Night Time Potty Training - Lexington,KY

Patti,
My son had the same problem until he was 11. I tried everything. He was even put on a med called desmopressin. While he stayed part of the summer one year with his grandmother she gave him a teaspoon or tablespoon of honey each night before he went to bed and in 2 weeks he had only 2 accidents. When he came home I continued it and after about 3 months we quit the honey and bedwetting was no longer a problem. Last year I also found this in an amish home remedy guide.
Good Luck.
D.

Just a little suggestion that you may already be doing. Try not to give any liquids to them after 6:00 p.m. This has helped us! I have a 3 1/2 year old boy and he rarely wets the bed. The only time he does is when he has liquids throughout the evening. Good luck and always remember "It is a phase and will pass."
M. C.

Hi Patti,

It probably has become a habit that you might just have deal with. But before you make that assumption, check with your pediatrician. Sometimes kidney or bladder issues, such as a urinary tract infection, have night time wetting as a symptom. This is less common in boys, but still should be checked out.

If nothing is medically wrong then I would suggest purchasing a vinyl mattress pad for each bed and put the vinyl side up so that just the sheets would need changing. Then, honestly, I'd go "cold-turkey" on the pull-ups. Banish them from your house! And pray for patience as your boys train themselves to wake up before they empty their bladders. Not fun, but eventually effective. I personally have a love-hate relationship with pull-ups. I have found that at some point I have to break free of them, even if it causes a lot more laundry for a while.

Good luck!

I bet money they are in such a deep sleep that they sleep thru wetting the bed. No rewards or punishment will help if that is the case. Some kids digestive systems mature much slowe than average and it just takes longer. I wet the bed till I was in 5th grade!! I never even new I was wet until my mother woke me the next morn. Then one day it just stopped with no reason and never came back. Just thank God for pull-ups, my mother had to strip beds each day in the 70s.

Hello. You have gotten some very good advice here today. One thing I will suggest is that some children just have a problem with it until they are older, they can't seem to develop that control. It can be physical. See your doctor.

Another idea is: how big is his incentive to keep dry? My grandson was told he could not go to "see Mickey" at Disney until he stayed dry and wore big boy pants all the time. He had been struggling for months, but in a few days, he was ready!!! I have the picture of him proudly standing with Mickey Mouse on the trip he EARNED himself!!! Also, he slept hard and would cry in his sleep when he needed to go, but couldn't wake up. So we had to come to a realization as well.

Maybe Disney is not practical, but something he really wants, like a camp-out, a trip to Chuckie Cheese, a new big Wheels. As a child, I quit sucking my thumb to get a special rocking horse, lol!!!

Best wishes and blessings.

Hi Patti,

I do not believe that any means of reward or punishment is going to help this. My husband wet the bed until he was 14 before it stopped. This is a true medical issue. There is a nerve that has to mature before bed wetting will stop. When the bladder is full, the nerve sends a message to the brain that it is full and needs to go to the bathroom. However, if the nerve is not mature, then this sensation will be dimished and the bladder relieves itself without the person even knowing it.

They will both grow out of this with time. I don't believe they are doing this out of laziness or on purpose. Check with people in your family to see if they had this problem. Many times it is genetic. I know there are medications that can help. You may want to consult a pediatric urologist with this problem.

My three year old is just now night potty training. We try to limit his liquid intake after 6 p.m. and make sure that he goes to the bathroom before bedtime and as soon as he wakes up in the morning. He is now occasionally starting to wake up dry. Good luck

Many of the responses I have read on this today are very familiar and met with disappointment. The worst thing you can do is cut liquids off at a certain time. It teaches your child's brain to not register the need to pee while they are asleep. Another negative behavior to do is get them up to go pee in the middle of the night. It teaches their brain that you instigate the need to pee so it can ignore the signals. The problem with bed wetting is that your child's brain has not be programed to understand what the pee signal is. Does this make sense? You need to reteach them the healthy way to get dry at night.

