4-Year Old Night Time Potty Training

Night time potty training is not possible. You simply can't be dry at night until your body is ready. There's a hormone that builds in the body that allows it to concentrate urine overnight, and until that hormone is there, nothing a parent or child does will make that child dry. So please don't offer incentives or try to limit her water intake too much. She just isn't ready. It sounds like you already know all of that, I'm mostly writing it for other parents who might not realize that kids don't control this they way they do day time training.

One of my 4.5 year old twins is still wet every morning. Her twin sister has been dry overnight since age 3. My one who still wears a pull up would very much like to be dry overnight, and we've supported her in whatever she wants to try. For an entire week she went to bed in underwear. We all talked about how ready she was and how we were sure she could do it. She was the most confident of all of us. I got her up to pee at 11 when I went to bed, and then my husband would wake her about 15 minutes before she usually woke up to catch any early morning pee. But still, with all of that, she'd still wet the bed at night.

She understands now that her body just isn't ready. I think the only thing you can really do for your daughter is to help her accept that all kids night train at different times. Tell her about other four and five and six year olds who still wear pull ups. Talk about how the pull up sizes go even bigger than hers, so there are bigger/older kids who still wear pull ups. She can't control her bladder at night, but she CAN control how she feels about it.

I would ditch the pull-ups and invest in some potty-training underwear for night-time. Boost her confidence! We purchased a few of these and they worked very well. Of course, if she lets an entire bladder-full of urine go, they aren't going to hold it. BUT, like I said, maybe she just needs that extra bit of confidence that she CAN do this. Good luck!

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What a difficult situation!

You could try giving her an incentive for keeping the pull-ups dry -- like, 3 mornings in a row with dry pull-ups and she can sleep without them until she has an accident? Maybe if she has a chart by her bed with stickers for each day she wakes up dry she can see for herself when she is successful and when she is not? It might help her understand that she's not quite ready, or it might inspire her.

Maybe giving her a simple alarm clock and letting her get up by herself would help too. Maybe one that goes off every couple hours... But then you are messing with her solid sleep time and that could have negative consequences in other areas.

I would also totally eliminate food/drinks from about 2 hours before bed.

Just some ideas... Good luck!

She could have a small bladder which does not allow her to hold as much urine at night, my 11 yr old still wets the bed at night yet my 2 yr old and my 5 yr old dont. I dont have much advise but just through i'd throw that out there in case you hadn't considered it. Poor baby, i feel bad that she tries so hard, but her body may not be ready for it just yet.

This isn't something she can control no matter how much she wants to.
Her bladder will mature at it's own rate and some kids can not keep dry at night till they are 7 yrs old (some till 11 or 12 yrs old).
You might try explaining to her that pullups are not just for babies and she won't have to wear them for ever - just until she can wake up dry 2 weeks in a row - but that might still be a few years away.

Please search in the box and look up night time dryness. There are so many questions on this same subject with the same answers over and over. This is not something that you can fix.

Be the grown up and put a pull up on that child. She is not physically able to stay dry.