Potty Training Overnight - Alvin,TX

I am having the same problem with my 5 year old. Only in the last few months has he made it through the night at all, but now he's dry most of the time. I really think his body just does not tell him to wake up. So I guess it's just a waiting game. A change the sheets every morning waiting game:) I will say we got waterproof pads to put over the sheets so I only had to change the pad instead of everything. We also had a party for him when he made it for a whole week straight. We called it an Arty (a no P party-heehee) Good luck to you!

The facts are that people are not supposed to wake up during the night to go to the bathroom. Our bodies are not made to do that. If they are waking us up during the night to go to the bathroom it is often a sign of a physical illness like Diabetes or something.

When a person starts falling asleep many chemicals come in to play. They paralyze the body so we don't get up and act out our dreams, they regular our bodily organs during the night to fight illness and disease. And at least one chemical tells the Kidneys to stop producing urine at this time.

Our body is supposed to fall asleep and stay asleep for a certain amount of time and not produce urine.

A child does not have these chemicals from birth, they develop during their young life. When the chemical is not present the child falls asleep and they continue to produce urine they have no control over the urinating. It is not anything they can control in any way. This is a developmental stage of the brain that effects the bodily production of urine.

Even kids that do have this chemical can have accidents, they grow and the bladder is not large enough so they wet during the night again after being dry. This is not something they can control very much either. They may not even realize they have to go that much since they have not had this happen before. Suddenly they are wet and didn't even know they had to go yet.

A LOT of kids around 4-5 do this. They have that growth spurt that changes their looks from that of a pre-schooler to a school age child. They just seem to grow from the outside in....

Back to the nights.

If the chemical is not being produced yet it's much like trying to make a 6 month old baby walk independently. They "might" have a time or two that they successfully stand up but it'a a fluke because it's not something they are developmentally supposed to be doing.

So, please understand that there is nothing you can do to make your child produce a chemical to stop urine production during the night. They are doing what they are supposed to be doing. Falling asleep in a deep deep way to where they are fighting off illness and disease and they are dividing cells like crazy and growing continuously.

Buy some night time pull ups and make your life easier. Tell this child they are not going to be dry for a while and this way they can sleep all night. Then stop making your life harder and let this go. When that chemical kicks in you will start seeing a pattern of them waking up dry occasionally then those times will increase. Even when they are staying dry a few nights in a row this does not mean they are done. Accidents truly happen. Keep the pullups for a while longer then you can switch out to underwear.

Drinking water or other fluids has little to do with urine production at night. Actually had a Urologist tell us that limiting their fluids at nighttime was worse due to it not allowing the body to work right. It can cause dehydration and actually make them not be able to hold it even if they are already staying dry.

Don't limit their fluids, let them go to the bathroom before they go to sleep, then put a pull up on them so you don't have to multiply your laundry chores. They will outgrow this at some time in their life. There are very very few people who still wet the bed every night as a normal adult.

This is not a function of ability, it is a function of biology. Our bodies produce a hormone that naturally makes us concentrate our urine more when we are sleeping at night - otherwise as adults we would be up all night and wake up with wet sheets too. When that hormone starts to kick in is different for everyone, and many kids are still not able to make it through the night at 5 or 6, and some even later. You need to understand this, and your daughter, as much as she can at 4, needs to understand this too so she doesn't think it's something she is doing wrong - she just doesn't have any control over it, just like we don't have any control over when puberty kicks in. Until then, keep her in pull-ups and keep a waterproof sheet under her regular bed sheet, and let her know her body will get better at holding the urine in at night the older she gets. Some kids have smaller bladders and can't hold as much. And some kids are not emptying their bladders completely when they pee - my cousin's daughter had this problem. She would urinate on the toilet, say she was all done, and the pediatrician would feel her and could tell her bladder still had a good amount of urine in it. It wouldn't hurt to consult with your pediatrician about these possibilities but at the same time, your daughter is still well within the realm of what is considered "normal".

There's no such thing as nighttime potty training.
When her bladder and body are matured enough, she'll be dry in the AM. Not before.
Use a pull up to make things easy and low stress til then!

Time. Sorry, but that's what works the best. At that age you just need to wait for her bladder to mature a little. My youngest is almost 6 (October) and still wears pull-ups to bed due to wetting. He is starting to have more dry nights, but nothing consistent, yet. I don't think the doctors worry about it until kids are 6 or 7.

You can't potty train overnight.
Period.

It's a hormonal production issue. When her little body is producing the right level of hormones (the ones that concentrae her urine while she sleeps), she'll train overnight.
Until then, seriously, don't bother.
My DS is 4.5 and we're nowhere near being dry overnight. Our ped told us that he could be 8-9 before that happens. Every kid is different, but it comes down to his body's development...not a behavioral issue.

