going diaper free, at night, with an older child

[Vaquitita]

I'm not sure if this is the place to ask this, but here goes. I want to get my son out of diapers at night. I EC'd with him from 6months on. We had ups and downs, but by 28mo he was in undies all day with no accidents. But we continued to use diapers at night because he would still pee regularly. Fast forward 3 years, my son still wears diapers at night. Some weeks he doesn't pee at all, some weeks he's wet almost every night. Certain circumstances do make him more likely to pee, but it's no guarantee (sugar/too much water at night). His pocket diaper is so stuffed and bulky, and when he pees everything still gets wet. I figured he'd outgrow the whole peeing at night thing but he hasn't. I notice he rarely pees in a disposable while traveling. I'm thinking he *feels* the diaper and so knows he can pee. I'm considering taking the plunge and putting him in undies, would he stop peeing at night? Thinking back to when he was 2, this worked during the day. If he was in a diaper or training pants he was much more likely to pee than when in just undies.

[turtlemamameg]

It wouldn't hurt to try switching to undies at night...but also do your part in helping him to limit the sugar and liquids too close to bedtime if you know that these are triggers. 

My naturopath pediatrician gave us some smart advice and I will pass it along.  She says that whenever you are about to make change in your childs normal routine such as switching him from diapers to undies at night, call a family meeting and talk about it.  He is old enough to understand you when you talk about it.  Tell him that now that he is ? years old, he is old enough to wear underwear at night, etc...

You may also try to notice his nighttime trends...during the next period of wetting at night, try to see if he has any patterns as to how long he is staying dry before he pees.  Then maybe try to wake him to go potty before this time to help him learn to wake up to go.

My other inclination is that you may be right about him knowing that he is wearing a diaper and that he can just casually go there rather than getting up to go.  Undies may spark a new tred just as it did when he was 2yo.

[Vaquitita]

update: I had talked to my son about it, he wanted to be out of diapers but was nervous. For a few days he wore a paper diaper over his undies, then once I"d gotten a good waterproof cover on his mattress, we went to just undies. He's had 2-3 accidents, but is overall doing really good. The accidents came in the beginning, till we got the habit of making sure he got a drink before starting his bedtime routine (no drinks after that). Since going potty is one of the first things he does as part of his bed routine, we added in a 2nd potty break after everything else and right before the light goes out. I would just move the going potty to the end, but he just runs and goes potty by himself cause it's a habit. So we do it twice.

Funny enough, my 3yo dd who has been dry at night 95% of the time since she was 18mo has starting peeing at night more often since we started this. So she's still in diapers at the moment.