Potty Trained During the Day but Not at Night

My boys both wore pull ups to bed until age 6. Wearing the pull ups at night did NOT stop them from eventually staying dry at night, although my youngest one had periodic accidents at night until about age 9, which is perfectly normal. This question is asked frequently on this website (maybe as much as once a week) if you want to go back and look at the archives and get even more answers for her.

My son was day trained at 3 1/2 but he had to wear pullups at night till he was 7 1/2.
Some kids are 11 or 12 before they can manage it.
He slept so deeply he never woke up if he needed to use the bathroom.
When he finally woke up dry every day for 2 weeks in a row, we knew we were done with pullups.
I just didn't want to be dealing with pee soaked bedding every night.

You can't train at night. It's just not possible. He will eventually develop the nighttime bladder control & until then the world will not crumble if he's in a pull up or diaper.

As far as the person who told her the diaper was hindering him, that person is an idiot. I do think that they hinder day time training, but going dry at night is totally different.

The facts are the the brain has to tell the kidneys to not produce urine during the night when the person goes to sleep. Our bodies are made like this. We lay down, go to sleep and dream. We only wake up to go to the bathroom if we forgot to empty our bladder right before we crawled in bed or we drank a ton of liquids right before falling asleep.

Our kidneys don't produce urine during the time we are asleep. It's because the brain suspends that so the brain can focus on our breathing and heart rates, our mind has dreams to work out our problems, our bodies are paralyzed so we don't get up and walk around to act out the dreams we're having. Our brain is fighting off illnesses and disease when we're asleep. It is functioning higher than any other time.

Don't you recall laying in bed and slowly waking up and suddenly feeling your bladder fill up? The brain signaled the kidneys that you were awake so they started producing urine right away to wash away the toxins of the night. That's why that first urine of the morning is so concentrated. It was sort of in storage overnight.

So until a little kids brain sends the signal to the kidneys they are going to produce urine 24 hours per day. There is NO CONTROL over this until the brain does it's job.

It makes no difference if she lets him pee on his sheets or in a pull up. He has no control over if he produces urine during his sleeping hours or not. It is up to science.

BTW, 4 years old is very young to be dry at night. More and more people are admitting that their kids still wet the bed, often even up into their teen years. They just don't talk about it or they say their kids are dry every night.

You cannot night time train until they are physically ready to be able to do it. Considering he is waking up soaked it doesn't sound as if he's there yet...there are many children quite a bit older than your nephew who need to wear diapers, underjams, pullups and like at night. You cannot force a child into being potty trained at night.

He will stay dry all night when his body is ready. There is nothing anyone can do to speed that along. Please, tell her that he is totally normal, and there is nothing she can or should do. He will stay dry when his body is physically ready.

For now, keep using pullups or goodnights or whatever is comfortable and works. Do not limit liquids. There is no reason for this! He will stay dry when his body is ready. He will wake to pee when his body is ready.

Leave him alone, don't make a big deal about it, make sure he knows this is normal and just know that he will be ready when he is ready.

One son wore u pull up until he was 8. He was so ashamed about hit but he couldn't control it. It's a chemical thing, your pediatrician will tell you .... Eventually when he got a new growth spurt it just went away. My other son was dry from 4 on. Each child is different. When they wake with a dry pull up several days in arrow, they're ready.

Personally I do not believe in night time training. If your child is sound asleep - at night, when they are supposed to be - it is beyond me why you would wake them. But I know some people do, and it works for them. You'll just never find *me* doing it. :)

My son was daytime trained at 3. He wore a pull up to bed, and woke with it wet, until about 3 months before his 4th birthday. Then he just started staying dry. I did nothing to encourage it.

It is hot and humid here and we play hard outside every day so I also don't believe in limiting water intake. Both my kids have water next to their beds and often drink in the middle of the night. Even so, he was able to stay dry all by himself without any effort on my part, and all while he wore a diaper every night too. Once he was dry for about a week we ditched the pull ups too. He's never had an accident since and now he is 5. And he also never wakes at night to go, he sleeps all night and stays dry.

If her son doesn't want to wear a diaper anymore she could let him try. Or make an agreement with him that when his diaper is dry for X nights in a row he won't have to wear one anymore.

Both of my kids mastered night training late. Our son finally stayed dry at night at five and our daughter just got it down at six. Both are sound sleepers, so that made it a challenge. We tried putting them in underwear earlier but they'd wake up in the morning sleeping in a huge puddle. Both were traumatized by it all. They just weren't ready.

We let our son sleep in GoodNights until he was dry. Our daughter just decided one day she was ready (even though she was soaking her GoodNights). It took a few weeks to get it right, but then she just suddenly started staying dry.

