and eventually began holding it until morning (and making it to the toilet in time!). good luck!

My daughter turned 3 in June. She potty trained herself (daytime and nap) at 2.5. She was still wearing a nighttime until a couple weeks ago when I was out of town and Dad forgot to put her nighttime on. She stayed dry so we said what the heck lets give it a go - mind you prior to this she has had plenty of nights with a dry nighttime and she had also expressed interest in not having to wear one anymore. In the last 2 weeks since we started I think she has peed 3 times maybe, so as inconvenient it is to have to change her sheets/jammies in the middle of the night Im glad we did it. I also bought the little dixie cups for her to have some water so Im not denying her of it but restricted the amount she gets. Good luck!

My kids were just very late at this, and I was very grateful that there were good nights and pull ups for night time.

It was a simple maturity issue for them, and they had no control over what their bodies were doing while they were sleeping. Some people just mature later than others for involuntary issues like this, my mother did not stop wetting until she was 12, and her horror stories are what made me happy to have something to use to keep my kids comfortable while they grew into this.

It does happen. I am not sure that training is the issue, when they are ready, they are ready and there may not be much you can do to help their bodies be mature except wait for it to happen.

M.

We put undies on my daughter and then a pull up over the undies.
She loves that she is wearing her undies, but we tell her the pull up is to protect her stuffed animals just incase she pees.
She is 2 1/2 and fully trained #1 & #2, but we still have night issues.
I am not stressing about the night stuff as of yet, but she just seems to love wearing her undies and when she wets them she can for sure feel them against her skin.
So let him wear his undies and tell him he has to use the pull up for a bit until he can keep those undies dry.
From what I understand the night pee pee is a hard thing to master. He might just need some more time to get that bladder strong enough.

As others have said, you really can't train for night time dryness. Both of my grandchildren eventually woke up dry for several days in a row and haven't peed at night at all. They also don't get up during the night to pee. Apparently their bladders are large enough to hold it. I don't know if holding it all night is typical for a preschooler. I know that most children and adults hold it all night and then past 60 some of us start reverting to getting up during the night. lol

My brother's were still wetting the bed at night when they were 6 and 7 and my parents limited liquids and got them up in the middle of the night to pee. They still wet the bed.

It's just wait until their body is mature enough to hold it in. Fortunately, we now have pull ups.