6 Year Old Still Needs Pull-ups at Night

Night Time dryness, is completely different from day time pottying.
Night time, is about physiological, maturity of the brain/organs/bladder and myelination of the nerve sheath.
You cannot, speed this up, because it is a physiological, development.
Not per age.

Pull-ups, are useless for night. Because it does not hold much and it leaks.
Use Night time diapers.
I use Huggies.
Also get waterproof bed pads, to prevent the sheets from getting soiled.
I have 4 of them. That I rotate out as needed.

My kids are 5 and 9.
My son who is 5, still uses night time diapers for naps and night time.
It is NORMAL.
Night time dryness, is not something that happens, until even 7 years old or later.
My Husband, was later, than that.
My daughter, at 5 was still wet at night and wore night time diapers.
Normal.
Even at 7 years old she had night time accidents.
Normal.
I just changed out the waterproof bed pad. And back to sleep.

Some kids sleep very deeply. They don't feel their bodily cues. It comes with organ and brain, maturity.

ALL of my daughter's Teachers, from Preschool to Kindergarten to 1st grade... ALL said unanimously, that kids these ages still have accidents and wear diapers at night. And it is normal. But the parent's are embarrassed to admit it to others. But, they will tell the Teacher.
My kids' Teachers, NEVER ever... say it is wrong. The child, can't help it. It is about biological, development.

My daughter, even had a dream once, that she WAS on the toilet. Until she felt herself wet. We thought it was funny.
Kids don't do it on purpose.
She was 7 at the time.

It is a physiological and biological... maturity of the organs.
You cannot make the organs, grow up. Faster.

Even our Pediatrician, said this is normal.

For my 5 year old son... he wears night time diapers. And I wake once a night to change him. Because, if not, the diaper gets overloaded and leaks. Not his fault. It is because... an older child has more urine output... than a baby. And they pee more in quantity. So with that in mind, I wake and change my son, and then that's it. He never wakes when I do this.
But still, my kids are 5 and 9... and I STILL use, DIRECTLY under them... the waterproof bed pads. Which I got 4 of them from Amazon.
Easy.
My sheets, do not get soiled. Only the bed pad.
We never scold our kids, for pee accidents, at night.

I never withhold liquids at night for my kids.
They pee before going to bed.
Still, they pee at night.
No biggie.
It is their body.

5 moms found this helpful

When his male hormones kick in he'll get over it. It is that way with some boys. And, the number is large. If you notice how big the overnights are made you will realize how common the situation is.
Don't try to change him. Do not berate him. It is physical and well documented.

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Not a single thing in the world you can do. His body cannot be made to grow, his brain cannot be made to wire itself to stop producing urine while the child is asleep, there is nothing you can do. Limiting drinks does not do anything at all but make the child more thirsty. Punishing him will damage his self esteem and self worth. He is going to wake up one morning and it will be done. He may be 12, he may be 7, and he may be 14. The brain makes the decision to do it, not the little boy.

3 moms found this helpful

My neice is 6 and still in pullups. Being able to wake up enough to go and then go back to bed isn't really determined by age; it's determined by size of the bladder and sometimes, the bladder takes a while to grow. I would just tough it out for now, and ask your pediatrician if he/she has any recommendations that could help.

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Nighttime dryness has absolutely nothing to do with how much or when they drink or them "doing it on purpose" or anything else along those lines. Waking him up during the night intentionally to get him to the bathroom will not help.
Peeing at night is 100% physical maturity of the bladder, the connection of the brain to the bladder to wake you when you need to go, the muscles that control urine flow etc. There is nothing mental about it, it is 100% physical maturity, something they can not control, speed up or in any way control. 6 years old is not out of the norm for still being unable to stay dry at night. Both my boys were around 6 before they could stay dry, maybe even closer to 7. 8 years old is still not too old to be phyiscally unable to stay dry at night.
Keep him in pullups, get a waterproof mattress pad and wait until his body is able to stay dry all night or wake itself when he needs to go. That is all you can do.
He will eventually be able to, it does happen. Both of my boys have been accident free at night for a good while now.

