8-Year Old and Pull-ups

My daughter slept in pull-ups up until she was 9 yrs old. She is a very heavy sleeper. Also it runs in the family fathers side. I did take her to to pediatrician twice year. I was told not to worry.

She is 11 now and still a heavy sleeper- but completely out of pull ups at night. My night time potty training with her at 3/4/5/6 yrs age didn't work.

Hope this helps. It might take a little bit longer if they are heavy sleepers and thier internal clock has to kick in to wake up.

Our son was done with wearing them at night when he woke up dry every morning in a row for 2 weeks straight.
He was 7 1/2 when that happened.
He won't be going off to college and still be in pull ups.
This is really common - and some kids are 11 or 12 before they can make it through the night and remain dry.
You can discuss it with your pediatrician - and they'll tell you the same thing they told me.
They are just ready when they are ready and there's no forcing their bladder to mature any faster than it already is.
Be patient!
The pull ups saves you from doing an awful lot of laundry.
I hate to think what things must have been like before they were invented.

Is he wearing them only at night? He'll stop needing them when the pullup is dry in the morning.

Kids are able to stay dry when there body is mature enough to hold the urine.

Sometimes there are physical, other than lack of maturity, or psychological reasons that is a part of this. I suggest, if you haven't already, take him to his pediatrician for an evaluation.

My child is a tad over 7 and still needs nighttime underwear. She's going longer between accidents but she's still having them so the nighttime underwear stays. At her last check up at 6 and a bit we brought it up with her doctor and she said it's normal and there is nothing we can do about it until her body is ready to stay dry at night. We don't make a big deal of it. She simply puts one on before going to bed. When she's gone a month without accidents we'll know she's finally there but she's not been able to go that long.
There is absolutely no way at all to train for night time. There is a connection between the brain and bladder that needs to form and mature. The body needs to make a hormone that tells the body to stop producing urine at night or to wake them if they do need to go. Limiting fluids or waking them in the night to make them go do not actually work if the body isn't ready. In fact, waking them in the night enforces the body to think it needs to make urine and is completely counter productive to what you're trying to achieve.
You can make an appointment with your child's doctor to make sure there is nothing physically wrong. If nothing comes up all you can do is give it time.

How often does he actually have accidents? Would this change if he wasn't wearing a pullup?

I ask because we went a different direction. Sure when he was very young, around 4 years old, it happened more often I felt it would be regressing to put a diaper back on him. I consider pullups to be diapers that look like underwear.

So but 5 it was happening less often, 6 less, 7 less, and I don't recall it happening more than once in a blue moon after that. Hasn't happened in the past 7 years so not at all since ten.

You may want to talk to his doctor. I don't think it is an issue of sleeping heavy, they just don't sleep like we do. Same thing that caused the night terrors, same thing that caused the sleep talking, same thing that I swear the house could be on fire, I could be screaming and would probably have to carry his 6ft body out of the house.

Does he wear pull ups during the day??? Or just at night?

I have a friend, whose son is now 15, and spends a LOT of time at my home. It's their second home. He wore pulls up until he was 13. He would wet himself between 3 and 5 nights a week. Didn't matter if we cut back on fluids, etc. His body just wasn't ready.

When he turned 13? It was like a switch went off and he was good. Still is good.

His mom and I tried the medicine - didn't work. Since we basically co-parent (I know, but she's a single mom and travels A LOT for her job) we decided to just let his body be and work it out on its own. By the time he was 13, he was slowing down to 1 to 2 nights a weeks, then when he turned 13? it stopped. No kidding. Two years, no night time issues.

Yes, my two older daughters still have bedwetting accidents and they wear protections at night. They are older than your son, so long experience here. We tried everything to stop it but nothing really worked. Anyway I think it's good to have some medical check, if you haven't already. You can check for constipation, diabetes or physical bladder problems (like a delay in the maturing of the bladder) that are common causes.
In addiction you could try make him stop drinking 2 or 3 hours before bedtime, or wet alarm, or wake up him for a bathroom trip in the night. Some doctors suggest these others say it is bad for the sleep and not solve bedwetting, I just think it works for someone and not for the others.
So if there aren't physical problems it is just only a question of time. Keep him in pull-ups until he is consistently dry at night to let him sleep well, to reduce stress and to reduce laundry. Try to make not an issue about wearing pull-ups and bedwetting just to let him live it not negatively.
Wish it will end soon!

I know that this is a common enough issue for 10 and 11 year olds that the school nurse discussed it at length during a parent meeting for kids going away on the annual 5th grade sleep over field trip.

(My friend's daughter had her period and still needed a pull-up at night. It can take a long time but all kids will eventually outgrow it.)

My son was almost 10. He was also a very heavy sleeper. You could pick him up from falling asleep on the floor and literally toss him up to the top bunk on the bed and he would not wake up. Medication will not do anything when this is the case. He just did not feel it when he had to go. Then one day when he was 10, he gave me an unopened pack of GoodNItes and told me he didn't need them, hadn't used them for over 2 weeks. That was it. He is still a pretty heavy sleeper but not as deep as when he was little.

There is NO way to make a child stop peeing while they are asleep. It's like tell yourself you aren't going to dream while you're asleep. You can't help it. Your body/brain is in control of it.

Some kids wear nighttime pullups until they hit puberty. One of my grandson's wet every night until he was a teen. They he stopped.

It has nothing to do with your child being a heavy sleeper. All kids and adults are SUPPOSED to go to bed and sleep all night. All of us.

You can go to a pediatric urologist and have an exam done on your son and see if there is a reason he's still doing this and you can give him a pill each night. BUT why medicate something that is part of nature just because it doesn't fit on your time schedule? If it's a problem because he can't go to a friends house or can't go spend the weekend with grandma and grandpa or something like that then it's time to go to the doc.

Have you been working with his doctors? Night dryness is not a learned behavior, either the body wakes you or it does not, but there are medications that can help that connection mature faster in those kids who don't develop it on average with others as your child has not. It is not uncommon though, my nephew was 8 and my cousin was 12, my step brother almost 14. Work with his doctors and be patient with him.