3 1/2 and night time dipe/potty learning

[KKmama]

Some of this is cross-posted in the diapering forum...

Our 3 1/2 yr old is totally great with the potty all dry long (and it was a quick, effortless, painless process around age 3), but he often sleeps 14+ hours at night without waking, so he's not quite there many nights. We used to do cloth dipes, but he's so big that the dipe was getting too snug and the cover isn't quite big enough to cover it (so it wicks out, gets his sheets). I think he could be as much as 41 or 42 pounds, around 3'6". My dh has resorted to disposable pullups, but I really hate using them (that stuff next to his skin, the waste, the cost). I also kind of wonder if a wet cloth dipe may be more likely to wake him up so he realizes that he has peed, whereas he might learn more slowly with the disposable. Any suggestions on how to handle this?

I think we're to the point where we'd like to encourage night time dryness. But how do we do this? We really don't want to do something like restricting his evening fluids (seems unhealthy and not very kind). Any suggestions or sharing of experiences is welcome... we're just looking for more information...

Thanks!

[TiredX2]

I'd like some suggestions as well.

Both my kids are still night diapered (3 & 6) and I think we might be addressing it this summer No decisions yet though.

[Jillybean]

Happy Heinies makes pocket trainers that worked well for us for awhile, then ds just started staying dry all night so we ditched them. He very rarely wets the bed now. I think a lot of it is being physically able to hold it that long (varies). We do limit fluids after dinner but, of course, if he's thirsty we let him have a drink. Maybe you could take him potty before you go to bed. My dad loves recounting how they would take us potty late at night and how we'd fall back asleep on the toilet.

[kavamamakava]

I'm in the same boat. I think my son just has a small bladder. He has only recently started waking up with a diaper that isn't soaking wet but just wet. I've started talking to him about how he's a big boy and he's going to wake up and potty in the night like mommy does pretty soon. He pees before he gets his night diaper on and takes it off right away in the morning to pee. That might be part of why he's drier these days.

[MamaAllNatural]

A really good thing to do is put them to bed totally naked (or at least naked from the waist down). Their body can sense they have nothing to catch the pee. Just make sure to put some plastic down under the sheets to protect the matress. If they wet just like before for two or three nights in a row of this, they're probably just not ready yet.

[UrbanPlanter]

With DS I did a few things, and he was out of nighttime diapers within a week:

1. plastic mattress protector under the sheet
2. soaker sheet over the sheet (like a towel)
3. 2 pairs gerber cotton training pants with a kushies cover to protect from leaking, and then pajama pants
4. I woke him up to go pee right before I went to bed.
5. I never restricted fluids. If he was thirsty, I accomodated him with either nursing or water.

So this is what happened: he wet the bed, woke up crying, and we calmly went to the bathroom to try to finish peeing if he needed to, and put on fresh undies, wiped off the kushies cover, and removed the wet soaker pad and went back to sleep.

I think he wet the bed at night two or three times, and then he started asking to pee in the middle of the night, and then he just made it through the night. After a week or two we stopped using the kushy cover or the soaker or the extra gerber training pant, and he has not wet the bed since. But he will often wake to go potty in the middle of the night, which is ok, bc it's usually when I have to pee, too!

ETA: KKMama, my ds is about the same size as yours, and we did not do disposables at night. The Gerber pants come in size 4T and are very roomy. I think it's important for DC to sense when he needs to pee or if he has peed (I like MamaAllNatural's advice to have them sleep naked) and with the cotton pants, they feel wet and uncomfortable, which gives them incentive to not pee again while sleeping. I know a boy who was put in sposie pullups at night who still wears them at age five, and I think it's bc they don't allow him to feel the discomfort of wetting his bed.

[siddie]

I think it is developmental and that 3 and a half is very young to expect dry nights. My ds was still waking up wet from naps at least 50% of the time last August at age 4 and a half but now he is dry after 100% of naps (except one time he had been sick and was over-tired).

