Transitioning from Diapers to Underwear at Night - How Does This Work?

Hi P.,
I didn't read the other requests but this is how I "night trained" my daughter. I stopped giving her liquids one hour before bed. She went potty before bed. I put an incontinence pad under her so if she did have an accident all I had to do was change the pad not the bed. It took about two weeks and she was "night trained".

As far as the getting up, maybe tell your son he can get up once to go potty but that is all. If he gets up a second, third... time have a consequence. He'll get the idea shortly.

I know your sleep is valuable but kids don't ever seem to run on our schedule. Hang in there, he'll get it. Good luck!!!

S.

You can get incontinence pads at walmart where the depends are. They are very inexpensive and will save you from all the laundry.

I never tried to take them away till they were mostly dry at night. For my daughter this was at 2 1/2 and my son was almost 4. I think we did do nap times first though. They are 4 and 6 now.

Don't sweat it! It is totally normal that he is still wetting at night. When he starts to be dry regularly in the morning, then put underwear on him. Some of my children transitioned to underwear at night right away and some took a long time. We would remind our children when they went to bed to wake up if they needed to pee so they could use the toilet. I laughed the first time my husband told this to my daughter, but it really does work. It just takes time. :) Tell him to go to sleep, sleep well, get up if he needs to pee, but if he has an accident he has his diaper on, so all is well.

I used Pull-ups. They have a kind that is cool when it gets wet, so the kids know when to go to the potty. They pull on like underwear. They are GREAT!!

Some kids are sensitive to sugar in drinks especially apple juice. I found that when I made the rule that only water or milk at dinner that my daughter would sleep dry all night. Plus make sure the babysitter is giving him most of his drinks during the day so he isn't drinking too much when he comes home and is too thirsty.

in addition to the no juices/fluids etc...make him pee before bath/after bath/before bedtime. He's peeing 3 times w/in an hour or so but that helps a bit.

He may not be ready to stay dry at night. My son is almost 4 and I tried a couple of months back by putting underware under his pullup and that didn't help at all. I actually just use the huggies night time pullups for him because that's the only time that he needs to wear pullups. I have heard that some kids just won't be potty trained at night time for a long time like until they are 5-7yrs. I wouldn't push it at night time yet if he is still soaking wet in the morning.

I'm with the wait until they are dry in the morning crowd. Especially the heavy sleepers, they tend to be in the older end of the range when it comes to transitioning.

Take him to pee when he goes to bed, then take him to pee when you go to bed a couple of hours later. See if he keeps the diaper dry this way. It worked for us with our two, but we had to continue the routine of taking them to pee in their sleep until they were 5yrs.

It is funny but my son decided when he was going to wear underware at night. I remember we only had a couple pull ups left and I said, hey so do we need to buy more or do you want to wear underware, he thought about it for a minute and then just decided that he thought he could wear underware and has been doing so ever since.

Even though he is potty trained during the day, his body may not be ready for it all night. This is common and he will transiton to underwear at night when his diapers are dry.

We would also take our kids to the potty before bedtime and then around 10:30 pm when we went to bed. It worked for both kids, but my son is nearly 4 (potty trained at 2) and we still take him to the potty every night.

Put him in undies (or no undies) and do this for a few nights. Don't have him wear diapers or pull-ups - for many kids they can feel they have a diaper on and will just go in it rather than fully wake up. If, after a few nights he still wets, then his bladder is probably just not ready. Don't worry about it. Some kids have smaller bladders, some are heavier sleepers. When we first tried this, I would put 4 or 5 towels on the bed so that if he did wet at night, I just needed to pull off the towels and the sheets were still dry.

When we did this with my son, he was still very wet in his diaper every morning so I thought he wasn't ready. However, HE wanted to be rid of the diaper so we tried it and it worked. It seems that just having that diaper on at night gave his body permission to just go and once he was in undies, he didn't. :)