3 Year Old Girl, Night Time Potty Training

This question comes up over, and over, and over on this site. Children can not control wetting at night until their body is ready. Do not make her feel like this is her fault. Say 'thank you!' to the makers of Pull-Ups and be patient and she will grow out of this! Do not deny her fluids, especially now in the summer, becuase it won't make a difference. A friend of mine told me "No kid ever goes to college wearing pull-ups - so RELAX!".

I am assuming that you put your little girl down for bed a few hours before you go to bed. If so, then make sure you take her out of bed and sit her on the potty so she can go tinkle while still mostly asleep. This is a subliminal trick because right now, at that age, she just isn't capable of making the mind-body connection a child needs to make in order to wake up and go potty in the middle of the night. You may have to do this every night for many months until she gets it figured out on her own.

Hi L.!
You should be happy that she's, at least, potty trained during waking hours. I hear that this is very normal and that it will sometimes take awhile before they don't wet while napping or at night time. Our daughter who will be three at the end of Sep. has totally regressed since her brother came along(now 4 1/2 months). She did just the opposite of your daughter:-( She was doing great with the potty before he came and now wants little to do with it! It's extremely frusterating and we're hoping that we can get her trained before her third B-day! So, don't worry.... I'm sure she'll get the sleep time training down sooner than later! Good luck!

Melissa

L., I have a 3 year old little girl too, she potty trained just before she turned 2 we had the same problem with night time too, what worked for us here was to reward (with a small treat or fruit snack just for that only) her right away in the morning if she did wake up with a dry pull up then we would also have her go potty before bed everynight and if she couldn't go she didn't get a drink of water before bed, then when she still said she was thirsty she would try again and actually go so she could have a small drink (about and inch of water in a cup) and in the very begining (maybe the first week or so) i would go down before i went to bed and wake her up and have her show me where she needs to go potty at night and try to go. In no time she was getting up at night to go herself if she didn't go before bed. She just turned 3 last week and has been doing great through the night for almost 6 months now. Wish you the best of luck it will all come together for you.

I would cut her fluid take back slowly w/ 15 min. intervals until you reach 1 hr and see if that makes a difference.. You can also put her underwear over her pullup at nap/night that way it's an unforgettable thing for her..I would give it some more time she may be a heavy sleeper ect..By her 4 yr old check up I may start asking dr ? but for now there are alot of 3 yr olds that are not yet at that point and I would not force the issus..Maybe ask her nightly so she feels in control of the situation if she wants to wear a pullup or not, put the ball in her court and let her decide what she feels comphortable with!

Sounds like she's not physically able to be trained at bedtime. Alot of kids eventually outgrow this by age 10. Besides limiting liquids there isn't really much you can do til she outgrows this.

I don't think this is uncommon. After my three-year old was day trained occasionally had night time bed wetting. I just put diapers on at night. Some children are just heavy sleepers and don't know the sensation. When my son got older I purchased the sleep dry system, you snap it on their underwear and first sign of wetness a beeper sounds, it helps them learn the sensation of having to go to the bathroom. But I think three may be a little too young. Two of my children were night wetters, but I chose not to put them on medication to lighten sleep. I just padded the bed. My 9 and 11 year old still occationally have a night accident. There is a website that good-nites has, where you will find this is not a uncommon thing.

My advice is to just let it be. My daughter who was 5 in March just started sleeping without a pullup on about 2 months ago! she was trained during the day at 2 1/2. I started getting worried about the nighttime stuff, but everything I read said that their bladders need to mature more for the nighttime and everyone is different. My 3 year old has been dry at night since she was 2! Completely different. I tried rewards for staying dry, she too would get terrible rash spots and I'd try to explain it was because of the wet pull up, etc. and nothing mattered. I just gave up and made it a point to never make her feel bad about it and finally one week I noticed her staying dry more often and asked her if she was ready to try underwear and she said yes and can you believe in 2 months we've only had 2 or 3 accidents? So it happens naturally. Good luck.

Maybe it's too much liquid in the evening, or not going potty right before she crawl into bed. My daughter had lots of accidents until she was about 3...and then, its almost never now that she's almost 5. But, it took us a while to figure out how much liquid she should have in the evening. She basically doesn't get much after supper. We're usually done eating at about 6:30...then, a small (1/4 c) of milk with her nighttime snack, and the last thing we do before climbing in bed is take a potty break. If she's REALLy thirsty while in bed, we'll give her some icechips to chew on and that satisfies her thirst, without gulping down a huge glass of water. This is just our baseline, so you'll probably want to , or already have your own...If you dial that in a bit...the accidents might get less frequent.

