Hi--I am not overly concerned with this, but I would love to know what you do to ween your child off of wearing a diaper at night even after being potty trained during the day. My daughter is 3 1/2, and I have been thinking that at some point she needs to stay dry at night...how does that happen? This came up last night because we ran out of diapers and realized it too late, so I saw it as an opportunity to give it a try--she was soaked in the morning and never woke up to go in the middle of the night. I didn't expect anything to change overnight, but I wanted to at least see if she stayed pretty dry overnight--definitely not! So is this just something that happens naturally with time and each child is different? Or are there things i can do to teach her stay dry at night? Part of our problem and reason for me not pushing it is that she has always been difficult to get to sleep as it is, so the thought of adding a reason for her to wake up in the middle of the night is just not appealing. Also, since we live where the air is dry, she drinks a good deal of water in bed and in the middle of the night, which I would like to stop, but I know how that feels--I need to grab a sip in the middle of the night too! For as long as she has been going on the potty, I have her in the routine of emptying her bladder on the potty before I put on her diaper and get her in bed, just so she knows that I don't want her to resort to peeing in her diaper--but that is about all I can think of to do. Any other suggestions or tips would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!
My daughter is the same age we had the same problem. Last week at bed time she just said "I'm gonna sleep in undies tonight" so we let her. She has woken up dry ever since. We don't give her any drinks before bed and she uses the toilet right before bed. She just did it her self.
Give her some time she will do it when she is ready.
Good luck
There is of course the limiting the drinking before bed, but you should also limit sugar any time after dinner. This can be milk, juice, sweets, fruit anything like that. The sugar limits the body's ability to concentrate the urine causing there to be more of it. While this is not a big deal during the day, it can make it very difficult for children to stay dry through the night. But, it is also a developmental thing. My son was potty trained during the day at 18 months, but wore a pull-up to bed until 7 years old. Limiting the sugars helped him, but so did his body maturing.
Like some responders already said, being able to hold it all night is something you just have to wait for them to develop physically.
My oldest daughter was potty trained day and night the month she turned two. My husband put panties on her and she never looked back! My second daughter wasn't dry consistently at night until she was 4 1/2 years old! I was really tired of spending so much money on pull ups! Right now my third is potty training during the day, but I've noticed that after a nap or when she wakes up, if I catch her right away, she'll be dry and go on the toilet for me. But if I am just a minute late, then she's wet.
My sister's son was 8 before he quit wetting at night, and she tried everything I'd ever heard of and many things I hadn't! His doctor said the same thing - some kids just physically can't do it until they're much older than others.
Blessings!
A.,
Here's what we did with my 6 year old when he was potty training, and will probably do with my 2 year old when she's ready: Stop fluids 2 hours before bedtime (if your area is dry maybe a humidifier?), go potty last thing before they climb in bed, go potty as soon as they wake up in the morning. And also make it absolutely clear that if they need to go potty in the middle of the night it's ok. *Sigh* My son tried using it as an excuse to not go to bed though. Sorry kid, needing to go potty 10 times in five minutes when it's two hours past bed time doesn't fly. But I digress.
Anyway, hope this helps,
Melissa
Also, kids usually night time potty train about six months after day time.
The idea of "night training" is a myth. You just have to wait until her body is ready. You will know because she will start to wake up dry. I waited until my son had woke up dry for at least 2 weeks straight before moving to undies, no one likes to wake up all wet! The averaged age range for this body maturing to happen is between the ages of 2 and 6. Do not push her if her body is not ready, it will just cause embarrassment and frustration. And do not wake her up in the middle of the night, this will not train her body to wake up, it will just make her tired.
My older son wanted to go diaperless at night around 3.5, and did pretty well from then on. He was also like that about daytime, too. But I know not all kids will just decide like that.
Personally, I don't think I would do much in the way of "training" until closer to 4.5 or 5. It's not worth it for me to deal with cutting off liquids at a certain hour or lugging my big child to the bathroom when I go to bed, not that those are that big of a deal but I see myself having trouble staying consistent with it (and my son weighed close to 40 pounds at that age). We also put lots of work into getting him to stay asleep all night so waking him up was the last thing I wanted to do!
Even that stuff would be easier if *she* wanted to stay dry all night and agreed to that it.