Hi K., You have gotten a lot of great answers (and some not so great)! When my daughter was 4 i had to take her to a pediatric urologist (for another issue) and we had a lengthy conversation about this very subject and I will tell you what he said. It will save you a trip and the $20 co-pay! :)

Acheiving bladder control at night is a complex issue. The bedwetting child literally sleeps through his or her bladder signals. This is especially true of deep sleepers. They have absolutely no awareness of bladder sensations during the night, let alone how to control it. Also, there are hormonal factors in play as well, and for some children the hormonal control of ADH (anti-diuretic hormone) may act differently. Simply put, bedwetting is a communication problem between brain and bladder.

Withholding fluids or cutting a child off at a certain time will do more harm than good. Children need a great deal of fluid in order for their bodies to function properly. Restricting fluids can cause dehydration and constipation and at the end of the day, it does not "teach" your child anything about waking up in the middle of the night to go potty. They simply stay dry because they don't have enough fluid to actually need to urinate. Therefore, you've done nothing to "teach" the brain how to detect bladder signals simply because there are no signals at all to detect. Restricting fluids is only done really as a convenience for the parents. The same goes for waking them before you go to bed. Again, you don't "teach" their brains to wake on their own since you are waking them up! There are drugs you can give them, but again, the drugs don't cure bedwetting, they just mask the problem by slowing down bladder function at night until your child can outgrow bed-wetting.

The pediatric urologist told us that the biggest "issues" kids seem to have with bedwetting are when they are away from home at sleepovers, grandma's house, etc. It becomes more of an embarressment the older they get.

He then went on to tell us that these issues usually resolve themself by the age of... are you ready for this... TEN!!! I was shocked when he told me that!

I would report it to your pediatrician the next time you are there. Your pediatrician will probably ask you to start keeping a diary. What is different about your child's day on the nights he/she stays wet or dry? Is there a relationship to food, drinks, events, bowel patterns, etc.?

I hope this helps and best wishes to you.

Time is the only thing that works. One of my kids was day and night trained by 2 1/2 and the other didn't stop wearing overnights until she was almost 7. Her body is just not mature enough to hold her urine and/or she's too heavy of a sleeper to wake up when she needs to pee. You can do all of the limiting fluid intake stuff, but I really wouldn't worry about it now. She's still really young. Make sure that she knows that there's nothing "wrong" with her too~

You have to wait until they are ready. You can't night train a child, it's not a behavior issue, it's a physical and biological one. Her body isn't ready yet. We had one child that night trained later (I think he was 7 or 8) and it did help him if we took him to the bathroom around midnight (we are up anyway), but only some of the time. This really is something you just have to be patient about.

We woke our daughter up before we went to bed and had her use the bathroom. After doing this for a few weeks, maybe a month, she told us she would just get up when she needed to and that we didn't need to wake her. Some nights she comes out to use the toilet, some nights she doesn't. No accidents.

I think you just have to wait until your daughter is physically ready or plan on waking her up and reminding her to go.

I had this same problem with my 5 yr. old son. His doctor told me to give Miralax once a day for 1 month. He said that some kids that don't have regular BMs or that have a hard time going (hard stools) to the bathroom may hold it. Thus, when they are sleeping the full colon pushes on the bladder and they have accidents. I gave it a try and it took about a week, but now he is accident free. Check with your doctor to make sure this is the right treatment plan for your child. Hope this help. Good luck!

My son is a few months into 4 yrs old. He is not completely night trained yet. But two things I did that are helping:
1. I said "Uh oh, we're all out of pull-ups. We'll have to wear underwear tonight" and I never bought another pack of pullups again. Instead, I put an "incontinence pad" under his sheet. The pads are like a giant puppy pad. They're in the adult diaper section of the grocery store. Some mornings he is dry. Sometimes he wakes up mid-of-night wet. That first morning he was dry I believe and we cheered and gave prizes. I believe my son used the pullups as a crutch. I noticed a lot of the time he'd be dry all night, then pee in them at 8am right when he woke up. "I'm too tired to get up and pee in the potty." he would say.

2. My MIL swears that POM (pomegranete juice) will help his bladder. She suggested I give him 4 oz a day on an empty stomach. Well when he was ON the juice, he stayed dry. THen I ran out of it and he went 5 days with no POM. Well guess what - he had two nights of accidents when not on the POM. So I bought more, and he's now on day 11 in a row of staying dry! I have switched him to every-other day and he is still staying dry. That POM juice was staining his teeth! I also am giving him a straw so it doesn't stain his teeth. So MIL says "He has an immature bladder. The POM is helping to strenghten it." I guess over the next year I'll wean him off the POM and see what happens.

Another thing I have said to my son is "Listen to your body. If your body wakes you up in the middle of the night, it's telling you to get up and go potty." My son mostly sleeps all night without going potty. But everyone's different - your daughter may have to start "listening to her body" and getting up to pee when she wakes up in the middle of the night. I think using words with her like "empty your bladder" and "listen to your body" will help her be more aware.

@ Erin - an Arty! I LOVE it! I think we will have an Arty soon too!

Night training, from what I've heard, is a function of the BODY, not the mind. There are certain muscles that come into play that develop differently in each child. Also there is the brain recognizing the fullness and how deeply the child sleeps. When her body is ready, she'll start waking up dry. Don't worry about it. I've heard the average age is at least 6.