Kids will master nighttime when they're ready. Our pediatrician said his own son didn't stay dry until he was 10 and not to worry one bit.

There is no such thing as night training, your pediatrician is correct. Some children can stay dry from the get-go, my daughter at 18 months, my little guy at 25 months, some cannot stay dry until years older. And for a boy a doctor will not be concerned until he is about 8.

Tell your sister to use cloth trainers with covers on her son at night. Advise her to tell him he can try going without them when he has woken up 5 days in a row (but truthfully I would go longer.) If he can wake up dry and make it to the bathroom and stay dry that many days she can let him sleep in underwear, covering his sheet with a large waterproof pad in case he wets. If he stays dry, hurray! But if he doesn't she'll have the wet bedding and clothing to help her explain to him why he isn't quite ready yet.

I've always been told that it has nothing to do with "learning," but it's completely normal to not be able to make it through the night even up until 7 years of age. My mom said I learned in a week of wet beds at the age of 3.5. Who knows!?

My almost 8 year old still wears a pull-up at night, and he has been potty trained (and did it quite well and quite quickly) since age 2. I have tried everything to help him, including middle of the night wakings to visit the bathroom. Night wetting is VERY common, especially in boys. It takes a long time for their bladder to mature, and for them to wake up during the night to realize they need to go!

She needs to be patient - like 5 more years patient. The key is NOT to make the child feel bad about it.

Ha ha! "let a kid keep sleeping in a diaper and they'll never learn..." I wonder how many adults are still peeing in the bed because their parents kept putting diapers on them when they were 4 years old?

Tell your SIL not to talk to that person about her son anymore!

The first thing your SIL should do is talk to her ped about it. Then with her ped's advise and direction, she can start helping her son.

The first thing she needs to have are 2 waterproof pads for the bed and 2 sets of sheets. She should also have a calendar and some stickers. She should show her son the days of the week on the calendar. Use the calendar to give stickers for nights that he gets up with her and pees in the potty and then goes right back to sleep. Start there. If he cannot get up in the night to pee because he is sleeping SO hard, that is part of the answer right there. He may be unable to wake enough and cannot feel his bladder.

If he can, I would take him to the toilet right before she goes to sleep herself. NO allowing her 4 year old to come into her bed - he must go back to his.

She should not get bigger diapers to accommodate his growing size. If the diapers are uncomfortable, that is an added incentive for him to want to have dry nights.

Once he is pottying in the middle of the night, then it's time for a "dry run" of the big boy underwear. Tell him that he can wear his big boy pants to bed, but if he wets the bed, he will have to wait 4 nights to get to wear his big boy pants again. When he wets his pants, she should with love and kindness, say to him "I know you want to have dry nights. I know you are disappointed. Keep trying and you'll get there!" Meanwhile, the first night he is dry, put a sticker on the calendar and say to him "Only 3 more nights in a row and you can wear your big boy pants to bed!"

This approach gives him a goal. It saves him from wetting all over the bed every night and causing both of you a lot of grief. The stickers are exciting to him because of what they represent.

If this is indeed a physical issue, the doctor will be able to help. There are conditions where the body produces too much urine, and there is medicine to help. It could be that he simply sleeps too deeply to prevent letting go of his urine. Later when he is older, the doctor can help you with an alarm that wakes him at the first sign of wetness so that he can get up and go to the bathroom.

There are many kids who have ISSUES with night time bedwetting. The WORST thing we can do is punish over it.

It is far too early to determine that your nephew is one of the kids who will be having night time accidents into his teens. Tell her that night time pottying and daytime potting are totally different, and go talk to the ped about this.

Good luck to her!
Dawn

It sounds pretty normal to me. My son was daytime potty trained around age 3, but wore a diaper at night for a LONG time. When he finally decided he did not want to wear a diaper, he had several accidents at night.

On the other hand, my daughter decided that she wanted to wear panties at around age 2 and very shortly after that questioned why she had to wear a diaper at night. She never wet her pants OR had any night time accidents.

I don't think there is "one right way" for every child. You just have to go with the flow with your own child. My son finally stopped having accidents at night (sometime during his 4 year old year) and he is fine now (at age 9). But, he sleeps hard and doens't like to get up at night - whereas, I do hear my daughter, occassionally, getting up in the middle of the night.

Good luck,
L.

Tell your SIL not to worry. My daughter was in pull ups all through elementary school. We tried medication (I don't think your nephew needs that yet) and it helped a little, but not enough to continue. She just needs to watch his fluid intake at night. I would also suggest getting him in pull ups rather than a diaper. The pull ups are more like underwear.

