When Do You Take Away Night-time Diapers?

My 6 year old still wears pull ups at night she was day potty trained at 2 1/2. My 4 year old wears underwear at night for about 6 months now. He was day trained just before age 3. I stopped him wearing pull ups at night when he was dry at night for about a month. He will still occasionally wet the bed but usually when he has had too much to drink in the evening. It is a biological thing each child has to grow into. Don't rush it or it will happen.

When they wake up dry in the morning and from naps. My guy started doing it when he was day trained at 26 months on his own and got up and used the potty in his room. Some won't wake up dry consistently until they are 7 or 8, there is no such thing as night training, it happens when their bodies are ready, pay attention to what she does and don't frustrate either of you by trying to train her to do it.

When they continually wake up dry.

You shouldn't take away the nighttime diaper until they are physically ready to stay dry all night. Night time isn't a matter of training, it is completely reliant on when their body is physically able to stay dry. None of the tricks of limiting fluids before bed, waking them up in the middle of the night etc work. The bladder needs to be mature enough and big enough to hold urine all night. The signals from the brain to the bladder need to develop to tell the bladder to not make a lot of urine and to hold it in until morning.
Both my boys were between 5 and 6 before we could stop night time diapers. My 3 year old daughter is no where near being ready yet.
We waited until we had a month solid of no accidents before we felt we could go without a diaper at night.

Yeah, it's not really about training. When your daughter is dry overnight for a few weeks then go for it, but it isn't something you can rush or teach. She'll do it when she is physically ready, not before, so save eveyone some sleep and skip the tricks like waking her in the middle of the night and taking her to the bathroom.

My son is almost five, potty trained since before he was three and still sleeps in a Pull Up. He's getting close to switching to underwear at night, but we aren't quite there yet. Many of his friends (in kindergarten) are in the same boat. Don't worry about it, just let her sleep in a diaper or Pull Up and when she's been dry for a few weeks straight, make the switch. Just know it could happen soon or not for several years.

It isn't about training, it is about when her body is biologically ready to be able to stay dry at night. Our bodies produce a hormone that naturally causes us to concentrate our urine more at night and produce less of it - otherwise we would always end up having to go all night, or wet the bed. When that hormone kicks in is different for every kid, and it's not unusual for kids as old as 5, 6, or even older to still need pull-ups because of night-time wetting. Withholding fluids makes no difference, except to maybe reduce the volume of urine.

My daughter was already waking up with dry diapers when we potty-trained her, but I still had her in a pull-up at night, even though she was fully-trained and in underpants 100% during the day. After a month of being potty-trained and still waking up dry every morning, we ditched the pull-ups too, and she's been fine ever since. I would still keep a child in a diaper or pull-up at night until they are waking up dry every morning for at least 2 weeks.

Do not limit her drinks, this makes it harder for her. It also can lead to many other issues and it really has no impact on her wetting or not wetting at all. She needs the fluids.

That said. her brain has to turn on the chemical that tells the kidneys to stop producing urine. Until that chemical kicks in she is making urine 24 hours per day. She is not supposed to wake up to go, she is supposed to sleep all night, wake up, feel her bladder filling or full and go to the bathroom.

It is a misconception that we are supposed to wake up to go. As adults we are supposed to sleep all night too. Often we will drink a bunch before we go to bed and wake up needing to go during the night but that is not supposed to be every night.

Until she is dry every morning for at least a month I would keep the diapers on her. It makes no difference if you use cloth or pull ups. The purpose of pull ups is so that the child will have the experience of pulling them up and down to go but still have the protection of not peeing or pooping on the carpet through panties. If you are leaving her in diapers during the night that is fine.

She is very young to even consider being dry at night so don't be stressed if it takes another year or so. Even longer. A lot of kids are still wet each and every morning even in elementary school. Wearing a diaper each night at that age may be harder if you don't have larger ones.

If you take them off and just try to make her stay dry be prepared to spend a lot of extra time doing laundry and spending a lot of extra money for utilities and laundry supplies. That's why I chose to do overnight pull ups. I have better things to do than tons of laundry each day. It is too time consuming and it costs about the same to do a pull up each night as it does to add 1-2 extra loads of laundry each day. Plus it is hard on the mattresses if there is a leak.

When they wake up dry every morning for 2 weeks in a row.
Our son was in pullups at night till he was 7 1/2.
He slept so deeply he never woke up to use the bathroom in the night till he was older.

If they wake up dry most of the time then they are ready!

My ped told me that daytime and night time training are totally different. A child can be "ready" in their head but their bodies may not be. He told me that all the way up until 4 a child may not be able to have dry nights.

So this is how he had me do it and it worked for us. Ask your child if she would like to wear her panties to bed instead of a diaper. If she says yes, then tell her we will try it out. Make sure you have a change of bedding (you do have 2 waterproof mattress covers, right?) because if she wakes up wet and comes to you, you will need to change the bedding. (Have it out so that you don't have to hunt.) Get a calendar and some stickers. Have it ready for in the morning.

When she pees the bed, in the morning, hug her and tell her "Honey, I know you wanted to have a dry night and that you are sad about it. I understand. Here's what we need to do. Tonight we will put the diaper back on. If you can make 4 nights in a row of dry nights, we can put your panties back on. Here's the calendar. Every night in a row that you are dry, we'll put a sticker on the calendar. If you make it to night 4, we can put panties on you. Isn't that exciting?"

