Night-time Potty Probs...

My son had the same problem, I finally took him to the doctors, the doctor, who specialized in such things, the cause was due to an under-developed gland, he prescribed a medication commonly used for hyperactivity or ADD (forgive me, it was 20 years ago and I can't recall the name of the medication). He took one pill a day before bedtime and it worked, he never wet the bed again after taking this medication and it was a short time before he didn't require it anymore and there were no lingerig problems from taking the med.

My 13-yr-old wore a night-time pull-up until she was 7. She never had any daytime accidents. When I told my pediatrician, "My 6-yr-old still needs a pull-up at night." She responded, "My 7-yr-old still needs a pull-up at night." She explained that some chidren are such deep sleepers that they don't "hear" the signal to their brain that their bladder needs emptying. And my daughter was a solid sleeper. I stopped worrying and her brain kicked in just in time for her 7th birthday. Don't stress it; it's normal.

Our daughter went through the EXACT same thing! We took her to the bathroom late each night, and used pull-ups every night. She finally stopped wetting at night a few months before she turned five. It was frustrating, but my husband and I tried to be patient (I wetted at night until I was SIX!) and soon things resolved themselves. Good luck! -S.

Up until a matter of weeks ago we were going through this with our son. We stop all drinks 2 hours before bed, not counting a sip of water after they brush thier teeth. We also would wake him up before we went to bed and, at the peak of the bed wetting, we were waking him up in the middle of the night as well.
He is doing so much better now. He still has the occasional accident but they are few and far between.
Eventually her body will mature, as you said, and she will do fine. Id stay stick with the wakings though just to help it along a little! ;) Good luck to you

We've had the same issue with our 4yo son. He was otherwise potty-trained at his 4yo well-child checkup, and at that time we were doing all you were doing to try to get him to make it all night. His pediatritian said that it was simply a matter of waiting for his bladder to mature, and that waking him up to take him, etc., wasn't going to help that. So he still wears goodnights to bed, although we're just a few months from his 5th birthday. He's a sound sleeper too. I figure that there is no use stressing about it--or stressing him out--if it's a matter of physiological maturity. Hope this helps!

I was a bed wetter off and on until I was eleven. It started to be a rare occasion when I was about seven, though. Don't let that discourage you. Just continue recognizing that she can't hold it and don't let her feel ashamed. It makes it worse. They now have pull-up's and good-night's for older children in the diaper aisle. I wish I had those. You can wear them multiple times if you don't soil them so it's not like you're buying diapers for her to wear a new one every night. That's expensive. But definitely, if she crawls into your bed, have one ready to stick on her. The feel like underwear and don't go on like a diaper. My parents were very understanding with me, but even sensing their quiet frustration made me feel so embarrassed. Those absorbant pants could be great for her self-esteem.

With my daughter that is now 13, we also had this trouble. She was fine all day, but just like you said at night was another things.
What we did until she got a little older was to use the pull up's, and just at night. Most nights she would wake up dry, once in awhile she was wet. Now a days they have all kinds of pull up's, that look like underwear.
Just remember that it will not last forever, her body will grow and soon she will be able to last all night.
Good luck

An hour before bedtime is too short of time frame before bed. If she goes to bed at 8 pm and she's expected to sleep until 7 am, that's a long time for anyone's bladder, especially if she's been drinking all day long. Having her void more frequently in the late afternoon and evening might help empty her bladder out before she's in bed for the night. Or.... she could be so tired that she doesn't wake up when the urge hits. Some kids are just very sound sleepers. Make sure there's a bathroom light or night light on so she can see her way. Set up a reward system, no wet bed for so many days, a trip to the movie theater with Mom for a girls' afternoon or a trip to the library or ask her what she'd like to do. For your sanity, I suggest pull-ups for the night time. I was blessed with 3 kids who potty trained easily, but one of my nephews and then my niece had real problems with night time dryness. They were just extremely sound sleepers and naps in the afternoon and limiting fluid intake from 6 pm on helped.

