Potty Training - to Nighttime Diaper or Not to Nighttime Diaper...

hi J...congrats..if you are fine with the wet bed, then no pull ups for him. :) my 2nd child ( now 15) potty trained himself at 2.3 months, and he did not use pull ups at night. we had a few accidents, but no big deal. I am not one for rushing the potty training, my 1st and 3rd child didn't potty train til they were well past 3 yrs. If yer lil boy, who seems like he is doing most this on his own, is ready, then don't worry. And makin him wear pull ups, that he don't like, and really doesn't need, mite cause problems. GL :)

I swear I could have wrote this exact post about two months ago! I also have a 2.5 yr old son, who had recently potty trained. He chose not to wear the pull-up at night as well. I say run with it! Don't let anyone tell you that your wrong or setting him up for failure. I believe that its more beneficial to allow him to wear his big boy undies than to make him wear a pullup that he doesn't want to wear. So what if you have to change the sheets a couple extra times a week?!? I know its different for every child, but my son only went through this phase for about a month.. maybe a month and a half before he was accident free. :)
One thing I did to make those nights a little easier on him (& us) was to actually double up his bedding. I know this may seem like a pain, but it made the transition back to sleep a little quicker. We have one of the plasticy zippered protectors over his mattress, then a sheet..... then we have yet another mattress cover.. this one is just a basic thin sheet type protector to keep the bottom sheet from getting wet when he has an "ooops" and finally another sheet. When he has an accident I quickly pull the wet pj's off, do a quick wipe and re-pj. As I'm cuddling him on my shoulder I quickly with one hand pull off the top layer of sheets/liners and can lay him back down. We always have an extra blanket near by as well.
Another thing that we noticed about our son is that when he needs to go potty during the night is that he starts getting restless in his bed, making whimper type noises or rolling more than usual. If we did not hear him get up with in a couple minutes we then go get him and take him to potty. Again cuddle him for a minute or two as we carried him back to his bed and then lay him down & he's good to go until the morning. If your son is having problems going back to sleep I would suggest trying to keep him in as sleepy state as possible. IE~ Keep the house as dimly lit as what you can for him to safely go potty on his own. If he continues getting out of bed, try to keep conversations at a minimum & continue redirecting him back to bed, tell him he can get up when the sun wakes up, etc
Our son has now been accident free for close to a month w/out us havig to take him potty. On a side note, our daughter was 100% diaper/ pullup free by 20 mo's, so its not too early! Hang in there.... your doing the right thing & it will come for him!!!
** Sorry for the long drawn out response**

You are doing a good thing! He is right on target! Don't change a thing except maybe a little cup of warm milk to get him back to sleep.

I think what you are doing is good. letting him wear pullups at night i think is more confussing. Night time is the hardess to train the body to get up when a sleep, so its good to let him start to get a potty schedule. Maybe don't give drinks 30 mins before bed could help. My future stepdaughter had problems at night when i first met her and her dad did the pull up thing and she would just go and not even try to go in the potty. He started to run out and I said don't get more, make her go the bathroom before bed and she gets up now or sleeps through night and goes in the morning. I thinks once she relised she didn't have the other option, it helped. I thinks she had one or two problems afterwards, but thats it. Its good you don't make him feel bad. It seems he really does what to use the big potty and thats a good thing.

Usually the parents instincts are right on. I don't see anything wrong with the way you are/have been doing things. We kept ours in pull ups at night until they were consistently dry at night, but both dad and I were bed-wetters through much of our childhoods. Our 7 year old still wears nighttime pullups while the 6 yr old and 3 yr old have no need.

If a few months go by and he is still having wet nights on a regular basis, you may consider talking to him about how it may be more comfortable to wear a pullup at nighttime to avoid waking up wet. Don't make a big deal out of it, just point out that he doesn't have to wake up cold and wet, and there is nothing wrong with wearing a pullup at nighttime, it doesn't make him any less of a big boy, etc.