3 moms found this helpful

My daughter wore pull ups at night until she was probably 7 or 8. I was at my wits end until a urologist told us it was a physiological problem and that we just had to wait until her bladder matured enough for her to hold it all night. That greatly relieved my stress and I was able to let it go. So don't stress on it. It will happen in due time. You don't want your son to sense your anxiety about it. So my advice is to just let it go. His body will get it when he's ready. He wont be wearing pull ups forever, even if it feels that way right now.

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They sell alarms that go off if he starts to wet the bed. IMO I would just
let him be. Eventually he will make it thru the night. I assume you try
to get him up before you go to bed so he can go to the bathroom. Time and
patience.

2 moms found this helpful

My son was 8 when he stopped wearing pull-ups. I tried everything. Stopping drinking 2 hours before bed. Waking him up though out the night. nothing worked. I bought alot of PJ's and puddle pads so I would not have to do laundry everyday. And we were just fine. Dont worry. He wont get married still wearing them. I used to think so.

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My almost 6 year old son is the same way. We found the Goodnights brand works best for him and rarely leaks (the Pull ups brand leaked like crazy for him). I'm sick of it but he just has to outgrow it. I have gotten him mostly trained to go and change first thing on his own. That part made it much less annoying for me.

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my son is 13 and still occasionally wets the bed. its something your son will have to grow out of. I know its hard and you want it done, but sometimes you just have to go with the flow.....no pun intended. :)

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You just have to wait... some kids just take longer to be physically ready to stay dry at night or wake up to pee. My son trained himself (for day and night) when he was 2 1/2, my daughter wore pull-ups at night until she was 7. Like your son, she sleep really heavy and although her body was fully able to hold her urine until morning (finally), she had only recently (at almost 8) been able to wake up at night and go pee if she needs to.

If your son is still not night trained by 8 or 9, talk to your Dr. Sometimes there are other things like alarms etc... that you can use to help.

No worries. His body is just not ready yet.

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My daughter was 3 1/2 before she was out of pull ups, and this felt like an eternity to me, so 6 seems especially long. I feel like you need to do something proactive instead of waiting for him to outgrow it. My daughter used to love her diaper at night and would pee in it as soon as she put it on. She did decide on her own to stop wearing them, but if she didn't we would have gone cold turkey and roughed it out. You need to let him know that he's too old to wear a pull up at night, cut his fluids for a few hours before bedtime, and make sure he pees before he goes to sleep. It may be rough at first and there will be plenty of accidents but you never know, it may be easier than you think.

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This is a major topic on another board I'm on, and the consensus seems to be that it's totally normal for some kids not to be dry at night at age 6. Most kids are, but not all. Most pediatricians say don't worry until age 8. It's a physical thing - the body being able to hold it all night, so there's nothing you can do to speed the process up (unfortunately).

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What does the Pediatrician think?

Is this physiological where he needs to grow a bit more?

If he is not physically able to wake up, what do adults with this problem do?

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my daughter wore pull ups until about 6ish. i also believe it's just a developmental thing - she slept SO HARD. still does. what i did (and i believe helped) is... for probably 2-3 weeks i set MY alarm around 1-2am and got her up to go pee. it was rough on me for sure. but, after i did that for a while she started waking up on her own if she had to go. maybe i trained her body?? i dont know. but it worked for me.

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Well...

It's pretty normal. My son didn't, my nephew does.

