What's Your Opinion on Potty Training at Night - Cold Turkey or Otherwise?

Hi K., I cut off liquids at dinner, no liquids after dinner, mine were dry in the mornings and at nap time at 17 1/2 months old. J.

Kids night train later than day train, generally.
I used a Pull up at night with my son until he had a full week of dry mornings. Even then I was reluctant but HE told me he wanted undies at night. I just kind of braced for impact thinking nighttime sheet changes, dry jammies ready, etc but you know what? He knew he was ready and his body showed he was ready by a week of dry mornings. We ditched the Pull Ups and he never had an accident.

There is no such thing as night training (unless the child is waking dry and peeing in the morning after waking). Being able to hold ones bladder all night, and wake if the bladder is full, is a physiological issue that can not be forced or taught. It has to do with the maturity of the body. This usually happens between the ages of 2 and 5, but can take much longer for some children. I would continue to use pull ups at night until you have had several dry mornings in a row, like a months worth.

night training isn't really training
Night training happens when their bladder is mature enough to hold it all night or wake them when they need to go. If you have a hard sleeper it takes longer.
My almost 6 yr old son stil isn't dry at night , my daughter was dry by the time she was 4.5 .

Night-time 'dryness' is not something that is attained until even 7 years old and is normal and per Pediatricians.

Ditto Beth.

My daughter, was already 5 years old, when she was ready to just wear underwear to bed.
She is 7 now... and still has an occasional accident.

My 4 year old son, is still wet at naps and night time. NO biggie.
He wears night time diapers.
Pull-ups are useless for night time... it does not hold a lot and it leaks. Not to mention the cost.

Just get waterproof bed pads, to put directly under your child for sleep.
I bought 4 of them from Amazon.
I just switch the out and rotate it if my kids have an accident at night. No biggie. It makes clean up real easy.

Night time dryness... is BIOLOGICAL based. The bladder/nerves/brain connections and maturity of the body.

This is childhood.
They WILL have accidents, whether in panties or not.
And your child is so young.
It will not be accident free....

Night time dryness... is a whole different separate, thing. NOT the same as daytime dryness.

My daughter who is 7.... sleeps deeply. And once she even had a dream that she WAS on the toilet, until she felt herself wet. We laughed about it. No biggie. She just changed jammies and I changed the waterproof pad, and she went back to sleep.

it's something their body has to be able to do. some children cannot do this until much older, because they sleep too hard.

skip pull ups - they're expensive. just make sure your daughter knows that she wears undies during the day...AS SOON AS she wakes up. don't delay in switching. maybe even put the undies on over the diaper, so you can just pull it off in the morning without completely undressing her. and put it on LAST thing. let her know she wears a diaper because her brain/body is too sleepy to get up to go potty, but it's not an option during the day.

i think you just have to wait it out. every kid is different.

my daughter was not dry at night before potty training, but after a few weeks, she was potty trained during the day, and just stayed dry at night or woke up and called me (i kind of wish she would just stay asleep!). now that she is trained, we limit liquids after dinner to help with the waking up at night. maybe if your daughter was going less at night it would start to feel less natural and trigger her to wake?

I agree that this is only a maturity issue. Let her wear pull ups at night and don't worry about it unitl her bladder matures and she is dry at night naturally. How much do you do on purpose when you are asleep? I have zero memeory or control that is not just a matter of my body doing something that I have nothing to do with. How do you stay dry at night? I have no idea how I do it either, just like I breath at night with out thinking, but I can make myself take a breath when I am awake, I pee when I need to (or what to) when I am awake but I hold it on purpose with out thinking too much about it during the day, and while I sleep. If my bladder is really full, I wake up. Untill she gets to that point, don't worry. Just be happy and celebrate her great news that she is dry during the day light! How terrific!

M.

I think you should let her wear pull-ups (not a diaper) at night an don't worry about her waking up wet...after she has a few days in a row of waking up dry that's the time to go to panties at night....don't worry about it, her body will mature and she will be waking up dry before you know it!

Kellie-- Hi, I’m Dr. W. from the GoodNites NiteLite Panel. Mamapedia is wrapping up a partnership with GoodNites and your question is definitely relevant to what I talk about with the NiteLite Panel and in my practice. Potty training, when the child is physically and developmentally ready, is accomplished with the behavior techniques you know—lots of encouragement, coaching, and positive messages. But children can't really change what they do when they're sleeping. So even if they know you'll be so proud of them when they are dry in the morning, if their bodies aren't ready, they will feel bad about failing you. This is something we discuss a lot on the GoodNites website. Be patient with her, and assure her that wet or dry, you'll always be happy to see her in the morning!--Dr. W., GoodNites NiteLite Panel

we let our daughter wear underwear with pullups over them at night. so at least she's more aware. she's almost 3 and rarely wets herself. If she does, it happens when she wakes up in the morning and doesn't make it to the potty in time. also, this helps so you can reuse the pullups when she stays dry because her private parts weren't touching and it's still clean. :) saves money!

My daughter is about 3.5 and potty trained during the day. At night, she gets up and goes to the bathroom, but I don't limit her liquids at all at night. I figure a full bladder will wake her more quickly than a half full bladder. We tried to go cold turkey with the night training, but it didn't work well for us... I know kids who are over 6 who still wake wet, so I don't stress it. Mostly she wakes dry, but she likes her 'nighttime panties' and I am expecting #2 very soon, so I am not working too hard on it...
Good luck!
R.

On our son's 3rd birthday, we took diapers away. He was perfectly potty trained within the week. The first night we did put him in pull-ups (made a big deal that these were NOT diapers, see how they go on, like underwear) and he was dry. By night 5, the pull-up was full, so we took him out of them and he was fine.