I wouldn't worry about it or try to push it. It will come naturally when her body is ready. My daughter was around 4 before she was able to stay dry all night. Long after she was trained during the day. All you can do is limit the amount of liquids near bedtime and have her use the potty before going to bed and one day she will wake up dry or her body will wake her up telling her she needs to go potty during the night.

I would not worry about it. She may not be ready to be night trained yet. My four year old boy still is not trained at night. Sometimes they are just not physically ready to go all night. Personally, I am not pushing my son. When he is ready, he will be ready. However, right now he just isn't.

As long as she doesn't have a physical problem (doctor time), I'd say just let nature run its course. Since she's not conscious of what she's doing at night, I've thought that night time training just has to come when they're ready. It seems she's not resistant to it; maybe her bladder just isn't ready yet. We kept our son in pull ups until after 3 1/2 at night (the ones with the front designs) and since we were moving, I kept them in the pull ups for like a month after he'd been dry most nights--I didn't want the move to make him regress and didn't want to push it, and with a new baby too, didn't want to clean it up! So...when we finally pulled the pull ups off, he'd been dry for a while. We didn't DO anything to make it happen; he just grew into it. I know it's a bummer still being in diapers, but we sometimes reused them, even, since they were dry most nights there at the end.

3 can be pretty young to expect her to go all night out without going to the bathroom. Maybe try setting your alarm to wake her up to go. My daughter didnt have trouble with this unless she was sick but my nephew wet the bed at night until he was about 10 simply because he slept so soundly at night he didnt realize he needed to go until it was too late.
Good Luck

I am assuming that you have already adjusted the last drink time of the day, etc. I know that kids get this at different ages. If she is a very sound sleeper, she may not be aware of her need. I would say give her the responsibility of helping change the sheets or taking care of the pull-ups and wait for her to develop a little more. Three is pretty young to control things in their sleep.

By the way, do not expect your son to be trained that easily!

Potty training doesn't apply to night time L. - we are asleep at night (how do you train someone to wake up?).

Bedwetting at night is a BLOOD SUGAR issue and is easily solved.

I went through this with my daughter until she was 7. After testing her for everything, including diabetes, I finally went to see a Naturepath. What she told me worked immediately to stop the problem...

THE PROBLEM: The bladder releases when blood sugar drops so keeping blood sugar levels up is the key to kids sleeping through the night and having more awareness around needing to pee during the day.

THE SOLUTION: Making sure your child is eating a high fat, high protein diet, low sugar diet throughout the day and giving a large high fat/low sugar snack before bed. Water should be given liberally throughout the day and before bed also because dehydration releases the bladder as well (the brain thinks it is starving and blood sugar drops when dehydration sets in).

Bedtime snacks: Cheese with bread or crackers (or just cheese), peanut butter or nut butter with bread or crackers, bean and cheese burrito, fish ~ tuna on toast... what ever you child will eat that is high in fat/protein and low in sugar (make sure your peanut butter is not sweetened).

WATER, WATER, WATER ~ the more water your child can drink the better.

You won't believe how well this works. Start today and he will be all over the bed-wetting and daytime accidents by next week.

L.,

I have to agree with others. Her body has to be ready. My daughter turned 5 in April and still isn't potty trained. The days are getting better but we won't even attempt the nights. We have been to an urologist and we are working on her constipation issue which is helping with during the day but he told us not even to worry about the night. She has all the classic symptoms of a bedwetter: hereditary and the fact that she is completely dead weight when we try to wake her up. There have been a couple of nights when she has been dry but we don't focus on it. Eventually, her body will be ready. I suggest just taking it easy...remember, she is only 3.

P.

She's not ready yet for night time dryness and you should just put her in a pull up. Although they are trained during the day it is normal for some kids to have problems staying dry at night until age 6 or 7. Three is very young for staying dry while sleeping. FYI, both of my boys were in pull ups at night until age 6. They can now sleep through the night for 8-10 hours or more without going to the bathroom or wetting the bed. She'll get there! Good luck.

I don't think it is intentional. Many kids don't develop control when sleeping until they are older. My son who is 4 years and 4 months will still have sleeping accidents every now and again. At 3 he wouldn't always wake up wet but frequently did. Don't get discouraged. Encourage her and praise her for what she is doing now and her body will catch up eventually.

My nearly 3 year old loves Dora the Explorer! She too was having issues with wetting the bed at night. I told her that if she kept her sheets dry for 1 week, we would go to the store and buy special Dora sheets as a reward. To help her along the way, we cut off liquids about one and a half hour before bed and every night at about midnight, or so, I would wake her up and take her to the bathroom. After a week with no accidents, we purchased the special sheets. I then told her that if she kept her sheets dry for another week that we would put the sheets on her bed. So far we've been accident free and she's able to get up and go to the bathroom herself in the middle of the night, if she needs to. Sometimes she does and others she doesn't. This worked really well for us, good luck!