Help Potty Training Through the Night

I don't want to bum you out, but I have 2 brothers and both of them were 6 before they were potty trained thru the night...it is something about boys. I am suprised your doctor isn't aware boys take much longer to train thru the night than girls. Some boys do it fine but a lot of boys don't and that is why there are products on the market now for older children (good nights sleep underware). I think that pushing the issue and punishing are not the answer. Also with the alarm, the child actually has to start wetting before the alarm goes off and thus it can be hard for them to stop once it started.

What my mom says is that both boys slept so hard that they didn't wake up when their bodies were telling them they needed to go. Both of them admit that they would dream they were going to the bathroom many times that they did wet their beds. If you have ruled out all other medical explinations for his bed wetting this may be the problem (other medical conditions include constipation, genetics, hormone imbalance, adhd, ect). Here is a website that talks about bedwetting in older children http://www.patient.co.uk/showdoc/23068688/.

Don't get down about this and don't let it become a huge issue. I am sure your son is having as hard a time with this as you are...make sure he knows you love him and you are in this together!

I have a 5 year old daughter and we just got her potty trained through the night. First i cut off fluids . Nothing after 7 pm and made her go potty before she went to bed. Now the hard part. I woke her up every 2 hours to go potty . We did that for 3 days and she did not pee the bed after that. Me and my husband took turns getting up. You may be tired but it might work for you like it did for me.

N.,
I have no idea why your pediatrician is saying that your FOUR year old needs to be potty-trained through the night. I have an almost 6 year old, a 4 year old and a 10 month old, and none are potty-trained through the night. My pediatrician has never even worried at all about it. I think, personally, you should back down on it all together. He will get there when he gets there. But, I hope that all this extra focus on an area that he can't control at this time is not setting him up for stress, anxiety, and getting down on himself. He won't be peeing the bed when he moves out someday, and I would let HIS BODY take the lead on it. Just my opinion.

I have a 4.5 year old who is still in pull ups at night. I've only heard the opposite of what your doctor said - that boys are often 5 or so before they can go the whole night. I wouldn't stress about it right now.

I don't have any advice for how to stop the wetting, but I do have some advice for making it less troublesome. I am potty-training my 2 1/2 year old son, and I bought him absorbent cloth underwear (terry on the inside and vinyl-like outside) and sheet covers (water-proof and like a mattress cover but wraps around the mattress after you put the fitted sheet on) from www.onestepahead.com. He has only used the underwear twice at night, and wet both nights, but it is so much easier to change just a sheet cover than stripping & changing the bed.