Our next son was 2 years and 4 months and he was potty trained in 2 weeks with an occassional night time accident...literally the accidents were 5-8 months apart, but when his L2 would go out of alignment, then it was every night until we got him adjusted. When he'd wet the bed, we'd get him adjusted by our chiropractor and he was good to go for months.

Our daughter is 2 years 5 months and is dry 80% of the time. When she wets the bed, she'll do it 2 or 3 times that night, but most of the nights, she is dry. I had her adjusted (L2 vertebra) by our chirorpactor, 2 nights ago and she's been dry. She'd been wet every night for a week, before that.

http://icpa4kids.org/Find-a-Chiropractor/

Both my daughters were about 24-26 mos. when potty trained during the day. I didn't even try for nighttime until well over 3 years old. So they were both potty trained about a year before I tried at night, and the very first night, with each of them, they stayed dry with their panties on, and from then on too. They weren't dry in the mornings with a diaper because they knew they could pee in them, but once they had their panties, the just knew they couldn't pee in them.

Don't go nuts. Put on the nightime pull-ups and she will start waking up dry when her body is ready. Kids have to start making a specific hormone, anti diuretic hormone, in order to start holding it in at night. I think too many parents have a specific age in mind where everything needs to be finished in terms of toilet training. You can't tie it up in a neat package. We've all been there with ordering those silly alarm underpants, seeing a doctor for night wetting, etc. Just be patient and it will happen. I've got three boys and they all got to that point at different ages. Good luck.

Congratulations to you and your daughter. She still may have some accidents but no worries that is absolutelly normal. I woudl not start night training yet, since she feels as well as you very proud now that she has accomplished something and you dont want to take that away from her. My daughter is 3 and has been potty trained since 2 and im not considering night time training yet. The reason is soem kids are ready some not. I know my daughter is not ready for night time yet. I have talked to some very good and well known pediatricians and they all say not to rush it, even if they wear diapers at night till they are 4.
I hope this helps

Hi K.! My daughter is almost 4 and has been nighttime trained for the past 3 or 4 months. I thought it was never going to happen and was getting impatient. However, she pretty much decided when it was the right time for her. When I thought that she should be ready I started talking about it with her. She said she wanted to wear panties to bed so we tried it and of course had the same result you talk about- a wet bed! She sleeps so soundly that she didn't even know she was sleeping on wet sheets. So we let it go for awhile and then we tried letting her wearing panties with her pull up over it. We told her that if she kept her panties and pull up dry for 3 nights in a row then we would try a night or two with just panties. We told her if she woke up wet, that was okay and her body just wasn't ready. We would try again another time. We did this probably 3 times but waited a month or two between trying. Eventually, it just clicked for her and we never went back to pull-ups. In my opinion, I wanted to avoid waking her up to go potty at night. I know some people use that strategy but I didn't want to "train" her to pee at a certain time or learn to wait for someone to tell her to go at night. I opted to wait it out (even though I wanted to ditch those pull up so bad) and let nature decide when it was time. Good luck!

I say go with the diaper. I've read it's perfectly normal for older children to still wet themselves at night. So you shouldn't pressure her (and then have her end up feeling bad) to be dry, and it's obviously easier on you if she's in diapers. My son just turned 3 and it was weird- he was potty trained during the day for almost a year and wet every night until suddenly 1 day he started waking up dry- or waking up to go pee. It was like he overnight on his own developed the ability to hold it (or the awareness) right at age 3. So now we're in underwear. And cutting down on evening drinks helped too.

Hi-
I didn't real all the answers but my advise is to listen to your child. My daughter was day potty-trained at 3 and wore night pull-ups until 5. She just wasn't ready and we tried lots of things. We ended up having to get a alarm that woke her up when it felt moisture. My son decided at 2 1/2 that he wanted to "wear big boy underwear" and potty trained cold turkey with only a few accidents.

Good Luck!

My just turned 3 year old granddaughter is day and night trained. We put pull-ups on her until she had a dry one for a couple of nights, and then went to panties. Have had maybe 1 or 2 accidents. She'll get it when she's ready, but use the pull-ups. They are more like panties.

she's still little. My daughter woke up dry for nearly a year before I put panties on her through the night. Two things I've learned and utilize with our potty training is #1 when they can hold it through the night and wake up dry, they are ready for potty training. #2 never force or push the issue or they will regress, relax and they will do it on their own time. You got the biggest part out of the way if she is trained in the day time and much much respect for that! There are feel and learn night time diapers made by Pampers that could be worth a shot. They feel cold when wet so instead of them wetting the entire bed and you having to change the sheets in the middle of the night, she's still alerted. I say no worries. They won't be in diapers in college. You will know when she's ready to wear panties to bed. Good luck!!

How do you train a child not to pee when they are sleeping? I kept a diaper on our son at night until he had several dry diapers in the morning (make sure you are taking her straight to the potty in the morning). When she can make it through the night and to the toilet in the morning, she is ready for night-time diaper free. Remember, she will still have accidents occasionally.

Hi Kelly,
All 3 of my children wore pull-ups at night and they were all potty trained at about 24 months during the day. My oldest wet her pull-ups until she was almost 5. My son wore pull-ups until he was almost 4 and my youngest, who is almost 3, still wakes up with a wet pull-up 50% of the time. My husband has an unusually small bladder and he wet the bed until he was in 6th grade (I'm sure he'd be thrilled to know I shared that with all of you :)
You could go cold turkey but if she is not developmentally ready to wake up in the middle of the night to go potty you will be doing a lot of extra laundry. I personally don't think you can rush the nighttime potty training because there is just a developmental milestone that has to be reached before they stay dry thru the night.