How do you potty learn at night?

[mattjule]

Ds just turned 4 and still wears a diaper at night. I stress that it is a diaper, not a pull up because pull ups do not hold the amount of pee he lets go. He's been potty trained since 3 (as far as not wearing a dipe when we leave the house, he has been naked trained since 2.5 or so), poop trained since 3.75. Originally we didn't try to night train because he has sleep issues and once awakened has a very hard time going back to sleep. Also, I have noticed that he pees in the deepest part of his sleep cycle, not when he is lightly sleeping. I would really like to get him out of diapers at night, I feel like sometimes he is lazy and if I didn't make him go potty right before bed he would pee the minute I put the dipe on (he actually said that to me last night "go potty, honey" "no, I'll just pee in that [the diaper]"). I don't want to set him up to have no control when he is sleeping because he doesn't have to control it, you know? But at the same time, how do I know if he is ready? How do I teach him to recognize the signs, rouse himself, and get to the potty? Should I wait longer and leave it be? Will it happen on its own like the other steps of potty learning?

FYI, he never did willingly start pooping in the potty. He had a bad case of diarrhea and, being so big, the dipes just don't hold it so dh and I put our foot down and told him he had to poop on the potty. It was rotavirus so he had it for about a week and when it was over we saw no reason to go back to the dipes even though ds wanted to. He held out for about 2 hours the next time he had to poop but finally went in the toilet and after that, only asked for a dipe once. So sometimes he needs a bit of nudging to try something new/different. He very much likes the status quo.

[Twocoolboys]

My ds was potty trained at 3 and could go all night without peeing when he was 4. He wore pullups to bed for that whole year in between and would wet them a few times a week. I finally stopped putting the pull up on. I think it was a crutch for him. He knew it was there, so knew he was "safe". We had to take the leap and risk the wet sheets. It worked. He didn't wet the bed once after that.

Also, we had stopped giving him any dairy in the evenings. I had read that this makes kids more likely to wet the bed, so a few months before we stopped the pull ups, we stopped all dairy after dinner. That cut down on the number of times a week that he wet his pull up. But the time we stopped the pullups, he was down to only once or twice a week. We have long since relaxed the dairy rule, but his bladder is now big enough to handle it, so not a problem. He will once in a while wake up at night to go to the bathroom, but usually not.


Good luck!

[MillingNome]

Ya know, the usual, limit what they drink before bed and go to the bathroom before you go to sleep. My ds was almost 4.5 when he finally potty and bm trained. He is autistic (or at least more so than) and it was really hard to get him trained, especially at night. Plus, it was just getting downright gross. I finally had to get tough but of course keep it logical. Ds hates showers to this day. He only takes baths. He screamed bloody murder about those too until he was 3.5. NOT FUN. Well, what ended up working on the whole training thing was he had to take his sheets off the bed and put them in the wash. He also had to take a shower. I cried with him doing it but there was no time for a bath in the morning. This also worked for bm training. It was a week and half from hell. Once he got it though, he got it. He rarely has accidents at night. When he does, I let him take a bath. I couldn't go through that again and neither could he. Please don't flame me for this. Trust me, we tried every other thing before doing it that way. We didn't even try to train him until he was 4 because he didn't talk until then...

[LynnS6]

What happens if he falls asleep before he's got his diaper on? For our son, who is nearing 5, if he sleeps for more than an hour or two, he WILL wet himself. He has never, ever woken up dry.

He too views the pull-up as a license to pee, but at the same time I truly believe that he doesn't control the nighttime thing yet. He's been day trained for a year and a half, and is EXCELLENT about being able to hold it during the day. (He's shy about asking to go potty around strange adults, and so has sometimes held it for several hours!) So, I'm as

Know that 'bed wetting' is common for 3 and 4 year olds. Something like 20-40% of kids in this age range still wet the bed, and physicians don't consider it a problem before age 7.

Does anyone in your family have a history of bedwetting? If so, I'd go slowly. You might start by restricting fluids in the evenings (the hour or two before bed), making sure he goes potty before bedtime, and wake him up to pee before you go to bed. If he still wets himself every night, then I'd say he's not ready. I'd wait 6 months and try again.

Lynn

[calicokatt]

My brother wet the bed til 12, my mom til 13. Some kids just CANNOT make it through the night. Do try the methods suggested above, but don't bother waking him up. Somehow when my parents started waking my brother up, he started wetting earlier and earlier. Don't make any more of an issue out of it than you absolutely MUST, because its bad enough to be the kid that 'still wets the bed'.