I was a huge bedwetter and so was my dad and now I have a couple boys. One has inherited "the curse" and the other does fine. Fortunately, the remedy of the curse has been passed down through our generations as well. First of all, urine is a product of cleansing the inside of the body. Allow this to happen during the day by drinking plenty of water (during the day). Second, strengthen the sphincter muscle by getting your child to hold on for a minute or two before going to the bathroom. (The sphincter muscle will automatically hold back urine even while sleeping.) You'll get a lot of static from your child about this, so if you can make up a game, it'll be much easier. These 2 things have made a world of difference for my family of small bladdered people, but there are other ways also. You can google search "bladder training" for other ideas and more information as well. Sweet dreams. B. T. (C- for spelling)

One of my children also had this problem. The Bladder training exercise of holding it durring the day works. We did 2, 5, 10, 20 and up to 30 min intervals. We also used a bed wetting alarm. You can put the senser inside the pull up for no mess. The alarm will wake them when they begin wetting to help train the brain to notice the urge to go potty. Between these two things and only small sips of water after dinner we overcame the bed wetting issue in about 2 months. She was arround age 5. Good luck.

I have heard that putting a wedge in at the foot end of the bed can help. It would help tilt your child so that her feet are higher than her head. I haven't tried this, but some of the women in my family swear by it. I also know there are homeopathic medicines that are supposed to work really well. Good luck!!

We have similar problems, but it's kept our bed drier to insist our son pees before going back to bed [whatever bed gets everyone to sleep] if he wakes at all in the night. The first handful of nights there was a tantrum over being made to pee, but it's much smoother [and drier] now.

I would suggest that you just let her wear a pull up to bed at night. Some kids have a smaller bladder that just CAN'T go all night, and if she is a heavy sleeper that will be a problem. If the bladder size is an issue she will grow out of it, and even if it's not, soon enough she will get tired of a wet bottom when she wakes up. Just be patient. My husband had nighttime bed wetting issues til he was 7 due to small bladder, and I am happy to report, he is just fine now :). Also a friend of ours has a daughter who is 10, and still has night-time britches. Different kids develop at different times. Really, don't sweat it, she's still just a baby in comparison to some. Good luck.

Don't worry, she will grow out of it. My daughter is 7! She only recently stopped having "accidents" at night. We solved it by waking her up every night exactly two hours after she'd fallen asleep. The bad news is that it is a tiring answer to the problem, the good news it that it worked, no more wet beds. This saved her self-esteem, and also the amount of laundry i had to do! One day she said "you don't have to wake me up at night anymore..." She had maybe one accident after that, and now we are problem free. Our pediatrician said that some kids are deep sleepers, and it takes time for their bladders to grow enough to not have to wake up to pee.

I've heard that a qualified pediatric chiropractor can work wonders for older toddlers having night time potty problems. If even a tiny bit of pressure from misalignment are affecting the nerves that signal your childs brain to wake up - you'll have little success in trying to "train" it out of the child.

I would really make sure the care provider was specially trained for pediatric chiropractic though - not just any old chiropractore will do.

Hang in there! You're exactly right that it will take some time.

My daughter was 6 years old and still wetting the bed every night. After trying waking her up throughout the night and even medication, I bought an alarm from the bed wetting store (online) and it did the trick! You attach the sensor to the underware and the other part to the pj's, when it feels moisture it will go off. You can set it to vibrate, sound and alarm, or both. It wakes them up when they first start to go, this always seemed to stop her from going all the way. We would change her underware but that was all. I did put a pad on top of her sheets just in case, that way I wouldn't have to change the sheets too.

My sister wet the bed until she was eleven years old. My parents tried rewards and punishments. When they took her to the dr about it, they finally found out that she had a hormonal problem. There is a hormone that tells our body not to pee at night. She was missing that hormone so she had to take a nasal spray that treated her and she has been fine since then.

I have a daughter who is 7 going on 8 who still has problems. Reading all the responses were great and we have tried just about everything as well. I think it is just good to know that many parents are in the same boat. We are working with an alarm now that I ordered over the internet. The alarm still does not wake her up but everyone else in the house. (I have two other daughters 4 and 9 who had no problems during the night). I'm not giving up yet and continue to walk her to the bathroom every night. Putting a waterproof pad down helps a lot. I just have to wash the pad most of the time and not all the sheets. My next step will be taking her to a specialist but I am hoping this will help. Consistency I think will be the key.
Good luck to you and thanks to all the moms who responded.

