Night-training for 5 and 3 Year Old

Hi Heather -

When my youngest was potty training, I had the same problem with him - until a friend of mine told me to give him a box of raisins before he went to bed. I still don't know what is in the raisins, but I know it worked beautifully. I bought one of those little snack packs of the boxed raisins and gave him a little box before bed for about a week. From night 1, there were no more accidents.

Good luck,

M.

When the body's ready, it's ready, not before. Waking the child up to go in the middle of the night is only going to bother them, and you, and chances are, won't stop the accidents. And if they're like ours were, they won't wake up anyway!

They'll outgrow it when they're ready, no sooner; remember, they're not doing this intentionally, nor can they control it. Our son was 9, and our daughter was 10 before they stopped; and the other daughter was 18 months when she stopped at night (but not in the daytime!). See, it's not something they control, not like daytime pottying.

Embarrassing them won't help, and will hurt them so emotionally, so don't do that. Just make sure you shower them in the morning before school or daycare, so they don't smell of urine, and act as if nothing unusual has happened.

It will pass eventually, have patience, and don't worry about it, chances are, over half the kids you know are having the same problem.

We are having the same problem with my daughter who will be 6 in April. What seems to be working for us is cutting off the liquids 1 hr before bedtime, making her go to the bathroom before bed ,then waking her up before we go to bed to go again even if it has only been an hour.Waking her up in the middle of the night, say 1:00, didn't work as well generally she had already wet the bed by then. We also took her out of the pull-ups at night time, 5 with a diaper rash was just too much for me. The other thing I have noticed is if we let her stay up too late she almost always wets the bed, her little body is just too tired to get up. I did bring it up to her pediatrician and she told me that it will happen eventually and that it was normal.

Good Luck

We have 4 1/2 year old girl with the same problem. My Grandmother was the one who told me just get her up put her on the potty before you go to bed & she probably won't hardly wake up. She is aware we get her up, but goes right back to sleep. It has helped out with alot more dry mornings. Our 2 1/2 year old boy has no iterest of going so we are just going to wiat till his 3rd birthday and start pushing the training again.

ABSOLUTELY! This is the only way we have been able to train our children through the night. If I waited for their bodies to adjust on their own, I think I'd still be waiting :) No, it's no fun for mom and dad. But it has been necessary for us. It has been successful for my 6-year-old son (who completely wakes himself and gets up on his own now, since about age 4) and my stepdaughter who is now 12 and really struggled with this up until about age 9 (I think she has more emotional issues and a lack of continuity between houses; she can still have an accident! We make no big deal out of it.)

What we do is limit drinks at dinner (1 small glass) and no more liquid before bedtime (rinsing after toothbrushing is ok). Then potty immediately before bed at 8pm. Up in the middle of the night to go potty (11 pm), AND up early to go potty (4 or 5 am). As you work through this, you will find that you can start skipping the middle of the night and stick with only the bedtime and early morning. It takes a year or more, stick with it! It will happen.

We are working on our 4-year-old son right now with this. Some nights he gets it right, sometimes not. He will fight us if his pull-up is dry and say "I don't need to go". I give him no choice. I just say, "You need to try, no matter what". 9 times out of 10, he has to go.

It is not fun to get up all this time, esp. in the early mornings (of course we should not have had kids if we didn't want to do the work to go with it - so we are happy to help our children.) My husband and I try to split it up so it's only one of us up at a time. He goes to work early a.m. so this is his time to do the potty routine.

I would say there is most likely nothing wrong with your child to be still dealing with it at this age. You have to educate him and work with her, just like developing any new habit. If in a year she still has problems, then I would see a doctor just to be sure.

I have a friend with an 8yo daughter who cannot stay dry throughout the night. She does not understand why. She thinks her daughter should awaken on her own and go to the bathroom. Yet she freely admits she has NEVER ONCE woken her up to get her on a routine, and she has no interest in doing so because it would interrupt her (the mother's) sleep! A bit of a selfish parent...yes, you could say that. If you don't want to do the work, you won't get the desired results. So her daughter is the one who suffers. Her mother believes that at some point she will awaken herself on a regular basis. I don't know, maybe it will happen. But at 8 to be still wetting the bed without a medical reason - that is too old in my book.