[maya44]

According to my ped, there should be no "night time learning." Most children simply do not have to pee at night. Their bodies should be producing a hormone that prevents this. But for some children it is later than for others (as late as age 5 for a good minority of the population).

So why not just let them wear a pull up or something until their body is ready.

[LotusBirthMama]

Am I a terrible mommy because sometimes I wish DD would still wear diapers to bed?

The thing is, she's been diaper free from 20 months on during the day, and probably in the last 4 months or so stayed dry at night. the thing is, even if she has nothing to drink from 7 on...and pees before bed...she STILL wakes me up at 230 every single morning by saying "mom...I gotta pee." Argh. I just wanna sleep thru the night...... (end plaintive whine)

[`guest`]

My son still wakes up to pee in the middle of the night and he's six. I guess I should tell him about that hormone. heck, I wake up in the mid of the night too. Once he was about four and a half or so, he started to go to bed with underwear. he did wet the bed a few times, but eventually he got the hang of getting up and peeing. He occasionally wets the bed, usually if he is really tired or drank too much before bed.

[maya44]

Originally Posted by SMUM

My son still wakes up to pee in the middle of the night and he's six. I guess I should tell him about that hormone. heck, I wake up in the mid of the night too. Once he was about four and a half or so, he started to go to bed with underwear. he did wet the bed a few times, but eventually he got the hang of getting up and peeing. He occasionally wets the bed, usually if he is really tired or drank too much before bed.

According to the stuff I read, the vast majority of people between ages 4 and about 25 or so do not need to pee in the middle of the nightm except on rare occassion (and women who have already had children are an exception to this also). Of course this leaves a minority who do. By age 6, its a very small minority. Thus, I felt it was best not to expect my kids to get up in the middle of the night before age 5 and that they should feel free to relie on a diaper if they wanted.

[Yooper]

Originally Posted by maya44

According to the stuff I read, the vast majority of people between ages 4 and about 25 or so do not need to pee in the middle of the nightm except on rare occassion (and women who have already had children are an exception to this also). Of course this leaves a minority who do. By age 6, its a very small minority. Thus, I felt it was best not to expect my kids to get up in the middle of the night before age 5 and that they should feel free to relie on a diaper if they wanted.

This explains a lot. When I was between the ages of 8 and 12 I went to Girl Scout camp. They had outhouses. I was (and still am) deathly afraid of outhouses. I would hold my pee until meal times when we ate in the mess hall that had a flush toilet. This meant on the night we had the cookout, I would go from lunch one day until breakfast the next day without peeing. I could go to sleep with a very full bladder and not wet the bed. I think about that all of the time when I now have to get up in the middle of the night to go. I always wondered why I could do it then but not now. Now I know

[em&namama]

I think some kids just truly are deep sleepers. My daughter was day trained for 2 yrs before she was able to wear undies at night. She is 6 now and usually is ok but we have watched her get up to go to the bathroom and pee in the hall and come back to bed. Sometimes she is so out of it that she pees in front of the toilet. My son, otoh, refused to use the bathroom. He was like yours in that he would wait for the diaper. I think he was 4 when he finally decided he would and it was instantaneous. Day and night with no accident ever.

Who knows what goes through their little minds sometimes. The fears or reasons they have. I just think fighting about it just makes it become a power struggle and is so not worth it. Clearly all kids end up figuring it out at some point so I would just leave it alone.

[Jillie]

Just wanted to share what we did with dd1 before she could make it thru the night. She went to bed around 8 and when I went to bed around 1030 or 11 I would pick her up w/o waking her and put her on the potty. 95% of the time she would go potty with out really waking up at all, just enough to go potty. And right back to bed and and usually not a peep out of her. She never remembered it if I asked her and eventually I was able to drop this routien. I plan to do the same for dd2.

[Glover_Girls]

My dd is 3.5 and has been potty trained for quite some time. I actually just started putting her back in pull-ups for bedtime. She is generally dry all night and had been for many months. I asked another experienced mom about when to make the switch to undies at night and she said just pick a day and do it! So I did and DD was dry for many months. But over the past couple of months, she had a few accidents which was very weird. In the end, she and I talked about how she would feel about wearing a pull-up for a while and she was okay with it. We still do the same routine with peeing before bedtime. She's been dry every morning. But she is a deep sleeper and would never wake up to pee. I don't wake up to pee either. I'll go if I happen to be awake at 3am but otherwise, no.

As I recall, I was a bedwetter later than most kids as I [used to] sleep very deeply.

