How to help 4yo. not use diaper at night

[BC mom]

My DS (4 yo in August) isn't interested in NOT peeing in his diaper/pull up at night. I think he likes it!! What worked for your child at this age?

[phathui5]

He may just really not be ready. Some kids get the nighttime dryness thing when they're 3 and some don't get it until they're 7, 8, 9...

The best thing that I've found is (if you go to bed later than he does), waking him to use the bathroom before you go to bed yourself.

[Kuba'sMama]

Yea, perhaps readiness is it. I have a four year old girl too (she turned 4 in february) and she was daytime dry at just over 2. She has NEVER had a dry nightime diaper, ever. I've tried taking her before i go to bed, she still wakes up wet.

I know with my son, we never "trained" him to be night-time dry, he just was. My dd pees very frequently during the day as well (like once every 2 hours maybe), so I guess she just has a small bladder.

[claras_mom]

Originally Posted by BC mom

My DS (4 yo in August) isn't interested in NOT peeing in his diaper/pull up at night. I think he likes it!! What worked for your child at this age?

Waiting it out. Seriously. Not under your--or your ds's--control.

[Masel]

I never would have expected this but putting my DD in undies at bed time did it. If a diaper was on or even something that felt diaper-like such as those thick training undies this sent a message to her sleeping brain that it was okay to pee. She was fine in regular underwear after just a couple nights. (That is until the stress of being a big sister got to her but that was months and months later.)

[madskye]

If he's thirsty, give him water, but if possible taper liquids after 6pm. Put out little glasses with dinner. Let him have a little glass after that if he needs it. And yes, wake him up for one last pee before you go to bed.

[wallabi]

I think you have to determine whether your kiddo is capable but not interested, or really just not ready yet (we had a thread about this here recently, and wasn`t someone saying it has something to do with a hormone produced to slow down the functioning of the kidneys, or something, and that being produced at different ages?).

If your dc is physically ready, then the above suggestions all sounds great, but if not...well, they may not work. At any rate, they haven`t worked for my dd (4 in August, too) who wants to be out of night time pads but wakes up/half wakes up wet about 3 times a night.

At the moment I am drowning under laundry, first I change her bed, then after the second wetting she comes into my bed, then, there is a good chance we have to wash my bedding too. Groooaaan. I have taken to putting a nighttime pad on her after she has gone to sleep. She refuses to wear it if she is awake - she really wants to be able to make it through the night. In dd`s case, though, she has had, to date, 2 entirely dry nights, and one of those was while traveling, when she was underhydrated and the night lasted about 6 hours. Nothin` to do but wait it out and keep on top of the laundry, near as I can tell.

[Llyra]

Even if you think he is physically ready, I still wouldn't push it. It has to be at his initiative, because he's the one who has to wake and get up to go to the bathroom. I don't think trying to hurry them does anything except drive you nuts and get you wet sheets to change. My DD1 is six, and still sometimes wets at night when she's unusually tired. He'll do it when he's ready.

[kcparker]

If I totally cut my son off from dairy products for about a month, his night-time dryness improves dramatically. Artificial colors/sweeteners would be another thing to try eliminating if he's getting any of those.

[cristeen]

Bedwetting is physiological. I highly encourage you to read up on it. Just because he's capable of controlling it during the day does not mean he can control it at night.

I highly encourage you to treat it matter-of-factly. Avoid any shaming, do not discuss it with others anywhere he *might* hear you, or with anyone not capable of not teasing him about it. Even so-called "good-natured ribbing" can be incredibly shaming on this subject.

Coming from someone who wasn't night-dry until about 8, let me tell you, having everybody discussing it is mortifying. Being tormented about it by siblings and well meaning relatives was horrible. If they are not physiologically ready, they're just not. Put a waterproof matress pad under the sheets and a waterproof pad (a wool or fleece blanket works well) on top w a towel or PF or anything absorbent on top of that to cut down on the laundry. Or, if he's willing, you can put him back in dipes at night, either sposies or cloth.

Talk to him about it, but avoid blame and shame. When his body is ready, it will happen. I know for myself i slept so deeply that when my parents rigged my bed w an alarm, it would go off, wake up the entire household, theyd get me out of bed and stick me in the shower (pjs and all). At some point in the shower i would wake up and have no idea what was going on. Not until i could learn to sleep lighter was i capable of feeling my full bladder.

In the grand scheme of things, bedwetting just isnt the huge deal that our society makes of it. But the years of shame and teasing that i dealt with did plenty of damage for such a small and natural issue.

[Alyantavid]

You can't do anything to make him stay dry at night. He has no control over it.

My 4 year old wears a pull up to bed every night. And he rarely pees in it. But if he doesn't wear it, he wets the bed every night. Which he hates so we use a pull up. My older son has wet the bed maybe 5 times in his 8 years. My younger son just isn't ready and there isn't anything we can do about it except keep him from feeling bad.

[Red Pajama]

I agree with others that have said you've got to wait it out. I've got twin boys, and around this time last year (they would have been 4 1/2 at the time), I tried to switch my one out of night time diapers. I washed a lot of sheets, and he didn't wake up.

I've had one twin night dry since about 3 1/2, and little sister has been night dry since 2. The other boy just isn't ready. So he sleeps in a pull up, and I figure he will for awhile.