Oh, and I just noticed you have another one on the way (congrats!), which could mean it's harder to keep up with a plan and she might have some regression anyway. For me, new baby time is not the time to make any big changes, at least not any parent directed ones--but that will depend on your child.
Forgot to add: When I was a nanny the mom mentioned that her daughter seemed to do better at night if she wasn't wearing anything with a waistband (undies or pants/shorts). She thought maybe that little bit of pressure near the bladder might make a difference for night time. I avoided nighttime undies with my son, although he does wear pants/shorts.
You can just wait for the nature course, you will know when she is ready simply because her diaper will be dry in the morning. Or you can put her and your-self through all the furstration to get her up in the middle of the night, changing wet sheets, her feeling guilty for not meeting your expectations and etc. Good luck!
Believe me, I'm right there with you about not wanting to wake my child up in the middle of the night, when they already have trouble sleeping...but I know now that it was well worth it to do just that. I purchased a plastic fitted sheet for my son's bed. Then I created a schedule of sorts. I made sure he went potty before he went to sleep. Then woke him up to go before I went to bed. Then woke him up once or twice more in the middle of the night (this depending on how much he might've drank if I gave him water in the middle of the night). Then I would immediately have him go as soon as he woke up. It took a few weeks and was a very tedious schedule, but in the end, it paid off. He was night trained within about 2 wk. He started getting up on his own. I hope this helps. :D
my daughter is 4 and still wetting the bed half of the time. she wants to sleep without a diaper so she wants to be dry but just can't manage it yet. i have heard that bed-wetting can be hereditary and figured she doesn't have a chance as both my husband and sister wet their bed for quite awhile. her body will catch up when it catches up. until then, i'll be waking up at night and doing laundry (at least until she can do it herself). so don't stress. she'll do it when she's physically able.
my first daughter stopped wetting the bed when she was 3. every kid is different.
We were moving and I shoved the diapers in our trailer that we pulled behind the suv so when we stopped at a hotel at night, it was very difficult to find the diapers so we let our little girl sleep but before we went to bed we picked her up and just sat her one the potty. We do that to this day. She is not allowed to have anything to drink a few hours before bed and before we get ready to put her in the bed, we convince her about 10 times to go try to potty. If I have the instinct that something isn't right which is usually because I know that she has had more to drink that she should have, I will go and just pick her up before I go to bed and sit her on the potty. 99 our of 100 times she will go and to our surprise she hasn't fussed about going back to sleep because she is usually sleepy enough that she will go back to sleep with no problems. Now I don't wake up in the middle of the night because I like my sleep too, however, there have been mornings when she wakes up and her underware and jammies are slightly wet. By the way I put the really thick training panties on her verses the little thin ones... for the night time. She has never soaked the bed, so I figured that she did pretty good all night but the reason that she woke up (in the morning) was that she wet her pants a little bit and it caused her to wake up. I don't get on to her when it is an accident but praise her highly if she is dry the next morning. I started to put pull ups on her one time and my husband didn't want to take a step backwards so we have just left them off entirely once we started. If there is an accident, we just deal with it. She is gonna have accidents, that is just part of growing and part of being a parent is just doing what you have to do and dealing with it.
Good luck. You are probably doing the right thing, you just need some reassurance.
Good luck
Hi A.,
You are right that this is a total natural thing. What I did for my kids, is put them in a pull-up at night. Over time she will gradually wake up dry and then eventually it will be nightly. My 4 year old mostly wakes up dry and has just started to wake up if he needs to use the potty during the night. But he's a sound sleeper and that doesn't always happen. No diapers though... :)
my daughter is just over 3 and has been potty trained during the days since Feb. i asked her Dr. last mo about night training since she wakes up with a wet diaper every morning. he said some kids sleep so hard they just don't know they are going at night. i think my daughter might be one of those kids since she seems to sleep through anything... dogs barking, dog jumping up and down on her bed, etc. he said to not be too concerned about night potty training until she hits 5. he said a vast majority of even the hard sleepers recognize they need to go potty at night by then and will do so. obviously for all of us it's good to minimize liquids etc. before bed, but thought this view would be helpful for you to hear too.
Hi there,
My daughter turned 3 in August and she has been fully potty trained for the last 9 months. For night-time weening, we started limiting drinks after 6 pm (since her bedtime is anywhere between 7 and 8 pm) and making her go potty before she goes to bed. That seems to keep her dry through out the night.
Hope this helps.
P. C.
