DRY At NIGHT?

Wait. Kids can't control wetting at night - they are asleep. So even praise and rewards are not helpful. How would you feel if someone told you they would give you a new car if you would just grow two more inches? :)

I don't remember praising my kids for it - it just happened, not long after they were potty trained. I waited till my kids were good and ready to be potty trained and did it kind of all at once, instead of dragging it out. I have friends who started very early, did all the reward stuff, and their kids kind of got freaked out by it.

Better not to make a big deal, and buy him the big boy bed anyways. Just buy all the protective bedding in case you have accidents.

Mine had zero control if they went in the night or not. One of mine, if I don't remind to go right before bed, will wet the bed even though she's been dry for years. It's so bad, if she falls asleep on the drive home, we wake her to use the bathroom, because she will wet the bed. So it's not something they can control.

I agree with the others. It's not something kids can control, so don't invest time and effort in any rewards system. I don't think our son mastered nighttime dryness until he was in 1st grade and our daughter was in kindergarten. Both are heavy sleepers and simply wouldn't wake up if they needed to go. It didn't matter how we limited beverages at night, they just couldn't stay dry. Our pediatrician said not to worry and that his own son didn't stay dry until he was like 10 or 12. It varies dramatically with kids.

We invested in Overnights and the Overnights pads on the bed as backup and just rode it out until their bodies were ready to stay dry.

Only way to keep dry at night is to be physically developed to do so. No tricks, brides, waking up in the middle of the night or anything else will work if their body isn't developed yet and the bladder to brain connection isn't there.
Save yourself a lot of extra laundry, save yourself the extra sleep, save your sanity, save your kid from embarrassment. Put him in a nighttime pullup/diaper and wait until he can go a solid month of no accidents at all. Only after a full month of staying dry would I even consider taking the diaper off.
My boys took until close to 5 to stay dry at night. My daughter is 5.5 and it's still hit or miss if she's dry in the morning.
If he's outgrowing the toddler bed you can buy waterproof mattress pads for both twin and full beds and the pullup/diaper will take care of the rest.

Just keep letting him lead. I'd also get a couple sets of the vinyl/rubber sheet protectors, double-make his bed and let him go without diapers/pull-ups at night when he's ready. Move him up to the twin when he's physically needing to, not when he's staying dry. In my opinion, *that* is a whole other big deal for kids, changing beds. I'd disconnect the two, if it were me.

Double-making the bed also takes the pressure off: if he wets, no biggie, just get him cleaned up and in new jammies, take off the first sheet and the protector beneath, and then there's a whole new dry bed to crawl right into. Just bag the wet sheets for the night and let everyone go back to bed until morning.

Oh, and I agree with everyone who is saying that rewards aren't the best route with this one. For us, when Kiddo said he was ready for no diapers at night, I knew the best thing I could do was to go buy the vinyl protector sheets for the bed and to just give him my confidence that he knew what he was capable of. I think that is a very strong way to honor his process and to let him own it.

I wouldn't say anything. When he wakes dry, simply encourage him to use the toilet right away. "Daddy always goes pee right when he wakes up too!"

But don't reward him for staying dry at night. It's a physiological development based upon the maturity of his body and has nothing to do with willpower or behavior. I wouldn't reward it like it's a choice for him to make.

My son will be 8 and he is dry most of the time - he was dry around 7ish. Now recently he's had a couple of minor wetting episodes - I think he's waking up a little late to go, as his bed isn't really wet but his pants are.

Everything I've read says it's his body, not rewards. A hormone is released in the body that makes it possible to "hold it" while sleeping, and it's not always fully developed at a particular age - usually by 8 is when a pedi visit is suggested to check on it if they're not dry at that age.

