Night Time Potty Training - Norfolk,VA

Wow, there's some great advice here! I would just add that I did A LOT of laundry....and that's ok. It was worth it--less fight from me and more independence from him. I minimized the things that would have to be washed. For example I wouldn't put pajama bottoms on my son--just underwear at night--and we would use just one sheet and his plastic mattress.
Best of Luck!!

I have the same issue. I just went out and bought the vinyl training pants and inserted a cloth diaper inside. It seems to catch all of the pee from my three year old. He can go nights with out peeing but most of the time he just pees in his sleep.

D. SAHM to a 3yr old boy and 15 month b/g twins.

Hi, H..

Does the wetness (either in his pull-up or training pants) wake him up at night? If he sleeps-through the wetness until morning, I would not interrupt his sleep in any way.

I am a huge advocate of early elimination awareness/communication/potty training... but I believe that a good night's sleep and nap time should trump all "training" needs. I don't blame your son for throwing a tantrum by being pulled out of bed for the potty and being forced to try to go "on demand". He is demonstrating success during the day and that is great... focus on the that and try to back off at night and let him lead the process. Whenever my 20 month old has a "potty pause", I back off completely by NOT reminding him to go before we leave the house, etc. Then, he does great telling me when he needs to go. Your overwhelming encouragement and focus on this issue might be a hindrance, so just relax and try to bring the fun back into the process... I know this must be frustrating, but he has come such a long way all with you and your husband's guidance and love. He will be able to conquer the nighttime elimination as well.

I would recommend using the plastic mattress cover and training pants if you want him to become aware of his bodily functions at night as quickly as possible... but let him lead that process and just prepare yourself to change sheets each morning. If you want to be more convenient (which I don't blame you:)), use pull ups at night until he is ready, but it might take longer for him to actually reach full elimination awareness/control.

One other thought: if the nighttime wetting (and it is only nighttime) persists, consider mentioning it to your peditrician as there might be some type of bladder issue...

Best of luck to you.

Hi H.,

My 2nd son is Riley also! I don't know how much I can do as far as advice, but I can certainly commiserate. My older son was dry (mostly) at night through 5, but we still had pull ups on. At 6 and 1/2, he was no longer dry, and this has been going on for a year. He is such a heavy sleeper that waking him at night just didn't work. Same situation for us-my husband would had to physically lift him out of his loft bed as he'd be so cranky and irate that it was just not worth it. And, he'd be so tired the next day that he was a bear. I've seen doctors who tell me that it is not uncommon for boys to have this issue. They always inquire about sleep apnea and adenoids, and check kidney function, but nothing turns up. Just this last month he has actually had 4 or 5 dry mornings, some of them consecutively. This is HUGE for us. The Dr. said his body may just be catching up. So no real advice, just know you're not alone.

Good luck,

L.

Hi H.,
You will find every child to be different even your own. I have 5 children, my oldest who is now 9 stopped wetting at night time just after his 4th birthday. My second son who will be 7 in October just stopped wetting the bed within the past 2.5 months. He was literally wet every night until one day at the end of May he woke up dry. He still has accidents once every couple of weeks or so. My daughter who is 5 and a half still wets every night. My other two kids are 18 months and 6 months. I myself wet the bed until I was 12 (my bladder never grew and I had a surgery to enlarge it). I felt like I was the only one with children who still wet the bed, but as I talked about it more I realized I wasn't the only one with this "problem".

I have been where you are with not wanting to spend the money on the pull-ups. For awhile I bought diapers for 2 kids and goodnights for 2 kids (but now my 6 year old is in his regular underwear at nighttime). I am still buying goodnights for my daughter. I have tried to do the no goodnights or pull-ups at night time and just wash sheets everyday thing and then decided it was worth it to spend the extra money and keep my sanity. I talked with my children's doctor about this and they are very normal. Everything Alice P. told you is perfect advice and very accurate; the website she directed you to is fantastic! The no drink thing after a certain hour and waking your child up when you go to bed can help if your child's "body itself" is ready to stay dry all night otherwise you are going to run yourself ragged until he is just ready. I just wanted to give you some of my experience and let you know you are not alone. My main advice is just to be patient it may be a few months or it may be a few years, but until then I would let him keep wearing pull-ups and let him get his sleep and you can save your time of washing sheets everyday (especially with a young baby). Just remember your son may go to Kindergarden wetting the bed at night time (but no one really has to know), but he won't go to college wetting his bed.

