What does your 3-4yo wear to bed at night?

[wookumus]

Curious where other people are at in this stage.  What is your 3-4yo wearing at night?  And any success stories or suggestions for nighttime potty training?  Thanks!

[owlhowl]

DS2 just turned 4 and wears a sposie at night, he does get up to pee a few times at night but still wakes up with a soaked diaper. He has been day trained for about a year.
DS1 is almost 6, he wears a cloth pull up at night and has 1-2 accidents a month. He was closer to 4 when he stopped having day accidents and closer to 5 when he stayed dry all night.


As far as suggestions go...just trusting that one day, their little bodies will have it all figured out! Lots of encouragment when they wake up dry and no shaming or making a big deal about having accidents.

[grethel]

From what I hear from other moms of kids this age, there's a really big range of normal.

My 3 year old trained for both day and night at 2.5. She just started waking up dry right around the same time she started using the potty. She does still wake up once per night needing to go - generally between 10 and 12 - so if she hasn't already woken by the time we go to bed, we will go in and carry her to the potty. Generally, once per night is enough that she stays dry. She's been in undies since she began training, although when we're camping or somewhere else where she might be overtired or using the potty is hard at night, we have put her in a cloth pullup just in case.

[mamazee]

Mine (just 4) amazingly started going dry through the night right when she potty trained a year ago.  It was amazing and wonderful, as I was worried it would be as difficult and take as long as it did for her older sister, who was wearing disposable pull ups at 5 or something. 

They're all different. They can't learn to be dry at night. Their body has to just stay dry while they're sleeping, and it happens at different ages for different people. I've talked to a few people whose kids weren't staying dry until they hit puberty, and then the wetting magically stopped. That is not the norm, but it isn't unheard of either.

[wookumus]

Thank you all for sharing your experiences.  We were lulled into complacency for couple of months when he only had a couple of accidents and thought we were on our way.  But starting 2 weeks ago, accidents every night.  We have tried to get him up to pee but it feels more traumatic than waking up wet.  There is definitely no shame or punishment, we talk to him in terms of trying to come up with a solution together.  The biggest difficulty is having to change sheets/clothes in the middle of the night since I'm about 2 months out from the arrival of DS#2.  I think we're going to have to try sposie or cloth pull-ups.  What cloth pull-ups do you use, for those who do use them?

[grethel]

We used Antsy Pants -- they're not cheap, though, so I just bought one pair and then sewed more after I figured out how they were put together. :)  I liked that I could modify the soaker part with different materials and thicknesses depending on what her needs were, and she could pull them up/down herself when she did get up to go.

[Angelorum]

My ds wet more often with a diaper on at night than without one.  He's been out of diapers at night for about a year now, and has a few accidents a month.  We take him potty after he's been asleep for about 2-3 hours.  We use a little potty in his bedroom, and he mostly sleeps through it.  The best thing we found were a couple of washable underpads that we put on top of his sheets.  They are a couple of layers of cotton with a PUL backing.  They are about as wide as his twin mattress and a couple of feet long.  Sometimes he rolls off of it, or pushes it down from underneath him in his sleep, but it has saved the sheets from needing washed on numerous occasions.  We  have a waterproof mattress cover underneath the sheets for when the little one doesn't catch everything. 

[Angelorum]

Oh, and the night wetting definitely got worse for a month or two when I had the new baby.  So, mentally prepare yourself for that. 

[Chloe'sMama]

Dd1 just wear pj's... we go commando at night. Dd2 was wearing a cloth diaper to bed for a while and we just started having her go without... commando too. Dd2 has been dry in the morning for months.

[~Adorkable~]

They're all different. They can't learn to be dry at night. Their body has to just stay dry while they're sleeping, and it happens at different ages for different people. I've talked to a few people whose kids weren't staying dry until they hit puberty, and then the wetting magically stopped. That is not the norm, but it isn't unheard of either.

its not about learning to stay dry, its about learning to wake up when you need to pee and hold it long enough to get to a potty to toilet, and i just cant believe that there are very many kids that cant learn this at 2 if the parents are willing to go thru the steps with them. yes its a hassle, yes it involves waking them at night a few times till you learn their schedule and then as needed and yes it involved watching how much they drink leading up to bedtime, but it is very very doable.

Not sure why I would expect my 5-6 month old dog to learn how to wake me up to take him out to pee but not think my 2,3 or even 4 year old was not capable of the same thing. I think we underestimate our kids in this area.

[mamazee]

Well, dogs reach sexual maturity around 6 months, so I don't know if that's the best comparison. If you're having to wake them up for them to use the bathroom, they aren't really learning to stay dry through the night, you're just learning their schedule. Which is fine if your priority is dryness > sleep, but I think it's fine to wait for bodies to mature and have different priorities too.

[~Adorkable~]

What I was explaining is that not peeing thru the night is not the first goal, many adults need to pee at some point during the night. The goal should be to teach them to wake when their bladders are full and be able to get to a bathroom or potty. That is a skill they will need for many years as they grow. We have have nights where we drank too much before bed and need to wake, it's a life skill that often needs to be taught.

[~Adorkable~]

Waking them and helping them to the potty is a interim measure, same as prompting a toddler to use the potty during the day.

[Miso Happy]

DD was 3 1/2 when she started waking up dry.  She had been without a diaper during the day since a little after 2, but in the mornings her (disposable) diaper was really full.  She pretty much started waking up dry one morning when DH forgot to put a diaper on her when we were staying at a hotel.  She rarely needs to wake up to use the potty but during that time we stopped footie jammies for a while since two piece jammies were easier for her to get on and off.  We never woke her up to use the potty at night.  Never really crossed my mind but perhaps it would have if she was older.  

[KermitII63]

DS is 3.5 and wears cloth training pants with two layers of PJ pants to keep the sheets from getting wet. We did elimination communication, so DS signals me while sleeping (his breathing changes and gets very loud), and I wake up, hold a pee cup for him, and give him a signal so he can pee (we cosleep). He doesn't fully wake up and I don't have to sit him up or anything, so it works well for us. If I am dead tired, I don't hear his signals and he pees himself. Some days he goes a week without peeing at night, and recently when I had a virus, I was in such a deep sleep that he woke up almost every morning wet. So it still varies a lot with us but I'm really happy with the way we're doing it.
 

[SplashingPuddle]

My daughter just turned three, and we have her in a disposable diaper at night (even though we only used cloth with her as a baby). She is almost always dry at night, but we do not have a dryer so I do not want to risk her wetting the bed until it is spring and we can dry sheets outdoors. Hanging sheets indoors is such a pain. 

[SunRise]

My daughter just turned three. She is naked under her pjs. A few months back, or while we were night training, she wore cloth diapers. Since she wasnt always peeing at night, this worked out well (I think if she peed during the night, the diaper would soak through). The trick for us was to get her on the toilet upon her waking up (and nixing her bedtime milk). The cloth diapers were came in handy when we were day time training and then again for night time training (two different stages for us) - different then what she was used to (disposable) but still something protective.

[Ma Cactus]

One of my neices did not stay dry at night until she was 5, and that was ok.   I think most kids don't stay dry at night until they start producing enough of a hormone that helps decrease urine production.  The age of that maturation varies very widely (her sister was dry at night before age 2, and my son around age 3).  Children also typically sleep more deeply than adults, and that is a good thing!  My sister decided to let her get the benefit of that deep deep sleep as long as she could and did not try to wake her or train her to wake herself.   She grew out of it on her own eventually, when she was ready.  I don't think 'bedwetting' is considered a problem until past age 6.  Before that, it is more a laundry problem than anything else.