[chel]

dd is 5.5yrs and we're still working on this. she's been day dry by 2. She hasn't worn diapers since 3.5yrs (she would take the cloth diaper and cover off in the middle of the night- we co-sleep and I never saw her do it but it would always be off in the morning). I finally started taking her to the bathroom at 2am every night. Even though she was dead asleep she would always pee the second her bottom touched the toilet. I stopped that several months ago (when we went camping and it was too cold at night and after the first night of a wet pull-up she woke up dry the rest of the week) She's gone over a month without peeing, but usually wets the bed twice a month. We still do pull-ups for camping.
I'm just waiting it out and figure accidents are getting farther apart.

[TanyaS]

We are waiting it out also. We had a period of pull-ups for night after he day learned, but at some point we tried to see if he was ready for night learning. For about four months we had mostly dry nights with an accident once or twice a month. Then suddenly he was having accidents every night, sometimes twice a night. We went to the doctor to rule out health issues because of the sudden change, but all it came down to is he is just not ready. He is now 4.5 and we've tried again once or twice since then. We had a few days in a row without accidents and then they started again. So we're waiting again. The truth is, everyone sleeps better because of the pull up. Most kids get through it one way or another, and most should resolve on their own with time.

ETA: Not only do we all sleep better with the pull up, but the laundry load is easier to handle as well.

[eilonwy]

BeanBean does not wet the bed most nights; when he does, it's very easily connected to some "different" event that day. Lots of excitement, or going to bed an hour earlier (without having been reminded to use the toilet). When he does wet the bed, however, it is *invariably* just before he's ready to wake up, at the lightest part of his sleep cycle. That's how I know that he doesn't really need to be in diapers at night, he just needs his parents to be more vigilant and to remind him to use the toilet. Sometimes he does wake in the middle of the night, and when that happens he always has to pee; he goes by himself about 45% of the time, and the rest of the time I kick Mike and make him carry BeanBean.

I wet the bed until I was 13 years old. To me, the fact that Tain is wetting during the deepest part of his sleep cycle suggests that he's simply not ready to be out of diapers at night. When I was younger, I also wet the bed during the deepest part of my sleep cycle, the dreamless part. That's what finally changed for me-- I stopped waking up to find myself in a puddle of cold, and started wetting closer to the end of my sleep cycle. Eventually, I would be at the end of my dreams, and I would be aware in the dream state that I was peeing/ready to pee. Once that happened, I was able to wake myself up and use the toilet. Still, I was about 13 years old when that happened; in fact, I remember that the very last time I wet the bed (outside of pregnancy, which is really quite different) was the third day of 8th grade achievement tests. Gosh, I must have been 13.5, because those tests happen in April or something. :

At any rate-- he will eventually outgrow it. As his mother, only you can determine whether or not this is a deliberate action on his part, or a physical issue, a sensory issue or truly something pathological (i.e. recurrent UTIs which prevent adequate nighttime control, as my sister had). In the meantime... have you tried Goodnights? My younger niece wore them until relatively recently, and they hold a ridiculous amount of pee (they're designed for older kids).

[angela&avery]

well, both of my kids were trained at night shortly after potty training. My dd was night trained at 2 years, one month and ds was night trained at 2 years, 8 months. How? Once they had day training down, we stopped wearing diapers at night, and we lessen the liquid they drink an hour before bedtime. Dinner is done by 630 and bed is by 730 so no drinks between dinner and bed, then a sip of water right before bed. Each of them had a few accidents, but after that no problem. I think having the accidents at night is just a learning process.

One thing you have to consider though is heredity. I didnt have any problems having accidents in bed and as far as I know dh didnt either. I know that for my friend both of her kids are night wetters, and she was as a kid also. Taking that into account, you can decide to go cold turkey or wait it out. If there isnt history of night wetting in your family, just drop the dipes at night and lessen liquids at night. A small drink with dinner and then nothing else. Also, milk takes longer to go through you than juice, so we do milk if we go out to eat......we tend to not have accidents when they drink a full cup of milk rather than juice.

Some kids just dont have that control at night for a long time. I would still be worried also though about creating the problem of dependancy on diapers at night and would consider trying to go without htem and see how it goes (get yourself a waterproof mattress pad).

[sunnysideup]

Originally Posted by angela&avery

I would still be worried also though about creating the problem of dependancy on diapers at night

I don't think this is anything to worry about. In my experience, kids that have the ability to stay dry at night will, even with diapers, and kids that can't stay dry at night won't, even without them.