This way she is not shamed. You are telling her that you know she is disappointed. You are not telling her that YOU are disappointed. You are empathetic, bringing it out in the open, and presenting a plan and a solution.

My sons didn't potty train until they were 3. I didn't have too long of a time in getting mine night trained. You are starting out very early, so I don't think you'll have quick success, but I may be wrong. My older son slept like the dead and it was almost impossible to get him awake in order to take him to the potty before I went to bed, so helping out by taking him to the potty at 11:00 pm didn't work for us. You might try that with your daughter if she can stay awake long enough to pee, and go right back to sleep.

If she starts obsessing over getting up to pee and calls you all the time (like an excuse to come out of her room), put the potty chair in her room instead.

Personally, I'd keep her in the diaper rather than introduce going to the potty in the middle of the night. If she can't hold it without going to the potty 3 and 4 times, I'd rather her wear the diaper and we all get some sleep.

Good luck,
Dawn

My kids all went from day right to night ( except for one ). The others I trained did the same, one grandchild mainly. I think if they can stay dry during nap time they have the idea and I found that putting a diaper or pullup on them was a signal to use it. You might tell her that she is doing so great that you want her to go all night without a diaper and see how she does. Don't give fluids late in the evening before bedtime. See how she does.

When the diaper is dry in the morning for several days in a row.
Age really doesn't have anything to do with it. My oldest was totally (daytime) potty trained by 22 months, but he was 4 1/2 before he was totally night time potty trained because he sleeps VERY VERY hard. My youngest is a very light sleeper (we can't even sneak in to check on him without waking him), so while it took him until 2 weeks ago (he's 34 months) to daytime potty train, he's also doing great at nighttime training as well. He cries if I put a diaper on him at night because "he's a big boy" so I did have to switch to the pull ups for night time, and Batman underwear in the day.

Sounds too young. I wait until age 3 or 3 months of dry mornings. Mine wears one at night and calls me to pee. Or when in a bed.

You can't actually overnight "train" her. As much as I hate this as an answer... every kid is different.

For my DS, it was around 27 months... for a friend day-trained at the same time (right at 2yo) it was closer to 36 months.

You'll know she's ready when she's consistently waking up dry in the morning. You can do things to help this along, like limiting nighttime fluids and having her use the potty before bed, but beyond that, you'll have to wait until her body is ready. No amount of will power can make a person not pee in their sleep.

Keep her in the diaper until the diaper seems like a waste because you're throwing away clean dry diapers in the morning. Then try going without it.

HTH
T.

My boys trained day and night at the same time, when they turned three. They had been consistently waking up with dry diapers, so I figured it was safe. Neither one had any accidents.

When they are consistently dry when they get up in the morning.
Nighttime "training" is really more of a physical readiness thing, than of a child deciding they don't WANT to wet. Some kids sleep through and aren't even awakened by the wet sensation of a soaked bed. They can't help that. It isn't a "choice".
So, when your daughter is regularly dry when she wakes, then she is ready to go to bed in undies. :)

I don't think you can apply an average to determine if your child "should" be ready for it. There might BE an average (because an average is just math), but it doesn't necessarily mean your child is ready because she has or hasn't reached that average number.
My daughter was about 26 or 27 months old. For my son, he switched over probably around 3 or so (it's been a few years and I don't remember details). However, he also "consistently" had accidents until he was around 8 or 9 years old. The older he got, the less frequent they were, but he still had them. At first, maybe once a week. Then maybe 3 days in a row every 3 weeks. Then maybe 2 days in one week after 2 whole months dry. Eventually, he'd go 3 or 4 months, then wet the bed once, then maybe again the next night, then dry for a long time again.
That was physiological. He was a very deep sleeper, and had growth spurts that his bladder didn't seem to keep up. For my daughter? She has had a total of 3 night time accidents EVER. And one of those was my "fault" because I put her in bed after falling asleep in the car without waking her to go to the bathroom. She is 11.

We did it at the same time as day training. We used the disappearing symbol pull ups. When she was dry the cute little hearts stayed, if she was wet they disappeared. It was a game for her and she caught on quick. We visited the potty the moment she woke up and checked for her hearts. We stopped drinks an half hour before and nap, during the day I was able to learn her routine, it took about an hour to an half hour for drink to moved through.

When they are dry in the morning for at least a week

All kids are different. My daughter was 5 when she stopped wetting the bed at night. It's not so much training it is more when their bodies can hold it for that amount of time.

After a week of being dry, we got rid of them. There is no way to train at night, IMO and if you did, I think it would pretty miserable for everyone. It takes much longer for them to develop control at night. It took us several months to be completely diaper free, nighttime wise.

We are still fighting this and my daughter just turned 4.

The conundrum we have is that she will sleep until she pees! I know because her pull up is still warm. Sigh...so I am not sure what we are going to do on that.

You can't "train" at night. You just have to wait until their body is ready. You'll start seeing less wet or dry right away or a couple years down the road. Every child is different. You will see less wet and dry at nap time first. You just have to wait it out because their bladder has to learn to mature on its own and be able to hold urine for 10-12 hours or more depending on how long they sleep at night. It is starting. She's learned to hold her urine during the day for a few hours at a time so nap time should be next as kids only nap an hour or two. Once you start seeing her dry now and then after nap start trying panties. Then in the morning once you see dry diapers/Pull Ups after at least a couple weeks then try panties

K. B
mom to 5 including triplets