H.,

I have one question, when does he have is last drink at night? This might be the root of his problem. I know with my son (3 yrs), his last drink is around 7 and his bedtime is between 8 and 8:30. We also put the big boy underwear on and then the training underpants This way he can feel that he is wet but 80% of the time will not leak on the bed. I hope this helps.

H., I have two boys. Both trained fully at age 4 too. NEVER wake him up to go potty in the night. Put him in pull-ups at night. Eventually his brain will know that he has to go and he will wake up naturally. When he starts waking up in the morning with a dry pull-up, that's when you can switch him to underwear at night. Let him wake up dry three or four times first, and then switch him to undies at night. As you have been doing, make him go potty before bed. And absolutely no drinks past 6 pm, until he's trained!

Hi H.,
I am in the same situation as you my son is three and we have the day time potty down pretty good now we just need to get the night time down. I have been using pull ups at night but like you I don't want to buy anymore and I don't want to have to change bed sheets all the time. I am going to buy the plastic training pants that you can pull over their regular underware (you can get these at babys r us) so that at night I don't have to worry to much. I am also going to put down one of those changing mats that they make to fit a larger area. This should help with not having to change the sheets every night. I know this does not help with how to get him to stop wetting the bed but at least it will help until you do with changing the sheets and having to buy pullups. Sorry I could not be of anymore help.

Dear H.,

Just to let you know, nighttime dryness takes much longer to achieve than daytime dryness. My daughter was 2 1/2 when she caught onto going potty during the day, and she was 4 1/2 before she could stay dry all night. It is not your son not knowing what he is supposed to be doing, it is his body catching on and neither he nor you have any control. And doctors are unconcerned before age 6.

At least four things have to happen before he can stay dry at night. His bladder needs to be big enough, his body has to produce enough anti-diuretic hormone so he can stay dry all night, and the urge to urinate needs to awaken him so he can do to the bathroom. If he is a very sound sleeper, the urge will not awaken him and he will wet the bed. Scientists have tested children whose parents claimed they were very sound sleepers and found this to be true. The kids wore earphones to bed, and the scientsts sent a loud noise through the earphones. The sound sleepers slept right through the loud noise.

Some people claim that the pull-ups just encourage the child to keep wetting themselves at night, but they don't have to change the sheets every morning (and I didn't find it to be true in my daughter's case). Until the anti-diuretic hormone kicks in and his bladder gets big enough and he can wake up when he needs to pee, I recommend that you keep using the pull-ups, to save your sanity and your son's. I'm sure it is much more expensive to wash sheets everyday than one pull-up per night. If he doesn't make too much of a ruckus when you take him potty before you go to bed, keep doing that. He'll start to learn how to get up himself. Make sure he doesn't drink anything after dinner, too.

In the bad old days, I think parents kept their kids dehydrated so they wouldn't wet the bed (I know my mom did this with me), which could explain why nighttime dryness seemed to be achieved much younger. But we know better, let your son drink what he needs during the day, but cut him off after dinner.

Check out the website www.childdevelopmentinfo.com/disorders/bedwetting.shtml That is were I got my information on the mechanics of bedwetting and why it may seem to take forever for a child to achieve nighttime dryness.

Hope this helps. I know of perfectly normal, intelligent people who wet the bed until they were ten. It really is a developmental thing, That's why Goodnights were invented.

Hi H.,

Sorry don't really have any advice, our son needed pull ups until he was about 6, we tried everything too. I think it just depends on the child and that some take longer to develop that reflex of waking to pee. A good source of info is www.askdrsears.com.

Good luck, S.

One bit of advice is to save some money and by a set of washable training pants. They may also help because he will feel more wet.

Cut off liquids a half an hour or so earlier, that may help too.

And try a non-food reward - let him pick out new sheets and underwear and pjs put them in a pretty pile in hiw room out of reach - he can only have them if he stays dry at night for a week.

