Nighttime Potty Training My 4 Year Old

I think it's fairly common for a child's sleep patterns to change as they grow up. It's possible your son is simply sleeping more deeply, or even dreaming more vividly and incorporating his pee urges into his dreams (I do that, and am always SO relieved when I wake up dry!). He'll get there again, but these nighttime changes are really not uncommon in the many families I've been close to over the years.

Since sleep is so important (his and yours both), my inclination would be to keep him in overnight diapers until his body and brain catch up with each other. There's really no way most of us can make ourselves wake up at night, though I have heard that if you actually encourage extra drinking before bed, the full-bladder signal might become strong enough to wake the child.

Good luck – I hope this spell passes quickly. A good rule of thumb is to go to underwear when the child has had a 2-week accident-free period.

Just my opinion, try 1. have him put on underwears underneath his pullups, see if that helps. 2. be very tight about what he drinks at night, try and make sure he drinks earlier in the day and only water or milk, no juice or lemonade etc after 5 pm. 3. And make sure you're not getting mad at him for accidents. 4. Talk to your ped see if they have any other ideas?

Hope this helps...

My son is almost 8 and has only been staying dry at night for about 8 months now (still an accident once in a while). We did the -get him up in the middle of the night thing, as well as the just try to let him wake up on his own - both were a struggle, and I was very grouchy-so I understand how your felt. We then used an alarm , one of the Malem Brand alarms - no luck because my son is such a sound sleeper that he would sleep right through it, and the alarm would go through batteries like crazy. We then tried the
DryBuddy alarm, and although it took a while for him to get used to what his body was telling him, it was certainly loud enough to wake him up.
The move to a new house, probably just has him (or his body) all out of sorts, causing him to have this problem...your doctor will tell you it is natural for changes like this to cause the problem and that he will grow out of it...especially since he was dry before. It's just going to take some more patience from you and time for him. You might even have him take a roll in it where he helps to change the sheets if need be. Just talk positively to him about it so that he knows it's not his fault, and tell him that you know as long as you keep working on it together, you'll get there.

he may have frequency of urination at night especially, it is brought on by stressers ... this may have something to do with it. Personally I would ask him what HE wants to do about it, does he want to keep wetting his undies and bed until he can stay dry at night again or does he want to keep trying to stay dry at night but changing himself in the middle of the night. and have towels ready for him to put on the sheets and an extra blanket or sheet to pull over him. Give him time, he may be under other stressers that are contributing to this regression.

To me the cost of extra laundry, wash soap, fabric softener, dryer sheets, water, bleach, electricity, gas, and my time away from something else I might want to be doing out ways the cost of buying pullups any day of the week. I would rather buy pull ups and have my time to do something I enjoy better than laundry.

He just had a period of time that he may have not been drinking as much late in the day, maybe he was dehydrated a bit, maybe he just got lucky in his biorhythm and didn't need to go during the night. Who knows why he stayed dry a few months in the past.

He is where he is today, look forward not back. Take it easy and he'll eventually get it, his body will turn on that connection and he'll be able to hold his urine all night. Don't work yourself to the point of it taking over your life. Buy some pull ups and just take it slow and easy.

My kids all just stayed dry at night as soon as they stayed dry in the day. This is usually not the norm. I can understand your concern about the regression but their is really not much a parent can do about this kind of thing. I would say that he has something going on in his life that makes him feel out of control or gives him extra stress. He just needs a little extra attention in this trying time. He probably does not understand things himself.

Night time dryness, is not something that is attained biologically, until even 7 years old.
Per our Pediatrician as well.
it is about the biological maturity of the organs, not the child's numeric age.

My daughter was 5 years old, and still wet at night.
For example.
Normal.

Even my daughter's teachers, have ALL said, so.

All my kids were bed wetters. My kids stopped wetting the bed at ages 13, 8, 6 and my 7 year old still wets. I've since given up. Once they stop they stop for good. They will have dry nights every now and then but when my kids stopped wetting, they never had another accident. My sister's kids all stopped wetting at night once they were potty trained. I wet the bed until I was nearly 11 years old. I think I passed it down. If it were me, I wouldn't even mess with it. Nothing I did helped so I just make sure he doesn't drink after 7, go potty before bed and hope he'll outgrow it really soon. =) BTW~ my boys were potty trained at age 2 and my girls were 3 and 4 so it didn't seem to make a difference in their night time training. Good luck!

Google potty alarms. My Ped told me about them and I ended up ordering one for my son. It worked great for us. The sensor attaches to the underwear and there is a sound box that attaches to your childs shirt...the alarm goes off if it detects wetness. The child wakes up and finishes going potty in the bathroom. I am getting ready to start with my 4 year old daughter.