Hi J.
My daughter just turned 5 in December. She stopped wearing pullups to bed in November. She didn't always wet her pullup but I also didn't want to be woke up in the middle of the night to change a wet bed but when she went a week straight without wetting I asked her if she wanted to try just wearing underwear. She hasn't wet the bed. My son is 4 and he still wears pullups to bed. Sometimes he's wet and sometimes not. I think all kids are different. I do think if your son is waking up from being wet you may want to keep the pullups on at night. You could also try making sure he goes to the bathroom before bed. Good luck!

I have walked both sides of this fence. I used a one day technique for potty training my son. It was very successful. But we had the issues with nightime wetting. The important thing is to not scold or punish your child. The technique we used was highly against using pull-ups at night. It taught that kids should not go back to diaper unless they were sick and confined to bed. We went this route and let my son wear his big boy underwear at night. 50% of the time he was wetting the bed. Sometimes he would wake up and change himself and go back to bed but his lack of sleep was reaking havoc in the house. His temper was short and so was ours. After talking to our ped we decided to let him wear a pull up at night. According to the doc, it is very common for kids his age (especially boys) to have accidents are night (up till age 6).

My son did not want to wear a diaper at night but we promised him that when he remained dry for a week he could go back to the underwear. I have regretted it because its like he won't even try to get to the bathroom (unless he's trying to postpone going to bed). We had better luck with the training pants that get cold but I have problems finding them. I truely believe that the problems with training pants is that kids cannot tell when they are wet.
However, the high water bills and the excessive amounts of laundry were killing us. So this is ultimately your choice. If lack of sleep is causing too much a disruption make him wear a training pant at night. But you may be expecting a little too much from your little guy. Good Luck.

I keep a night lite on in the bathroom with the door pulled mostly closed. If he needs to get up during the night, there's enough light he can see where he's going, not be afraid of the dark and hopefully not become super alert.

A friend of mine used to wake up his son around 1-2am every night to go pee. He kept the lights very low, and the sleep-walked him back to bed...lol. Maybe that will help.

Potty training comes and goes. My 4 year old son was potty trained pretty well at 2 years. We used the training pants every night anyways. Most times he didn't pee. We stopped using them and then he reverted at 3 years. His older brother, who has autism, was much harder to train. I think my 4 year old reverted back to pull-ups because older brother was still wearing them... who knows. Then both were potty trained.

For the last two-three months, my 4 year old has started pee'ing the bed every now and again. He will do well for a week or two and then pee the bed three days in a row. I have stopped giving him drinks after dinner (or only a small drink in an ounce cup from a medicine bottle). That seems to help. If I make soup for dinner or they have popsicles for snack after dinner, he will likely have an accident during the night.

I keep two mattress pads on his bed. One is the waterproof pad with vinyl underneith. The other is a fabric one that I put directly under him. In this way, I try to avoid changing the bedding. It's also a reminder for him to go potty at night if he needs to or come get me if he is too scared to go by himself. At 4 years old, he has refused to keep on the training pants because he doesn't want his older brother to think he's a baby.

I have also started a rewards chart for candy or stars. He earns a star each for not pee'ing. After so many stars, he can turn them in for a candy at the pharmacy or a small toy at the Dollar Store. I have used the chart for doing small chores such as putting away toys, picking up dirty dishes after dinner, helping me sort laundry and carry it to the laundry room, letting the dog in-out to go potty, showing compassion for brother - being nice, sharing with brother, etc.

My son loves, loves, loves to help. I let him know that if he pee's the bed, then he can HELP me change the bedding. In this way, he earns a star for helping, learns how much effort it takes to keep things clean (responsibility), learns housework (all men need this...lol) and he gets to spend time with mommy.

I've been raising children for almost 40 years. Beginning with my nieces and am still raising my grandchildren. When I started raising children there was no such thing as a pull-up or even a disposable diaper. Don't worry about your little one and the night time wetting it will resolve itself on its own. I think pull-ups are counter productive anyway, as children still relate them to diapers as they have no real sense of being wet. Forcing your child to wear a pull-up when he doesn't want to would have a more severe psychological effect then a little bed wetting. You've got the right approach and are doing the right thing. Cutting off his fluid intake at least two hours before he goes to bed and making sure he potties right before he goes to bed. You'll notice a difference.

