Staying Dry Through the Night - Erie,PA

My daughter is almost 7 and still wears a pull up every nite. And every morning it is soaked :) She has always been a wonderfully deep sleeper, so I think she doesn't wake up when her body needs to go! Her brother was in a pull up until he was 7 1/2 - and according to my MIL, so was my husband! Ha, ha! My son is now 8 1/2 and we still wake him up around 11 pm so he can go to the bathroom to prevent accidents. I suppose each child is different, but I wouldn't stress about it. My only complaint is that pull ups are expensive !! :)

I agree with Sharon P. Just use a pull up at night until he has dry mornings for a week or so. Then its probably safe to switch to undies at night. My son asked to wear undies at night O. night and I was sort of thinking: OK gonna have to do some sheet changing here....but guess what? He never had an accident. He knew he was ready. When you DO switch to underwear, I'd put a waterproof pad under his sheet just in case!

Hi J.,

In my experience, this is a situation that can be fixed, but it takes time. My daughter was the same way, potty trained completely during the day and soaked at night. I realized that I created the need for the night time pull up. As she was learning to potty train during the day, she would become devastated at night if she wet the bed. So in my efforts to help her not be discouraged about her day time training, I put her in pull ups at night. This was a fix at the time but not a long term solution. By age 4, I decided that the pull ups at night needed to go, they were expensive and I knew that she could now handle this responsibility. It was a struggle but well worth it. First I got several mattress protectors, not those little pad things that go under their bottom, the kind that protect the entire mattress no matter where she rolls durning the night. I started by limiting her beverage intake at least an hour before bed and eliminating the pull up. After she went to sleep, I would wake her every two hours to use the potty until I went to bed. Gradually the waking times got further and further apart until, I did not wake her at all. She did have many accident but she also learned how to wake up on her own to go potty. My daughter was and is still a very sound sleeper, but she no longer wets the bed. The entire process did not take long, it just caused a lot of laundry, but it worked well for us. I guess you just have to weigh the options, extra laundry for a few weeks or keep buying pulls up for the next several years.

What ever you choose, I wish you luck

For my daughter... she still likes to drink warm milk at bed time. So I started with just a little bit less milk, and tried giving it to her an hour before bed... rather than right at bedtime. Shortly after she drank her milk, I would have her pee on the potty. Then, 45 minutes or a half hour later at actual bed time, I would have her pee again. That normally did the trick. I still only give her about a half a glass (large playtex disney princess sippy cup) of milk. I wore night time pulls on her for like a month straight or something ridiculous like that, even though she didnt have any accidents. I think I was just nervous and she finally just asked me if she could wear her panties to bed. Oh and sometimes she would still ask for a second cup of milk at bed time again... and I would just have remind her and enforce that she already had her milk... remember???? And she got used to it. Once I cut out the drinks before bed, no more accidents at bed time. I hope you find something that works with your daughter! Good luck. Potty training is wonderful, even if she has a pull up at night, the during the day training is still fantastic and something to be so proud of her for!

I heard age 6, but I wet the bed long after that....:(

My daughter wet the bed until she was 8 or 9. I fretted about it. Tried an alarm that woke her up as soon as she started to wet and that worked a little. In the end she just grew out of it.

She still went to sleep overs - but only with friends that her dad and I felt comfortable sharing her inability to stay dry thru the night and that she wore pull-ups (believe me there were several who understood).

We have had some of my son's friends stay the night who wear pull ups and thier parents don't even give us advance notice - we just see the pull up in the trash. My son is 8.

Don't get so excited (I can say this now that I'm on the other side of this issue). Seriously, from one mom to another, it'll all work out. As our pediatrician said, they're sure to outgrow this before college (smile).

Hi J.,
I think we are just getting to that point and my daughter is almost 4. We still put diapers on her at night just in case, but they've been dry in the mornings for a couple months now.

Hope that helps, but every little one is different.

C.
http://priority1mail.blogspot.com

Some kids' bodies just take longer to develop the ability to respond to the need to go at night. Don't stress about it, just use the pull-ups until she is consistently dry at night for at least a week or more. My son is almost 5 and occasionally has an overnight accident. Usually when he has something to drink too close to bed time.

what worked for us was to put my son to bed, then a few hours later before we went to bed, we would take him potty with out fully waking him up. Help him out of bed, undress him, sit him on the potty wait a few minutes and usually he would go, and the get him right back into bed. No talking, no bright lights, nothing rough, just a very gentle opportunity to get rid of what ever he drank at dinner. He would go right back to sleep and that would be it, eventually we were able to stop doing this, maybe a few months? probably was one of those things were something disrupted our routine, like a trip or something and we realized he was able to hold it all night.

Lots of people seem to feel that if your child stays dry through the night for a week or so, that they are probably ok to be in panties through the night... and maybe that's the general rule, but with my son, who is nearly 4 and has been potty trained for at least a year, he might go a week, sometimes two with a dry pull up all night... and sometimes, doesn't even pee until he's been up for an hour or so... but there are still those random days that he will pee in his pull up through the night. The theory that once they're dry for a week, they're clear doesn't hold true for us. We just continue to use pull ups... and even re-use the dry ones for an additional night to try to save a little on waste. But we do continue to use them, and he doesn't mind. He will still go to the potty if he's awake and has his nighttime pull up on, so no issue there. But this keeps us from nights waking to change pee'd sheets and pj's.

I say not to worry about it unless it's really troublesome to your daughter. They all do these things at their own individual pace, and there is such a wide range of what is typical...

J.,
Every child is different, so there is no quick answer for you. My first daughter was staying dry all night at two, but my second daughter has a small bladder and is a VERY sound sleeper and she was still having a problem with this at five. Try not to pressure her, but just to encourage her to go potty before bed and if she wakes up during the night. Just love her for the wonderful child that she is and don't worry about this. It will take care of itself eventually. Do ask your pediatrician at her next visit to make sure that there are no medical reasons for this, and if there are not, try to be patient

Good luck,
C.

When my son was 3 I started cutting liquids off a couple of hours before bed and made sure he peed before bed and he usually made it through the night. I've heard of people taking their kid to go pee right before they (the parents) go to bed too.

Every kid is different - you never know when they'll be able to do it. I think most kids are dry through the night by around 4?