2 tricks to try:

1) Do NOT restrict liquids at night. In fact, push them. A weak signal from the bladder (aka not full at all) is hard for a sleeping brain to recognize, much less recog and wake from. So leaks all night long happen. This process is usually done with toddlers, and takes 3 nights to a week. No pullups THREE SETS OF SHEETS. Just make the bed 3 times, with waterproof pads between each layer. They'll soak themselves, no biggie, just get to the bathroom honey, change PJs, drink some warm milk (yes, more fluids in a happy/nice/kind way... don't force them if they don't want them... but they usually do), strip off layer 1 and toss it in the wash, and back to bed. 5 minutes from wake to back in bed. They'll usually wet the bed at least 1 more time that night. Repeat.

What usually happens is 2-3 nights of big accidents, then they taper down to small accidents, then no accidents. Because the bladder is full the signal to the brain is MUCH stronger.

Does this always work? Nope. It works with most kids. Some kids, however, sleep so deeply that *nothing* will wake them (that usually needs a sleep study, btw), and others just haven't rewired yet, and others have physiological issues, and others have psych issues. The only ones that can be worked on are the unconscious sleeper (literally being unconscious, and NOT in a sleep cycle... you find that out from sleep studies... but there's usually other symptoms that go along with it, like being exhausted even after a full night's sleep) and the psych issues. But it works for most kids.

Popular advice (restricting fluids) is actually the HARDEST way to night train, because signals to the brain come in different strengths. By making it a weak signal (from a mostly empty bladder) it doesn't train the brain to be watching for that signal. We did this trick on accident (my son is hypoglycemic and needed a LOT of milk right before bed), but I learned of it in my first or second neurology class.

2) Wake him up / Sleep Pee right before you go to bed. This only works for some kids, and only works for the parents if "first waking" isn't LAST waking. Some kids will STAY UP for the rest of the day after they wake up once (rare), even if they've only slept a few hours. But it does work for some kids.

talk to his doctor their is a nose spray i have no idea how it works but it does... my cousin wet the bed until he was 16 good luck

My 6 y/o is the same and the pediatrician told me not to start worrying until she's well into 8 y/o. You can't rush a body to develop and mature... and that is what needs to happen - the body needs to be able to not only send but read and react to signals sent during sleep.

Echoing everything the other moms said. My son was daytime trained before 3. And was 'mostly' nighttime trained by 4. (enough that we were able to get rid of the nighttime pullups). But he, too, was a very heavy sleeper, and his body did not mature enough to wake him to go to the bathroom if he bladder was full during the night. I often woke him and "sleepwalked" him to the bathroom just before I went to bed at night, and it cut down on a lot of accidents. When he got older, like around 6 I think, maybe 7, I pretty much had quit doing that, but I would have him go twice right before bed. Once at the beginning of his bedtime routine (before prayers and story and teethbrushing) and then again while I tucked his sister into bed, so it was the last thing he did before going to bed.

He still would go through phases where he would be accident free for weeks /months at a time, then have a 3-4 day period where he would have several accidents within a short time period. (Maybe 3 out of the 4 days). The phases got further in between as he aged, and would suddenly appear each time after I thought: whew! Finally! then, nope... :(
He is 13 now, and I think the last time he had it happen was probably around age 10. So it is an age/physical maturity thing, and also partly how heavy a sleeper he is. For kids that wake easily, they can feel the urge through their sleep earlier and they can get up to go if they need to. For those of us with deep sleepers (he is DEEP, believe me on that! Trying to wake him up for some reason at night? Forget it. He also talks in his sleep frequently, and has been known to sleep walk, and I'm not sure, but I think a few of those are correlated)....but, the deep sleeping kiddos just take longer to mature so that they can wake up or hold it if they don't. There really isn't that much you can do about it I don't think.
Someone suggested to me to push fluids throughout the day to help "grow" his bladder, but I don't know if that actually does anything or not. :(
Just know you aren't alone (and neither is he). He'll outgrow it one day. Promise.

I gave my daughter metamucil then prunes so her stool would be less hard and she would poop more regularly. This kept her from having poop pressing on her bladder and she FINALLY got 100% pottytrained within a couple of weeks. She was 8 so their were no pullups that fit.