Go with it. Both of my boys were night trained at this age. If you miss the window where they are telling you they are ready, it could make it ten times harder. Also, we would (barely) wake the kids to go before we went to bed and take them potty; that way it wasn't so long they had to hold it.

You could also put the little potty in his room and tell him to use that in the middle of the night if he has to go - he isn't to bother you.

As for emotionally damaging him, that's hooey. If that is true, then every child that was born before disposable diapers were made was damaged by the potty. The age for potty training used to be much younger than it is now - the advent of disposable diapers coincides with a much higher average potty training age. Go with your gut - you know him better than anyone.

Hi there,
With our son we potty trained him for day time. He was 3 when we started and we didnt worry about nights. The difference between nights and days is that the brain needs to mature. No matter what method you use until his brain makes the connection him going at night will happen whether you use pull up or not use pull ups. We used diapers with my son probably up until the last few months before he became potty trained at night. Diapers are far cheaper and he wasnt even making an effort to get up. It took us a year before he became night trained. We also started taking him to the bathroom around midnight and we would cut his drinking off after dinner. With a few small sips if he needed something before bedtime. Before we knew it dry nights and we were able to take the pullups off. My sister who is a pediatrician was the one who told us that night times training will take longer than day time training. So dont feel that you are hurting your kid if you do put the diaper/pull up back on. I would rather do that then get up every night to change the sheets. But each parent needs to make that decision on what is best for them :) Good luck and hope this helps you out

Sandi,

I like Jen's response a lot. I too think you are doing the right thing, go with your instincts. I think it would be more confusing to switch between pull-ups and underwear.

Good luck and enjoy your son!

K. Z.

You're doing just fine. My oldest was mostly day-trained by 2 1/2, but she continued to soak a pull-up every single night until she was almost 4. My younger daughter was completely day-trained before her 2nd b-day and started having dry diapers at night shortly thereafter.

My girls are only 17 months apart, and when my oldest was just shy of her 4th b-day, and younger sis was 2 1/2, they decided they didn't want to wear nighttime diapers anymore. We had a few months of accidents with my older daughter actually wetting more than my younger daughter, but they did pass. Our challenge was that the girls were sharing a bed, so if one kid had an accident, both girls' sleep was disturbed. We bought a mattress cover that goes over the top of the sheet so that we could just pull that off and change their clothes in case of an accident.

My youngest is just over 2, and he's just really starting to get the hang of using the potty during the day and has already had some dry diapers at night. I'm going to take it one day at a time, and hopefully, things will go smoothly.

I think some kids are simply ready to be dry at night sooner than others, and if you continue to follow your son's lead, you'll be just fine. He sounds like he's doing great.

Oh, and as for him having a hard time going back to sleep, I think that will pass as he gets more used to waking up at night to use the potty. Just do your best to keep lights low, maybe by putting a night light in the bathroom, and talk as little as possible. When you walk him back to his bed, you may need to cuddle him a bit to resettle him until he gets used to this new routine. It's only been a couple weeks, so that should improve.

Kids are a little more resilient than that, I don't think you are going to emotionally damage him by allowing him to choose not to wear a pull-up. It sounds like he is doing great and if you don't mind changing sheets than just consider that washing a load of laundry is much cheaper than buying pull-ups for the next 2 years. I think potty-training is a very personal matter, no kid is the same, and no parent is the same. It sounds like you are having great success so go with it. I wish people would guard what they say to moms, after all we have enough pressure without someone telling us that we are going to damage our child emotionally. I think not making a big deal of bed-wetting is key, just change the sheets and move on. Now for the going back to sleep, well wouldn't we all love to figure out how to get our active toddler boys to sleep a little longer. ha! Also remember with potty-training that sometimes there are relapses, again, work through it, and move on!

I think your problem is less the pullup and more that your son may not yet be ready to be out of his crib. Having the ability to get out of bed actually gives a child a lot of power and responsibility, and it sounds as though he may not be ready for it yet. But even so, I sincerely doubt that you will emotionally damage him - worst-case scenario, you may just draw out the night-time potty training longer than it normally would be if you put him back in his crib and let him wear the pullups for a little longer. I think this is your decision to make, and like everything with parenting, if you find after a time that it's not working, try something else.