Lately he is waking up partially at night and sitting up to urinate, I noticed this happening during naps as he was getting closer to waking up dry. About twice a month now he has a dry night so I think it is just a matter of time before he is able to get up to go to the bathroom. I don't think it is good for their bodies to limit fluids in the evenings.

We still use the pull-ups. I am considering using a bedwetting alarm if he is still waking wet by age 5 and a half or so. He wants to be dry and not wear diapers anymore but he is a very heavy sleeper now. We co-sleep so I am not willing to let him get wet and use that as a technique. I really don't want him getting up and wandering around the house alone at night either.

[beanandpumpkin]

I also think it's developmental. My son is newly 4 and still wears disposable diapers to bed at night. He peed right through anything cloth, and even through the sposie "pullups." I ended up resorting to the sposie diapers because it's all that keeps his bed dry! He has slept with regular trainers on and stil pees right through them.

My husband was a bedwetter until he was 6, and my uncle until he was 12, so I'm not too anxious about it just yet. I think that for a boy especially, 3 1/2 is really young to expect nighttime dryness.

Michelle

[UrbanPlanter]

We cosleep, too. I got a queen-sized plastic mattress cover for under our sheets, and put a towel under DS who was right next to me. He wore two pairs of cotton training pants, a waterproof kushies diaper cover, and his pajama pants, and it seemed to contain most of it - some leaked on the towel, but it was a piece of cake to put a new towel down after I changed his underpants and rinsed off the kushy. It only happened once per night. After a few times he got the hang of figuring out when he had to pee, and would wake up and ask me to take him to the potty.

He was dry at night by 2 1/2.

When I was a kid, sposies didn't exist. I wet the bed. I remember doing it, not liking it, and learning to not do it anymore.

Yes I believe it is developmental and that every child is ready at a different time (since my ds is a big boy he probably has a bigger bladder, etc.), but I also wonder if having nighttime pullups has delayed some kids from nighttime dryness bc the pullups keep them so dry-feeling that they don't even realize that they've peed, or it doesn't feel uncomfortable enough to wake up and deal with it.

[Scout]

I'm in the same boat here with my 3.5 year old son. Like kavamamakava, I think my son has a small bladder too. He pees *a lot* throughout the day. I use pull-ups at night but nothing for nap. He wakes up wet from nap at least once a week -- even if I make sure he goes to the bathroom right before he goes to sleep. The wetness just doesn't seem to wake him up. Is that weird?? I'm getting tired of changing the sheets, but I don't want to start using pull-ups at naptime. I think it would be a step backward, and it may just facilitate wetting. I don't know...

So, sorry KKmama -- no advice from me. But I'll be following this thread for suggestions!

~Scout

[KKmama]

I should add that we only started with the pullups within the last month or so... he can sleep through *very* wet cloth diapers, wetting the bed, etc. He's a pretty darned sound sleeper, and he's had many, many nights where he sleeps for 14 hours straight. I appreciate what y'all have written... I'm kind of seeing that he probably needs to be able to wake up more easily than he does now in order for him to be able to make this step. (And IMO, he's just not there yet.) I think part of the sleeping thing is that he's been going through a massive growth spurt. So I think I'll just try to find a cloth diapering solution that fits better and wait until he's a little older. It's interesting, because it looks like some of the posters on this thread have kids who have responded pretty well to the "wet" cues, while others have kids who don't (we're in the "don't" camp, unfortunately).

[Marsupialmom]

One thing I found that helped us was putting a potty chair right in the bedroom. This makes the trip shorter. My kids would ask what that was for and I would tell them. "When they wake up at night they need to potty. This just makes it eaiser for them to make it."

I also noticed my kids ussually stirred right before peeing at night or as they were going. This is when I would try to wake them to go potty or to change them.

He is still young to master nighttime dryness. So I would not get overly worried. I was blessed to have young night potty trainers. I bed wetted until I was 9-10.