Best of luck to you!

Probably your child is not ready. I have a child who is also almost six who wets the bed nearly every night. We have woken her up to go during the night and it makes no difference with her. Regardless of when we have woken her, she still wets between those times. We did not use pull ups because we thought it was too much of a comfort. She still wets the bed and then remains asleep. Each child is different though. Her older sister was potty trained at night before she was during the day. Her younger sister is more reliable at night than she is. So waking your child may work for you, it just hasn't for us.

Our best success was when we got rid of the Pull-Ups. They quickly got the idea.
One would wet just before it was time to get up. Put in underwear, they got wet and didn't like it. It took less than a week to train them. Of course you must be prepared to deal with wet Pj's and bedding for a while.

This is something we just talked to our doctor about. The problem is not just that the child isn't waking up to go, its that their muscles haven't matured to the point that they can prevent an accident while they're sleeping. The doctor said to help them strengthen those muscles by asking them to practice stopping and starting the flow of urine when they're going potty since many kids don't understand the concept of doing kegels. This may help, but isn't a fool-proof strategy.

Be patient and sensitive to your child's feelings about it. Every child is different when it comes to staying dry at night. I have talked to many other parents about it and have found that most families who have multiple children have seen sometimes drastic variences in how early/late their kids are able to stay dry at night.

Our daughter who is 7 1/2 has consistently had over-night accidents since she's been potty trained and we have just waited it out because we have read that this is mainly a physiological/developmental thing that will correct itself in time. We did try waking her at night probably a year ago to see if that would help, but it didn't (and we only did this because she was asking to wear panties to bed instead of good nights). She is really sensitive and gets embarrassed easily, so I have been very careful in how I talk to her about it, making sure she knows that some kids just don't stay dry at night as early as others and that she'll outgrow it eventually. Over the last 2 months she has started waking up to use the bathroom during the night more often and has been waking up dry in the morning a few mornings a week, so I think she's very close to being done with accidents.

Blessings,
J. (mom of 5)

Is your daughter wearing panties and just having accidents every night or just every so often? Has she ever learned to stay dry at night? I would talk to her dr if you havent already and make sure there isnt any medical reason why she is having trouble...beyond that, make sure she isnt wearing pull ups or any thing of that type. Only real underware. I think the pull ups hinder way more than help. One of my older step kids had wetting problems kinda around that age and we tried the waking them up method and it didnt really solve the problem, we had to just wait it out until he was ready...still not sure what happened, whether something just clicked or it was emotional and eventually just worked itself out. Our boy was a tad bit older and had previously been fully potty trained but regressed at a later age. not sure this is too helpful....I guess I am just advocating the wearing of real underware all the time, if your not already.
K.

i have a 5 yr old girl that i had to put back into pullups at night so that i wouldnt have to wash blankets every morning. i have had numerous conversations with her dr. about this because i did not have any night issues with my son. i also have a 10 yr old girl, and had the same issues with her. i was told by the dr. that when children go thru growth spurts it can cause their bodies to grow faster than their bladders, so that they have to go more often. we tried waking them up and having them go potty, kinda helped but not really. eventually the bladders catch up. and also if your child is a really deep sleeper they can actually sleep thru feeling the urge. and unless you completely wake the child up they are not going to get trained to do that every night. i found pullups work better. and no matter what just about every morning she has a wet pullup, even if i have her go right before bed, get her up in the middle of the night, have her dad get her up before he leaves for work and wake up when she does. it was just too much of a struggle to keep doing night after night.
hope this helps

My son is five now and fully potty trained. For us, night training seem to be the easiest. We established a routine which worked well for us. I first purchased a plastic fitted sheet for his bed. Makes messes easier to clean up. Then I would make sure I had some sort of a routine started. The only tough part about this for mr, was having to wake up during the night, but is well worth iy in the end. I would have him go before he went to bed, then would have him to before i went to bed, then i would wake up during scheduled times in the middle of the night (depending on how many times he might have to go), lastly I would have him go first thing when he got up. After a week of so, if we stayed consistent, he started to wake himself up to go. Hope this helps!