My 3 Year Old Has Been Fully Potty Trained Now We R Having Problems!!!

He's probably growing faster than his bladder. And sleeping hard. This is not abnormal. (I had the same conversation w/ my ped about my 4 yr old girl recently). Don't worry about putting him back in a pullup. It'll be temporary...and save you the frustration of midnight sheet changes :)

I've read that sometimes this can be a reaction to something in the environment that he's having a problem eliminating -- chemicals used in cleaning, food sensitivity (maybe not full-blown "allergy"), artificial colors or flavors, etc. If you can think of anything you did new about the time he started bed-wetting, you may have your answer. Antioxidants like vitamin C may help clear out the offending problem.

Hi J.,

My daughter use to be potty trained all day and would fall asleep and wet the bed, almost every night. During naps she would wet too.

She had a bladder infection when she was five and I took her to a urologist. Remember this, she wet the bed every time she went to sleep for five years. During the day she was fine.

She had a bad bladder infection that had backed up almost to her kidneys and he thought that was the cause, but after medication cleared it up, she still wet the bed every night. Then he told me why. When she goes to sleep her "brain" pituitary gland, wasn't telling her kidneys to shut down urine production. Instead it continued as if she was awake. He gave her a nose spray and we sprayed it in her nose every night, once on each side. It is DDAVP nose spray and the next morning she was dry. If we ever missed the spray, she wet the bed. Never did she wet the bed again and when she went through puberty at 11, he took her off of the spray and she is fine. She is now 25 years old.

Hope this helps. The doctor told us that her pituitary gland hadn't matured as fast as she had and that it would catch up during puberty and it did.

Good luck to you.

K. A.

Hey J.! First has anything changed for him in routine? If not, inaddition to limiting fluid a few hours before bed, yu may have to get him up before you go to bed around 10pm, 11pm, to take him to the bathroom. I had a friend who had to do this w/both of her children until they were 5 or 6, because their bladders were too small.

Hope this helps.

My son did this for a very short period of time(maybe a week or so) and what I did was wake him before I went to bed and I had him use the bathrooom. After about a week he would wake up on his own and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night without being prompted. Now if he has to go, he will. If not he'll sleep until the morning and then go when he wakes up. But in the mean time lay a waterproof mattress pad on the bed, then a sheet, then another mattress cover then another sheet. This way all you have to do when he has an accident is take off the wet sheet and first mattress cover and you don't have to worry about making a new bed in the middle of the night!!! Don't worry he will get the hang of it....Oh yea my son is 3.5 and has been totally potty trained for about 6-7 months, and he still gets a sippy cup of milk when he lays down for bed.

My child does the same thing and she is four years old. Her doctor just said there is a chemical in the brain that keeps you from wetting yourself and some kids develop this later in life. I hate it!!!! But I put pull ups on her because if I don't I will be up 3 out of seven nights a week changing sheets. It is so annoying. I did the same thing as a kid I wet the bed until 1st grade. I feel bad for her because I actually remember waking up in the middle of the night soaking wet. My daughter doesn't think this is ok and as a matter of fact she feels bad when she wakes up with a wet pull up.

Talk with his doctor about it. I've read that boys are harder to train at night, also their control during sleep at this age isn't matured. The color indicator on the pull ups will tell you if he went, even the smallest amount. Also, getting him up before you go to bed to pee might be helpful. I know friends have taken their son to the doctor about this very thing and that was what was told to them. They just don't have the control during sleep sometimes until a later age. Good luck Jess.

it is very normal for a child to need a pull up at night until age five. i dont think that he will think that it is okay to pee at night because you let him wear a pull up. also, if you want to limit his fluids, you need to start at least 2 hours before bed. 30 min is not even enough time for the water or milk to pass all the way through his system. the reason that they make night time diapers for kids as old as 10, is that it is a common thing for them to have accidents. dont make a big deal out of it, just let him have a pull up.

Look at his diet, he could be eating too much junk food and this is his bodies way to filter it out. Is he eating at fast food more often or more summer junk (chips, ice cream, sodas, kool aid, hot dogs, hamburgers). I would 1st get his diet healthy if not already and see a pediatrician to make sure he doesn't have an infection.

Don't make it like a 'punishment', but have him take off the wet bedclothes, carry them to the washer, help you put them in the dryer, and put them back on his bed. Probably won't take many times before he's tired of that and quits wetting the bed. If it doesn't stop the bedwetting, it'll at least teach him that work has to be done all the time by someone, and sometime(s) it'll be by him (and it shouldn't do him any harm. It's simply a 'result' or 'consequence' of a mistake he's made).

Kids are more conscious of what they do in their sleep than we think they are, so if there ARE consequences, they realize what to do (and not do) in their sleep.

When I was 7-9 years old, I slept with my sister (9 years older). She kept telling me that I'd better quit crowding her and 'hogging the covers', so one night she pinched me on the knee. It didn't wake me up (consciously), but I had a nice scratch on my knee the next a.m. and I never crowded her nor pulled the covers afterward (and I still remember the lesson).

Also, I'm 50 and work caring for two mentally and physically handicapped gentlemen who are both 49. One wets the bed almost every night, and we can only say, 'Your bed's wet. Let's change it.' If we say, 'You've peed in the bed', he gets really angry and denies it. He even told me once that it must've rained on his bed. So don't make it about his 'accident'. Make it about taking care of the responsibilities that go along.

Oh, and we've raised 2 girls and 2 boys, and the boys both wet the bed several times after they were 'trained'. (The girls never did!)

my 3 year old is potty trained as well, but he wears pull ups at night. i really dont think its a big deal, at 3 through the night bladder control is a little m,uch to ask of him. some boys are potty trained at 3.5. Put him in a pull up honey, it will save you stress and your son stress, b/c honestly at 3 they are gonna wet the bed!!!

This is not uncommon. I've found with my two sons that when they are feeling particularly stressed and unable to put that stress into words that they would start wetting the bed at night. Get a plastic cover to protect the mattress and get ready to wash some bedding. Usually when we pinpointed the cause of stress and worked to help them cope, they stopped bed wetting. We never put them back in pull-ups, all we insisted that they do was tell us when they had wet the bed. We stocked up on pajamas and sheets and worked through the issues. Most literature will tell you this can happen through age 12 and the most important thing is not to increase the stress by talking and trouble shooting the bed wetting too much. This has required much patience with my sons and they are much better at communicating stressful situations with words because of it. Hang in there and relax. A. B., Hillsborough, NC

you should probably limit his liquids a few hours before bed time. also boys are more prone to bed wetting. their bladders sometimes take longer to develop and they tend to sleep deeper and don't wake up when they feel the urge to pee. maybe a pull up or good nights would be a help for a while till he gets over this phase. or maybe wake him up some time during the night to go pee or get an alarm that will wake him up if satrts to pee so he can get up and go. less laundry that way. or put a water proof pad under him, but over the sheets, and lay out extra undies and jammies that way if he does have an accident, all you have to do is change the pad and jammies and not all the bedding.

My first impression is 30 min to an hour is still too close to bedtime for such a young one.... try a 2 hour min. and see how it works.

Its normal for three year olds to have set backs, especially with night time wetting. For now I would save yourself the time and frustration and put him in pull ups at night. We've been potty trained for over a year now and she still wets at night more often than not-she's a deep sleeper! Eventually they get to where they can stay dry consistently but each child is different and there is a large range in age as to when this can happen. Putting a three year old in night time pull ups does not mean that he will still be wearing them at age eight. It just means he's a normal toddler who has not learned to control his bladder at night yet.