Hi C.
I have a 5 year old and a 3 year old boys that do the same. I have tried waking them up twice at night to go pee-pee but it usually works with my 3 year old and not the 5 year old. I try not to give them any more liquids at least two hours before bedtime and like I said before, all of this usually works with my 3 year old and not the 5 year old. When I took them to the doctor he did mention that some children do have weak bladders and it takes them some time to develop. He did say that it's a possibility that my 3 year old will develop this problem faster then my 5 year old and all of this usually has something to do with one of the parents doing the same thing as children. If you know that you did not have a problem with this as a child then you might ask your husband and figure out at what age this problem stopped because according to the doctor it will be around the same time that your daughter will stop as well. I can suggest that you buy night time pull-ups. Night time pull ups work pretty good, and they make them up to size 4t and 5t. My five year old looks like he is 7 and the 5t fit him. Well I hope this helps. Please let me know if you find any new information cuz I myself am getting pretty tired of smelling pee-pee every morning and having to do sheets all the time. Take Care
Lori M

My daughter is 6 ans still struggles with the nighttime. She can only go about 6 hours without going potty. I have two other daughters who make it throught the night fine. It is VERY normal and will just take some time. I tried the waking her up, rewards, etc. She is just not physically ready. When she is asleep, she does not wake up to the brain receptor that her bladder is full and needs to be emptied. The docs say it is normal and could continue until she is 10. Not the news you wanted I am sure, but you are not alone.

What I did with my now four year old was to make up a back-up bed for him and leave him fresh/dry pjs. The mattress was covered in plastic, so there was no possibility of urine soaking into the mattress. I left the heater turned up a bit higher than usual. (So he didn't need more than a sheet and light blanket as a cover.) And he also had a small pillow (rather than the standard twin sized pillow, because they take FOREVER to dry!)

I didn't ever wake my son up to use the bathroom. I figured he needed to get as much sleep as possible so he could learn to wake up when his body started telling him his bladder was full.

When he wet the bed, my son would initially wake me up to tell me. In those early days it was a big production to get him and the bed cleaned up. Then I decided that there was no need to go through all of that effort in the middle of the night. His sleep was disturbed. My sleep was disturbed. And for what?

After that revelation, I just told him to change out of his wet things and jump into his back-up bed. (He has a bunk bed - so both beds would be made AND we had a spot on the floor with a comforter, etc. for when he was wetting the bed more than once.) I wouldn't get up or do anything else. Pretty soon, he'd get up, strip of the wet clothes, put on the dry clothes and crawl into the other bunk bed and/or the back-up bed without really even waking all the way up. (So, instead of a 30 minute ordeal to wake me up and have me clean up and make his bed before he could get settled back down - he just stripped out of the wet things right away and hopped into his other bed. He'd be back asleep within five minutes.)

The following morning, he'd help me strip the bed (beds) and put the wet sheets into the washer. Then he'd use a Lysol wipe to clean the mattress. That night he'd help me make the bed. We definitely didn't offer him a reward for staying dry (because he didn't have any control over this - it takes time to learn how to wake up to go to the bathroom!) And we never berated him or said anything negative or positive about wetting the bed. It was just a fact of life to be dealt with.

In a relatively short time, we only had one wet bed each night. Then, the quantity of urine in the bed started decreasing. He'd wake up AS he was wetting the bed and would run to the bathroom to finish emptying his bladder.

It was quite a bit of laundry at first BUT we did manage to cut down on the size of the laundry loads by turning up the heat and using a small pillow. The transition took a bit of time, but he's four and a half now and we haven't had a single accident since maybe a month or two after his fourth birthday.

My son is fully potty trained. Not sure if it's the same with boys, but what I did was make sure that I purchased a fitted plastic sheet for his bed. I made sure that he had no fluids at least a 1/2 hr before bed. I had him go potty before HE went to bed, before I went to bed, and then I went in and woke him up a few times in the middle of the night. You guys are on the right track. You might just have to get her up a few times in the middle of the night to get her body trained to go on it's own just in case you aren't able to take her. Sounds a bit tedious, but in the end it's very much worth it. Now, my son can get himself up if he has to go. Give that last part a try. :D Hope that helps! :D ~B.