I think to a certain point, we can facilitate night time potty training. Yes the child has to learn night time bladder control and has to be physically ready, but if your nephew is asking to go to bed without a diaper maybe it's worth a try.

My 3yr old was ok with pullups at night for a while, but then wanted to just wear underwear to bed. She's such a heavy sleeper that she'd wake up wet every morning, despite peeing right before bedtime. What worked for us was taking her to the bathroom around midnight/when we went to bed.

I think when we started, we actually took her twice at night. Once around 11pm and once around 3am. We did that for a week and a half or so and then slowly started making her potty time a little bit later and reducing it to one trip during the night. There were occasions where I missed the alarm I set at 3am and she wet the bed, and times when she didn't. She also started saying/complaining that she didn't have to go potty in the middle of the night.

Within about a month or so, she was dry consistently in the morning, although I'd rush her onto the potty as soon as she was awake. Within 2 months, she was waking herself up in the morning to go potty.

I think it's a combination of "teaching" and just being physically ready. Good luck to your sister and nephew!

What worked for us was taking her out of the diaper. She LIKED going in the diaper at night. Once we took it away, we woke her up at about midnight to pee for about 2 or 3 weeks and then she just started going on her own. She has been night trained for about 6 months now.

ETA: I KNOW that my DD liked to pee in her diaper b/c she TOLD me that! Some kids can night train easily b/c they really are ready. Others are not and that's ok too. I wet the bed until I was 7.

He's still potty trained even if he has "accidents " at night . They say it could be years before some kids have the bladder control to stay dry at night. My son would get up every night to pee once around midnight. He was still napping once a day though. We dropped the nap after he stopped that and was dry all night.If they aren't napping then its so hard for them to wake up in the middle of the night to go potty.Hope this helps;)

My DD is 4 and wears a pull up at night and I know from talking to friends that this is not uncommon. The pediatrician says that it's partially a matter of physical maturity. I praise DD when she gets up to potty or when she has a dry pull up, but I don't punish her when it's wet. She is upset about wearing a "diaper" sometimes and I tell her that her body just needs to grow and learn. Every kid is different, even if they are the same age, so do what works for you and your son. Being dry at night is a different ballgame than dry during the day. If her son asks to go to bed without a diaper, then she can try it (but I'd get a rubber sheet). But nobody should feel badly if her son isn't as ready as he thinks he is.

I think that there is some truth to the fact that if you keep them in diapers they will not learn (for a while anyway). For both of my girls when they were day trained they they could not make it through the night. the problem was that when they went at night it did not wake them. So I woke up in the morning to a kid in dried urine and a wet bed. It was nasty. So we put off night training for a while. I let my girls know if they needed to get up to go in the night to do so. a few months later they would start to get up. So we decided to try again. The second time it only took a few night time accidents in the night and they made it through. So you have to see if he won't wake up or if he is being lazy.
My sister in law didn't even allow her daughter to try until she was over 7 years old. She said she had been a night wetter for a long time. I remember camping with her and she was embarrassed she needed to put on a pull up. So I asked her if she was awake when she went at night and she told me yes. So I told her instead of going in the pull up to use the potty and I would take her. She didnt take me up on the offer that night and had a full pull up in the morning. But shortly after at home after we returned she was no longer using them. An occasional night wetting is not a problem just make sure you have a waterproof mattress pad. Every night wetting is a different story but you will never know if you don't try.

She can TRY to limit liquid intake before bed and if he starts waking up dry, allow him to try wearing underwear to bed, but your ped is right. There's not a lot you can do to rush it. My daughter wanted to wear her "big girl panties" to bed, too, so I let her give it a shot for a few nights. 2-3 nights of her having accidents but not waking up to it told me that we were not there yet. She literally would not wake up, even after having the accident. So I started limiting her liquids before bed, then she started waking up dry. We tried panties again, and she got used to being dry, so she at least woke up for her accidents. I still limited her liquids to minimize the occurrence of accidents. One night, I forgot to stop her fluid intake after our usual time and resigned myself to the fact that I'd be up in the middle of the night changing sheets. I was only partly right. I was up in the middle of the night, true enough, but it was because she woke up and told me she needed to go potty! Since then, she's been completely dry unless she was extremely tired that night.

So, she can give it a shot, but she also needs to be prepared for the possibility (and likelihood) that it won't work.

My 13 year old still wets the bed at night. Tried everything...alarms, no dairy, limiting liquids....got the all clear from the urologist (no physical issues). He just has to mature, bladder size, etc. runs in my husbands family for late bed setters.

4 is way way to young to be worried about this at all!