I honestly don't think nighttime dryness can be trained - it's purely developmental. So I didn't reward it either because it wasn't something within my child's control. My son was 12. He took medication from age 7 because he needed the sleep and he needed a social life (sleepovers, camp) more than he needed me disrupting him to pee at 1 AM or hooking up alarms to his pants (which we tried without success). He needed a regular bed and I can't imagine having him in a crib or toddler bed just because his body wasn't growing at a pre-determined rate. We had lengthy conversations with the pediatrician and a pediatric urologist about this, and the latter explained that he has many, many patients with nocturnal enuresis, sometimes up until age 18. He made it clear that incentives/rewards would only serve to shame and punish our child for something entirely beyond his control.

If your son is totally dry for a month, you can try eliminating the pull-ups. But it's essential that you view this developmental stage as you do walking, talking, teething, and growth spurts -- beyond his control.

Make sure he goes to the bathroom last thing before bed and as soon as he wakes up in the morning.

I suggest you Google "bed wetting." Night time dryness is something that is completely out of the child's control. Setting up rewards or bribing a child will not work since it is not a conscious decision to wet the bed. Having rewards that he can't possible achieve unless his body is ready is setting him up for feeling like a failure. Praising him for something that is out of control is also counter productive. It would be like me saying to my daughter, "good job on being so beautiful!" 😉

i dunno. noting the occasion with 'yay, you made it!' seems appropriate. but praise or rewards? not so much. i mean, it's not like it's something he can consciously figure out, like picking up his toys without being told, or doing a great job brushing his own teeth. this is more like 'wow, i'm so proud of you! your hair has grown 2 inches! you get a prize!'
KWIM?
khairete
S.

Praise might be ok, but I would not do the stickers or the big bed or anything else. This is not something he can control, so knowing that he is not getting the prize might make it that much harder for him and make him think he's doing something wrong.

He can't control this. His body has to be ready, and there's nothing anyone can do to make it ready sooner.

You just have to wait ... but that shouldn't stop you from letting him sleep in a twin bed now.

You've seen so many posts on this so I won't go into it again. It happens when it happens. He has absolutely no control over his body when he's asleep. It's the same for him as it is for you if you are on the operating table under general anesthesia...can you make yourself wake up from that? no, can you feel that you need to go to the bathroom from that situation? No. Same for him when he falls asleep.

All you are doing by focusing on this and not putting a pull up him until he stays dry for weeks is making him feel inadequate. It's not anything he can control. His body is in complete control of this issue and he is a bystander.

He's big enough for a big bed too. I'm sure he's fine in his little bed but moving him up is a good thing too. We put plastic mattress pads on the mattresses in every room just to keep them cleaner over time. Then we put a water proof mattress pad on top of that. Then the sheets and other stuff.

Pull ups, overnight, are a blessing because they are way cheaper, in the long run, that multiple loads of laundry every day. Running the washer and dryer adds up.

Night dryness isn't a skill or habit, but a maturity of physical development. He has very little control over the issue. At best, if his body wakes him in the middle of the night he can get up and go to the bathroom. If he's a good sleeper he may not even be aware that he has to pee though.

Making sure he doesn't drink a lot at night and having him use the bathroom before bedtime is always good, but this isn't something you can reward him into doing because he isn't in control of the outcome.

My kids got real undies. Just wanting to wear undies to bed was incentive enough. We shall see with kid three. She's runny really behind schedule because, well, she was doing great and then we went away. Sigh.

It happens when it happens.. go ahead and let him have his big boy bed with a waterproof mattress cover and his pull ups...One fine day (or night) it'll just happen. And even then hang on to the left over pullups....we had one package that lasted us for a couple of years and my son only needed (or wanted) when he would get sick (like really sick....strep, flu)

Good luck

I would just make it no big deal for the most part. Be happy when he's dry, but don't shame him when he's not and just teach him how to change if necessary.

Pick up the book- "It's No Accident" by Steve J. Hodges, MD, Pediatric Urologist.

My son wet the bed until now, 8 years old. The only thing that worked was Magnesium Citrate, a laxative from the drug store. It's most times constipation related.