night & nap potty training

[eks]

I've seen a few posts asking about guidance for beginning potty training during sleep but very few responses so I'll ask again...

I have a DD who is 2yrs 3mos and been daytime potty trained for several months now but still wears diapers at nap and night. I'm not sure where to begin since she's usually very wet, especially in the morning. A few times we've gone without in the car when she sleeps and she pees and gets very upset. She does wake up and ask to be changed at night if her diaper is too wet.

I know our first step would be to reduce liquids before bed. Some people mention waking her to pee when we go to sleep but I fear she'll not go back to sleep easily.

Any books, websites, resources you'd recommend?

[Llyra]

My understanding, after several years of researching bedwetting issues, is that nighttime dryness isn't something that can be learned. It's a developmental issue that has to do with the size of the bladder, the changes that happen in sleep cycles as kids grow, and the influence of a hormone that suppresses urine production during sleep, which very little ones don't have. It's something that comes when they're ready. The only thing to do is try it-- let the LO try sleeping diaperless. If many accidents occur, especially if you've given it a week or two, then probably the LO isn't ready yet.

My own personal experience is that it takes a long time after daytime learning. My DD1 is 5, and still wets at night, and about ten percent of five year olds still do. My twins are 3, and still wear diapers at night even though they're fully reliable during the day. We haven't even tried to do without a diaper at night for them, because they still wake up sopping wet every morning, which tells me they're not ready. My DD2 in particular-- she was daytime trained by 19 months, and still now at past three years old she's not dry at night yet.

So I say try it. Talk to the LO about the expectations, and if the LO is on-board with the idea, try it. See what happens. But if it doesn't go well, chances are it's not time yet. I wouldn't rush it, though. It's a lot easier to wait until they're really ready, rather than endure multiple accidents and deal with interrupted sleep.

Limiting fluids will limit the quantity of night wetting, but it won't actually stop wetting if a child doesn't wake up when she urinates.

[Shanny2032]

My 17 month old is pretty well potty sufficient during the day but sleep is still variable. I know that she can go about 7-8 hours at night (and she nurses non stop so go figure) so if she goes to bed at 9pm and wakes at 8am and wakes once in the night to use the potty she can stay dry all night but then there are days when she wets during a 2-3 hour nap. I don't think there is much i can do to control those times but I am considering waking her atleast once a night to go when she doesn't on her own (we're up to nurse anyway so it's just a few extra steps/minutes!)

[Pumpkin_Pie]

My son just potty trained in February and was night trained about two months later. I still put him in a pull-up if we are sleeping away from home, but in general, he has an accident maybe once every other week or so at night. I just have a waterproof wool pad on our bed and a towel underneath the sheet on the side that he sleeps on in case of an accident. He wakes to go to the bathroom if he needs to, but can usually go about 10 hours at night without needing to get up.

I started putting him in pull-ups at night because he would get up in the morning and want to go to the potty by himself while I still stayed in bed, and diapers were just way too hard for him. Once he started consistently having dry pull-ups every morning for a week, I just started putting him to bed in underwear, and he has been fine ever since. I figure an accident every couple of weeks is no big deal because I need to change the sheets anyway.

Just wanted to add that I did EC off and on with him from infancy though, and there was a period from about 8 months or so until around 15 or 16 months where he slept naked at night and very rarely had an accident with going about 8 hours or so without a trip to the potty. He just never tended to pee at night like most kids.

ETA: When I realized he was potty learning on his own at night, I started taking him to the potty when I would go to bed. I would just pick him up while he was asleep and put him on the potty. He wouldn't really wake up, but would pee every time. Once he was consistently dry, I stopped the middle of the night pee trips. If I know he has had a lot to drink, I will still bring him to pee at around 11pm, but if not, I let him sleep. He never even opens his eyes when I bring him to the potty in the night.

[CheriK]

Both my older two stayed in nighttime diapers for a LONG time after being dry during the day. I know DD insisted on NO diaper at naps immediately - and never had an accident, in spite of nursing to sleep every time. DS was late using the potty for some things - he kept using a diaper for BMs for long after he was daytime potty trained. He'd simply poop in his nighttime diaper.

From the reading and talking to pediatricians that I did at the time, it seems like nighttime dryness is much more variable than daytime. It's developmental - the brain has to respond to the bladder's signals, and it's also physical - the kidneys have to concentrate the urine so the bladder doesn't get as full. Withholding fluids is not supposed to help prevent wetting and in fact can backfire because it makes the child overly concerned about it.

Because of this, I simply decided to wait until they had dry diapers in the morning. But it never happened. We coslept, and they nursed to sleep, so I was reluctant to take them out of diapers and have a wet king-sized bed, but I also got to the point where it seemed that they were "used" to having a diaper and weren't going to take that leap as long as the diaper was available.

Eventually, we simply stopped putting nighttime diapers on. But they were much older (4? 5?). We did have a few accidents, but not as many as I expected, and I'd simply throw a towel over the wet spot until morning (our mattress was already wrapped to prevent outgassing, secondary bonus effect of being waterproof!). I tried to wake DS up to pee in the middle of the night, but that was way too much work for all of us so gave it up.

We did talk about it - how during the day, their bladders tell their brains "I'm full! Empty me." and how they had to learn to listen to that signal, even when they were busy. At nighttime, their bladder has to wake up their brain and sometimes the brain is too sleepy to listen. So their brain has to learn to wake up! I think it helped to talk about it, so they knew that it wasn't their "fault" and also knew what they needed to do.

[eks]

thanks! Lots of great insights. My DD is still young (2.5) so we're in no hurry and happy to wait until she's ready. We've just naturally had some progress...a few 1-2 hour naps without a diaper and no accident and she often wakes at about 5am, takes off her diaper and climbs into our bed for another couple hours of sleep without wetting. So, I'm sure she'll get there when she's ready. She seems eager to be without diapers, since naked is her favorite outfit