3 Day Potty Training and Nighttime Training

Updated on April 27, 2013
K.P. asks from Franklin, TN
7 answers

So, my daughter is 2 years 5 months and started showing potty training readiness a few weeks ago (she actually sort of decided to start it on her own.) This is my second child, and this time I decided to try the "3 day potty training method". She's doing great! By the evening of day 3 she was going to the bathroom, removing her underwear and going all on her own. It's nighttime I'm having trouble with! She sleeps through accidents, and I have mixed feelings about getting up in the middle of the night to take her. Does having her wear a pull-up at night really interfere with daytime training? With my son, we used pull-ups at night and he did fine. BUT, he was older (just turned 3) and he understood why he wore them only at night...cognitively he knew the difference. He was also dry some mornings, she is not..not yet anyway. Has anyone successfully potty trained at 2 while still using a diaper/pull-up at night? Does it really confuse them that much?

(BTW, my son needed a pull-up for a YEAR after being daytime trained and still had occasional accidents until he was 6. He and my husband are both very deep sleepers...perhaps our daughter is also?)

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So What Happened?

Thank you so much for your wonderful positive feedback. To Gamma G: I apologize for asking a repetitive question, I rarely use this site and frankly, I'm too busy chasing around a 2 year old asking her if she has to potty to do too much searching. Your positive advice, however, is appreciated! (We moms spend way too much time tearing each other down.) I'm in agreement on the biological readiness...I vaguely remember reading about this when my son was young. However, this Lora lady (3 day potty training) along with a LOT of other moms I know believe you can "train" a child to wake at night and go. So, for us, I'm going to try pull ups until she starts waking with some dry nights. And now I feel much better about doing so, in that I won't mess up her day time progress. Thank you so much everyone!

More Answers

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G.B.

answers from Oklahoma City on

Use the search option on top of this page to see a lot of answers for this particular question. It's asked several times per day and we usually write the same things over and over and over.

She can't potty train during the night time hours, there is no such thing. Either her brain turns of urine production when she falls asleep or it doesn't. If it hasn't yet then anything you do is only useless work. Waking her up only makes her clench her vaginal muscles and hold her urine. As soon as she goes back to sleep she'll flood everything.

If you want her to sleep in pee pee sheets then don't let her wear a pull up. If you don't mind all that extra cost added to your laundry then doing sheets, blankets, pillows, etc....every day won't be a bad thing.

For me? I prefer not doing useless loads of laundry every day. I have things to do that are not stripping beds all the time. My time is worth something too. Plus the additional cost of the laundry is more than the box of pull-ups would be.

1 mom found this helpful
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B.1.

answers from Tampa on

We loosely followed that method as well when my son was 2 1/2. We did use Pull ups at night and it did not confuse him. He understood that he just was not waking up with the urge to go and needed them when he was asleep. A couple months after he was day trained he started waking dry and we got rid of the pull ups. I don't believe you can night train. Some bodies develop the ability to remain dry overnight earlier than others. I was lucky to ditch night time pull ups before age 3 but it was not related to any training... Just luck. She sounds like she is doing great :-)

1 mom found this helpful

M.J.

answers from Milwaukee on

Wearing pull-ups at night did not interfere with daytime training for any of my kids.

1 mom found this helpful

L.S.

answers from Fort Collins on

I have two boys and an in-home child care. I have potty-trained or helped train many children. I have only used the 3day method once - with my youngest son. I LOVED it! He was potty trained a full 9 months earlier than his brother...and was the youngest success story within daycare too! I love this method. (Maybe we were just lucky.... but I am totally going to try it the next time!) I have recommended it to several people, as well.

My son was 2 yrs and 3 months when we tried with him - which was as soon as I had heard of it. He still wears pull-ups most nights. He can go without sometimes - if he doesn't need to pee during the night - but he also does not wake up when he needs to go. We call them nigh-night pants - telling him they are like underwear you can throw away if they get yucky. We do not call them diapers. Yes, he does get that they are similar to diapers, but he adamantly tells his brother that he "does not wear diapers!" If he is awake (right before or after bed), he will go to the bathroom and pull them down to go potty. He never goes in them on purpose. He is always excited to put big boy undies on in the a.m. He is sometimes mad to put on the pull-ups at night, so we'll let him try undies. If he makes it through the night dry, we praise him! If he wets his undies/bed, we change it in the middle of the night and put on pull-ups. We wait several days before trying undies again....giving him the bed-wetting incident as the reason. He doesn't like being wet in the middle of the night any more than we like changing sheets in the middle of the night.

Long story short - We have used pull-ups pretty consistently since doing the 3day method. We have had NO TROUBLE at all! He is a big boy and very proud of wearing undies - even 6 months into it!

Do what you have to do. You know your child better than a book or method. :) Congrats on potty training! It's liberating! :)

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S.W.

answers from Minneapolis on

Have her wear a pull-up at night. Staying dry at night is purely based on biological readiness. There is no such thing as nighttime training. When her body is ready to stay dry at night, she will.

My daughter was potty trained by age 26 months, no daytime accidents. She was wet at night, less and less frequently, until she was 9. It is a factor of deep sleeping, and genetics.

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❤.M.

answers from Los Angeles on

We used the 3 day method w/my son.
It worked during the day.
Night time was a different story so we used pull-ups at night. I explained
it was just in case.
After almost a year he would wake up w/them dry.
The few times we put him in his underwear but he had enough accidents
where I explained to my husb I don't have time nor is there a reason for
me to strip the bed & do bed laundry every single day if we can use the
pull-ups. I'm the one that does all that anyway.
Cut to a year later, he wakes up mostly dry but I feel better continuing the
night time pull ups for now.
Sometimes he wakes up & comes into my room to pee to get me to help
him go to the bathroom which I do.
Sometimes he doesn't pee & it's dry in the morning.
And a few times it's a soaked pull up.
He no longer has a ton to drink at night, his choice, but he used to drink a
lot right up until bedtime & I wasn't about to tell him he could not have
liquids or be thirsty because I wanted him to be dry.
So it wall worked out in the end.

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Z.B.

answers from Toledo on

Have her wear the pull-ups at night. There really is no such thing as night-time training, as it is simply not possible for a child to control whether or not their body is ready to stay dry at night and/or wake them up at night. When your daughter's body is ready, it's ready. Until then, let her wear the pull-ups.

Kids are different, and genetics does play a role. My oldest was dry all night even before we potty-trained. My youngest is 4, completely potty trained, and not only wears a pull-ups every night but wakes up with a very heavy pull-ups every morning. We don't expect that to change for a couple of years. Would be nice not to have to buy pull-ups, but I'm not interested in changing sheets in the middle of the night. He'll be ready when he's ready.

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