Getting My 5 Year Old Out of Pull Ups at Night Time

Two words for you ... cold turkey! :)

I would toss the pull-ups, get a waterproof mattress pad (or three), and extra sheets (thrift stores, goodwill, etc). She is likely not doing it 'on purpose' so there may not be any one thing you can do to stop it. However, I would make her a part of the clean-up process. If she's wet in the morning, she needs to help take off the sheets and take them to the laundry room. At 5 she's totally capable of this. It's NOT a punishment, just something she can help with ... I believe that both of you taking care of the sheets in the morning may help minimize the 'shame' or anything she may be feeling if you're just quietly whisking the sheets off and replacing them without her.

There are kids who struggle with bed-wetting for a long time. It's not fun, but it happens and eventually they DO grow out of it. I've seen it happen! :)

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This may not be something your 5 year old can control. I had issues with bedwetting until I hit puberty at age 12. The best thing was that my parents never made a big deal out of it. The only way to go to sleepovers was to wear a diaper (hidden from my friends of course). I might ask your pediatrician for advice. I had an immature bladder, and I know this also runs in families. I've heard there may be medicines to help, and my parents also helped me with "bladder training" by having me wear a watch and timing it for me to take bathroom breaks at longer and longer intervals. Of course, this might not help at night. I remember my mother taking us (my sisters had similar issues) to the bathroom before she went to bed, but other than that, your daughter will hopefully grow out of it with time.

1) This is SOOOOO normal ... Good Housekeeping and other mother-magazines in the 1980s used to run ads that gave the number as something like 1/6 kids at age NINE. Whether this is natural or not who knows, we live in a very artificial environment ... but it is normal.

2) Just read the same question by another mom a couple of days ago. That string more than once mentioned chiropractic, which made me laugh because I never thought of it for childhood bedwetting, but I had a car accident that caused occasional (inflammation-related) incontinence until we finally pushed the right bones into the right place: pinched nerve in the sacral area, but the push had to be from the front, it was actually an adjustment meant to straighten me out for a birth.

Ok, wow, grammar has escaped me, time to move on with my morning ;).

I have heard that wetting the bed at night is connected to a chemical in your brain. When children are young they are still developing this chemical. Each child develops at a different pace, so some have a harder time controlling their bladder at night for longer. I have a friend whose son had the same problem and she took him to a doctor and he told her this. I also have brothers who had the same problem when they were younger (one of them was MUCH older than your daughter before he stopped wetting the bed!). You could certainly wake her up once a night, but I wouldn't stress just yet. :)

I have a five year old that sometimes has accidents at night.
Here are some suggestions although you might have tried some of them already.
-Have her go potty before bed (watch or listen to her go to make sure)
-get waterproof mattress pad and don't let her wear pullups anymore. You'll do more laundry but she might just be waking up to go potty but since she has a pullup on she doesn't get up.
-Nothing to drink 3 hours before bed

I would suggest taking her to the doctor to rule out anything that could be physically wrong and causing her to wet the bed still. Some kids wet the bed til they are older. But I would be safe and see a doctor.

Try putting her in cloth underwear with a plastic cover over it (like with cloth diapers). The wetness will be close to her skin and she won't feel as comfortable as with pull-ups. It only too my Son one week like that to deside he didn't like the feeling. You might wnat to put a matress pad under her so her matress doesn't get soiled. Good luck!

Its very often a developmental issue so dont push it. No punishments, or lectures. She will get there. I was 5, my brothers much older. You can try possitive rewards to see if she is just being lazy about getting up but probubly she just needs some time. Its not like the day when she is awake and has that control.

My daughter was in pull ups at night till she was almost 6. I would continue to do what you are doing and just be patient. Some kids sleep really soundly or she just might be so little that her bladder hasn't "grown" yet. I just remember starting to notice that more and more mornings she was waking up with a dry pull up. Soon, she was done. If you are really wanting to be done with the pull ups (they can be sooo expensive), I would recommend buying those cotton training pants and lay a waterproof crib pad underneath her at night. Perhaps she'll start waking up when she pees and it will cut down on the mess for you to clean up. However, like I said, just be patient. My son never had to wear pull ups, so it just depends on the child and 5 is not too old to be peeing during the night! Hope that helps!
N. G

My sister's son wet the bed until he was nine.

It was medically explained as a genetic missing chemical. This missing chemical is what signals the brain to get up to go potty. It is totally normal. In fact, 1 in 10 kids have it, they just don't discuss it, or it goes away (or shows up?) at varied ages.

The plastic pants thing is a great idea. But I would also put a plastic bag (garbage bag size )on top of the mattress cover, then a towel on top of that to cushion the sound and feel. OR Babies R' Us has a burp strip for cribs that can also be used that utilizes the same no-soak concept as the plastic and towel.

Our son is 4 and we decided to just go for it and stop putting him in the night time diapers. We cut of his drinking after dinner and then make him use the toilet at bed time. We also get him up to go to the bathroom when we go to bed, somewhere between 10 and 11. It took a few weeks to get him to go quickly, but he's used to it now. He's SOOOOO out of it when we wake him up to go potty. Every so often (maybe once a month) he'll have an accident, but this has worked wonders for us. Good luck! It's a great expense to get to cut when diapers are completely done!