When he is awake during the day, discuss his nighttime potty behavior. Right now there is no incentive for him to get up and go to the potty. Let him stay wet if he is still asleep and do not wake him to try and don't carry him to the bathroom - sounds like you are making it a battle when it doesn't need to be - he needs to learn to get up and go on his own and right now that is not the behavior that you are shaping.

Good luck - I have a girl who day and night trained in a week, but I hope my advice helps.

H.,

Good luck! My experience has been that every child does it at a different time. My son will be 6 in September and still wets the bed at night. My daughter is 3 and she has had very few accidents at night since she was potty trained. I tried everything with my son, and just figured nature would take its course. I am going to mention it at his wellchild visit this yeat because this is the time I believe when you should start worrying that nothing else is wron. It's funny though. I did nothing with my daughter. She just automatically stayed dry once she was potty trained.

Kids can go until age 7 before they go through night without wetting. My daughter was in pullups until well after her 4th birthday. Then we put a toddler potty in her room to use if she had to go at night. She almost always uses it. Before that she would get up in the night and change her own pullup. I wouldn't drag him out of bed in the night. Just keep putting the pullups on. Evenutally he will want to dump them in favor of underwear in the night.

I'm also a SAHM and military wife :)

I would just add to the already great advice to try a washable pull-up. We use Kushies brand (you can buy them at walmart.com, buy one size up) it has a few layers of cotton flannel and then the outer shell is waterproof taffeta. It won't hold a flood, but it keeps smaller accidents contained. For our oldest daughter, we use a small washable microfiber insert (used in cloth diapering) at night to catch any major accidents. It is more laundry, but I feel more relaxed when accidents happen because I don't have to constantly buy crazy-expensive pull ups. She is dry the majority of the time, but when she does have accidents they are pretty major. We also use a toddler potty next to her bed as another post suggested - this way it's not such a long trek to the bathroom. Also, have you cut off his liquids 2 hours prior to bedtime? That made a major difference for us - we let her sip water all day and have milk at meals but stop her fluids 2 hours prior to bedtime. For us this works because that's when we have dinner anyway, so her last beverage is milk which is more solids than liquid anyway (more to digest, less to pee).

I have heard conflicting advice about waking kids at night to take them to the potty. Some say that it only prolongs the process because they are not actually learning anything since they are still mostly asleep and that it's actually the parents who are trained. Others say it helps the kids learn to wake up on their own - so maybe that depends on each child? Perhaps very deep sleepers just have to grow out of it? Not sure, but we've had success without night time waking. Bottom line is usually that kids become accident free at different ages and it's generally a biological issue that just takes time.

Good luck!

So, if this is just him, I don't have any advice. But my son was completely potty trained during the day and at nap time, but still wetting the bed, I was getting very frustrated. I tried the getting him and carrying him to the potty and that didn't work. I talked to my doctor who told me 2 things that are very common, especially in boys. One, they're muscles may not be strong enough, that's developmental and 2 there is a sleep problem. I don't know a lot about the muscle thing because we found out my son's air way was being slightly pinched off by his tonsils (even though he has VERY small tonsils) and as his body felt him "stop breathing" it would wake him, similar to a startled wake from anesthesia, during which the body release urine, aka they lose that muscle control momentarily. We had a sleep study done and found out that was happening several times a night. Now we are dealing with that and hopefully after surgery, both will stop. If he's completely potty trained except during sleep I would talk to your doctor.

Hi H.,
My eldest daughter was day-time potty trained at 2 1/2 but not dry at night until 4 1/2 but my second daughter who was also day-time potty trained at 2 1/2 was dry at night within a month of that. I didn't do any kind of night time training for either of them, I think most children just do it by themselves when their body is ready for it. At 4 years old you really don't need to worry about it. I know it is annoying (and expensive) buying the pull-ups but I'm sure he will get there in his own time and it will probably be easier on him if you don't turn it into an issue that puts pressure on him.
Good luck.
L. P

Hi, I just had my 5 year old well child visit and discussed the same thing with my pediatrician. She said to keep putting pullups on her at night and not to continue take my daughter to the potty at night (I was having to get up every three hours). It will do no good until their brains and their bladder get in synch. For now there is no way to "train" at night. She said for some children may not be fully nighttime trained until 7 or 8. Ugh!!

Hope this was helpful.