My daughter is 4 1/2 and we are having a difficult time with overnight bed wetting. She frequently wears night-time pull-ups to prevent her from wetting her bed. Some weeks she will wake up totally dry every night, so the following week we will try putting her to bed without pull-ups, but it never fails that when we do this, she will wet her bed. We have tried limiting drinking at night, etc., but nothing seems to work quite yet. I am wondering if she is just not physically ready to sleep through the night without wetting her bed.
As a side note, we are expecting our second baby this November and I would love to have my daughter pull-up free by then, but do not want to force her if she isn't ready. She has never had an accident during the day since being potty-trained, just at night. Any tips from others mom would be appreciated.
Thank you everyone for the great input! I am going to continue to be patient with her and just let it work itself out. Like many of you said, her body will eventually figure it out. She is a very sound sleeper, so her body just may not recognize the signals yet that she has to go.
As my girlfriend pointed out to me - there's a reason that overnight pullups sizes go up to 100 lbs. It is not something that can be trained but rather grown out of.
Night Time Dryness: is NOT something that is BIOLOGICALLY attained, until even 7 years old, and is NORMAL.
Get, a waterproof bed pad, to make clean up easier.
I have 4.
I rotate them as needed.
I put them DIRECTLY under my kids at sleep time.
I got it from Amazon.
Night time dryness, is SEPARATE from day time pottying.
It is a physiological maturity of the brain/nerves/bladder.
Not per a child's age.
My son is 4... still wears a night time diaper for naps and bedtime.
Normal.
My daughter was 5, and still wearing a night time diaper. Normal.
Even at 7 years old, my daughter had night time accidents.
Normal.
No biggie.
I just change out the waterproof bed pad, she changed jammies, and back to bed.
No biggie.
You cannot "train" for night time.
It is a biological/physiological maturity of the organs.
Keep in mind, that accidents, WILL occur, no matter when a child potty trained.
It is childhood.
Children have, accidents.
Even in Preschool/Kindergarten/1st Grade... kids have accidents. I know, because ALL of my daughter's Teachers, told me this. But the parents will not admit it. But they ALL said, it is NORMAL.
And that kids wear diapers to bed.
It is necessary, until their biology matures.
Kids do NOT get 'confused' about wearing diapers at night. Mine never did. I simply EXPLAIN to them, that their body is not ready yet, to be dry.
No biggie.
Pull-Ups are USELESS for night time. Because, it does NOT hold much, and it leaks.
Just use a night time diaper.
She will not suddenly attain night time dryness, just because another baby is coming.
S H said EVERYTHING I was going to. I guess I'll just second all of that! My oldest wet the bed until she was almost 8. My youngest is 7 1/2 right now and still wetting the bed. When she is ready, she is ready. Until that time, I'm not sweating it. If it makes you feel better talk to your pediatrician about it. Mine made me feel better and made me understand it's all normal. Good luck with everything :)
She will night train when his body is ready. There is little you can or should do to hurry it up.
Our son was day and night trained at two and a half. We did nothing to promote this... he just did it on his own. Our daughter is a super heavy sleeper and, at age 7, has only recently started to wake up at night if she has to go pee. Most often she pees before bed and can hold her pee until the morning, and it was at the point that she started doing this consistently that we got rid of pull-ups. I think she was about 6 or a little older.
S H had an awesome post, that's what I was going to say lol, I totally agree. Also, when you have the baby her daytime potty training may regress so I would just be as casual as possible. This is just coming from someone who's older brother hated me for years because my mom forced him to potty train lol. I think by your statement of not forcing her if she isn't ready is great. It's hard when you want them to be diaper free and it doesn't full happen. It is normal for night time wetness to continue until 6 or 7. It's a separate issue than daytime potty training. Cut the fluids at a certain time a few hours before bed. Even if she needs one sippy cup at bed I don't think it will be a problem if she doesn't have any other for hours before. Also if she doesn't have a toddler bed with a crib mattress (they are made waterproof) I would invest in a waterproof mattress protector that has Gortex on the underside. I bought one when I bought my new mattress (my toddler poured milk all over my other mattress lol) and while it costed $65 it has a full 10 year warranty and works awesome, I have washed it a few times and it still works.
Night time wetting is usually due to a child sleeping so soundly that they just can't wake up with the signs that they need to go. We had an ongoing problem with my oldest son until he was about 8, we finally bought a wet sensor device/alarm over the internet and it worked beautifully. Yes, we had about a week of alarms going off in the night, but after about a week it only happend once or twice. We used the device for about a month and never needed it again.
There is no such thing as night training, it is a matter of waiting for her body to mature. For some this happens young, age 2-5, but 6 and 7 are not uncommon, and some are even older. My nephew was 8, my cousin was 12. Keep the pullups until she has gone a good month dry every morning, she will get there eventually, but you can not teach her bladder to hold all night or her body to wake her up until her body is ready.
Staying dry is not in a child's conscious control. They're asleep, the bladder fills up because the body is not yet producing the nighttime hormones that slow urine production, the sphincter is not strong enough to lock, the child is sleeping heavily, and the body lets go.
While many children are dry at night while still toddlers, an unfortunate number of kids go on wetting well into their grade school years, and rarely, even up to adolescence. These kids wish mightily they could stay dry at night, especially if they get invited for sleepovers. But it's not their choice to make. Their bodies will make it for them as soon as they are ready.
One very educated mom on this site suggested pushing extra liquids before bed to see whether the urge to pee will become strong enough to wake the child during a light-sleep cycle (these cycles occur about every 1.5 hours). If you try this and it helps, report your results – many mamapedia users will be happy to find something that improves the odds.
When she wakes up dry with a pullup, many parents use the same one again for several nights. If she goes to bed clean and doesn't wet, the pullup will still be clean in the morning.
And I would not praise her for being dry (any more than I would praise a child for being 4 years old) since she can't control it. That suggests that you would un-praise her or be upset with her for wetting. Those opposites, even if unspoken, can create emotional distress, shame and self-blame.
Don't make it a battle, just praise her when she's dry in the morning. She will outgrow this. Be patient.
I have twins, both about the same age. I finally decided at 4 that I was tired of spending money on Pull-ups. One of my daughters is fully potty trained and does not have night-time accidents at all. The other (who also had and still has daytime accidents) will wet on occasion, but sometimes as much as 3-4 times a week. We have a schedule that we stick to. My husband takes them potty before he goes to bed, somewhere around 11 PM, and I set my alarm for 2:30 and take them both potty (I'm not going to lie--it's hard to get up, much less steady yourself while carrying two sacks of potatoes!). Like I said, it just clicks with some kids, and with others not so much. I expect I will have to keep up this routine for at least another year, maybe until they go to kindergarten, then I plan on letting them figure it out for themselves.
I remember my younger brother having the same issue. My parents would wake him up at about 11pm (before they went to bed) and had him use the bathroom. This solved the problem for them until he was old enough to wake himself up to go. Not sure how your daughter sleeps, my brother was a sound sleeper and would fall right back asleep.
this is one of those things that really can't be rushed....my pediatrician said they don't even really try to correct bed wetting until the child reaches 7 since little bodies develop at their own pace and 7 seems to be the magical number that they "should" be able to stay dry all night. Since she does have dry nights she is definitely on the right track, but I am guessing her dry nights are not a result of her getting up and using the bathroom at night but rather being able to hold it until she wakes up in the morning. If you want her out of pull-ups you can always invest in a few bed pad covers, so you can easily pull one pad off at night and put another in its place w/o having to completely change the bedding after each accident. Hang in there...you are not alone in having an older child still in pull-ups at night.
