Night-time Potty Training - Crystal Lake,IL

A.,
All kids train in their own time. Night time accidents are so common. My oldest daughter was totally trianed, day and night at 2.5 years old. My second daughter stayed in pullups till she was just about 8 and we tried everything from limiting drinks, to waking her up(which ii would NEVER recomend...tired cranky kid in the morning is no fun). My nopw 6 year old was 4.5 when we ran out of pull ups one snowy weekend....she had 2 accidents after that and has been dry ever since. now my 5 year old was night trained before she was day trained.
all kids are different.
Id say just let her go at her own pace...night issues are not something to be concerned with. If she is sleeping soundly, getting a good nights rest, even if she wakes up wet, let it go. she is only 3....when she is 9 and still wetting the bed, id worry then.
if you have concerns, talk to you doctor...he will most likely tell you to just relax, its not anything to be worried about.
:)

My son was day time trained at 3 yrs old. My doctor informed me to wait until my son's body showed signs of readiness to night train. He had to sleep 5 nights and wake up with a dry diaper before attempting underwear overnight. He was about 3-1/2 when that finally happened. He's been wearing underwear day and night since. I would give him something to drink with dinner or just after but nothing before bed. He does like to drink a little water after brushing his teeth. My ped. said there is no reason to wake up yourself or them in the middle of the night - it is not good for either of you. If he does have to go in the night he gets up and goes. And he is a very heavy sleeper. He had very few accidents. We just put the plastic matts that came with his diaper bags under his sheet. A few times he felt himself going, woke up and went to the bathroom. Only his underwear was wet. He would change them and go back to bed. I talked to my son before he would go to bed - like it is ok to get up and go to the bathroom if you feel yourself going and to come get me if he had an accident. I also let him know that accidents are going to happen and its ok. It is part of the learning process. And as I mentioned, he had very few accidents. He is almost 4 now. Good luck with you daughter! She'll get there. Let her body tell you and you work with her mind ;)

Dear A.,

My daughter was day potty trained since she was two. She is now four and still in pull ups at night. I even tried to put her in the training under wear which are thicker and have a plastic cover on at bedtime. She would pee so much it would still come out. I have tried not giving her anything to drink after six pm and waking her up every hour to go to the bathroom and she would still pee in pants after about two weeks of never having a dry diaper I talked to her doctor and he said she may not be ready. She may not be able to wake up enough to tell herself to go to the bathroom. She still has a accident at nap time here and there, but I have noticed that at night time she is out like a log. On the other hand I have a friends kid that comes over here to sleep a couple times a week and she just turned three and she wakes up almost every time with a dry diaper. As for your child I would try some of the things like the training underwear and also waking her up a couple of times a night to go to the bathroom. I will admit having her in a pull up every night is easier on my and less laundry. I do still get her up once a night to go to the bathroom. I usually do it right before I go to bed. As for my son it was easy. When I noticed he was wearing a dry diaper for two nights in a row he went into the training pants. A couple of times he had an accident and I found that the nights he had an accident he was trying to wake himself up by crying. So when I would hear him cry I would get up take him to the bathroom and after a couple weeks of me doing it I started hearing him get up by himself. Good luck.
B.

Night time dryness is NOT something they control. There is a hormone that develops that keeps the body from peeing when you are asleep. But until that hormone starts there is NOTHING you can do that will make the peeing at night stop. You will just have frustration, lack of sleep and unneeded stress.

Buy night time pull ups, they absorb more, and if she is still leaking then add in either a diaper doubler or a maxi pad. But don't even try to train at night till they are waking up dry at least 4 nights in a row. Limiting fluids won't make a difference at all, having her go pee RIGHT before bed might help a bit, but really give it time.

My girls were potty day trained for YEARS before they were done with night time diapers. You aren't suppossed to worry till the kid is 8 yrs old, btw.

Hi A.. Humans have a physiological sensor in our bodies that send a message to our brain to wake us up at night if our bladder is too full. That's why adults don't have bed-wetting accidents. However, this physiological response does not develop in a child right away. Hence, may children are not potty-trained at night until ages 4 or 5 (or even older).

Since your daughter is waking up with a very full pull-up, she probably has not yet developed her sensor. Putting her in panties to "teach her" wet (like we do for daytime training) will not make much difference. If she is not physiologically ready, you won't find much success using behavioral approaches to help her stay dry.

Give her time to grow and develop. Use the pull-ups to keep her as comfortable at night as possible, so she can get the sleep she needs.

What I did with my son was to take drinks away about an hour before bed. Then right before he went to bed I would have him go to the bathroom. When I was about to go to bed, I would take him to the toilet. Most of the time he was still completely out of it and went right back to bed. As soon as I woke up in the morning, I would take him to the bathroom again. This seemed to work for him. He still had a couple of accidents but it wasn't too bad.

In my experience there isn't much you can do to teach them to hold it at night. I more or less just really poured on the praise when they started to wake up dry....but until then I just had to keep telling them I didn't want them to wet their diaper at night.

And I never wasted money on pull-ups at night. They are more expensive than diapers and I didn't see the need. I've never known a single child that didn't consider them to be glorified diapers. Why waste the money??? But that's my opinion.

When they start to wake up dry then consider big girl panties...put something on the mattress to protect it.

You may even consider getting them up in the middle of the night to go potty.

I found with mine that they were dry all night until the woke up and then would wet in the diaper as soon as they woke up. I just discouraged it and would try to catch them before they wet the diaper. It wasn't long after they were trained during the day that they started waking up dry.

Hi A.,

I have two suggestions for you. Our son (now 4) was still in pull ups at xmas. No matter what we tried, and even though he's known HOW and WHEN to use the potty for a very long time, he just wasn't willing to do it. We took away pull ups and put him in underwear. Within a few days, he was Pee-trained, but he still would not poop on the potty. and we were still putting him in pull ups for naps and bedtime. Fast forward to his 4th birthday, about a week ago. Still he wouldn't poop on the potty. And as far as I'm concerned he was never going to do it on his own. He would go and find a pull up and put it on and go poop. So we told him no more pull ups period. None. So within a day or two, he was pooping on the potty like a champ! Now, after like 2 weeks, it's no issue at all. So he's in underwear all the time and now we unfortunately have lots of laundry to do. BUT he's waking up more and more from naps and in the morning completely dry. I know everything I read said to "wait until they are ready..." but I do think some kids just are afraid and need a little push. In our case, both "pushes" worked almost immediately. What in the world were we waiting for??? Not sure about that.. Now your child is a year younger, but they say girls train faster. I would go for it. With this new baby I have, I definitely will be more aggressive about the whole thing.