My daughter was an enuretic (bed-wetter) and suffered for over seven years. We were at our whits end and I started researching the problem on Google. It is hard to find reliable information on the problem, but one company came up over and over, Pacific International, Ltd. Pacific is a company that specializes in helping you help you children get dry. I would highly recommend the program. I learned that many of the things I was doing to help my child actually hurt their progress towards being dry. If you choose to do the program, you will work with a case manager to customize the best method of achieving dryness for each individual child. I highly recommend the program! My daughter was wet almost every night for seven years, but was declared dry in five months. In order to be declared dry, she must have no episodes for 30 straight days. She is required to drink as much water as she can handle throughout the day and to completely fill her stomach immediately before bed. With all of that liquid I was hesitant to think the program would work, but it did!!! Not only is she dry at night, but her bladder control is better than mine during the day!

I know that sounds like a dream to you, right? Please call them immediately at 800-477-2233. Please message me privatively if you need any more information.

I had to make sure I dindnt let my children have ANYTHING to drink at least 2 hours before bed. That is the only thing that worked for me.

I don't know if anyone has suggested this to you yet or not but here it goes. Have you tried getting them up in the middle of the night to go to the potty. I know this seems like a chore but once you get their minds in sync with going to the potty in the night it might get better. My mom did this with me when I was little, I went to the potty before bedtime, in the middle of the night and as soon as my mom got up in the moring. My sister in law also did this with her six year old and it worked for her. it might take a couple of weeks, but it should help them to learn to respnd to the urge to pee in the middle of the night and to go to the potty. Good luck

Hi Patti my son is four now and he has been potty trian for two years try taking the pullup away and if he wets the bed let him lay in it the cold wet feeling broke my son sound mean but it worked for me.

I also have 4 kids. 2 girls and 2 boys. I think the 6yr old may be doing it because he see the 4yr old getting attention in that area. My son's are 5 and my youngest turns 3 in April my 5 year old tried to wet the bed because he saw the attention my 2yr old was getting. Something that I did you may want to try is that I stopped buying pullup's that helped because then my son knew that he did not have the luxury of staying asleep and not getting up to use the bathroom. My husband and I stayed on top of both of our boys. We were consistent with them and let them know that it was not okay! I believe that consistence is the key!

Patti,
Who is discouraged - you or the boys? My son wet the bed until he was ten years old. We tried all kinds of things, but our main concern was that he not feel ashamed about something over which he had no control. Be thankful for pullups - we just had plastic mattress covers! Also, once my son was dry through the night, he would still occasionally wet the bed when he was extremely stressed - like at the start of school each fall.
But he's thirty seven now, and never wets the bed! Lol. They'll outgrow it when their little bodies are developed enough to do so. Just take a deep breath. Years from now, you won't believe how insignificant this will seem.
Best of luck.
C.

I don't think that you should worry about it. My son who is 9 still wears pull-ups. The Dr put him on an anti-depressant and it did stop the bedwetting but he became very sullen, tired and a major decrease in appetite. These kids can't control this problem. It has to do with a hormone that girls usually produce sooner than boys. Also, if you or your husband or anyone in your family had these issues as a child, it is likely that your kids will have the same. You should see a change once puberty starts. That is when the hormone begins to increase for boys.

Cutting off liquids at a certain time or having a reward system will not decrease the bedwetting. It is all because of that hormone so don't make your sons' feel like it is there fault but believe me, I did that and that was the worst thing I could have done. If my son sleeps over at a friends house, we pack the pull-up and shorts and a wal-mart bag. He changes at night in the bathroom and when he wakes in the morning he changes again in the bathroom and puts the pull-up in the wal-mart bag, ties a knot and places it in the bottom of the duffle bag. We have had no problems and his friends are none the wiser.

Don't worry, this too shall pass.

I don't know if this helps you out or not. However I had the same problem with wetting the bed until I was in Middle School. It was nothing that I had control of. I did not want to but didn't know why this kept occuring. My mother tried it all, waking me up at night, Punishment, limiting my liquid intake all of it. To no avail.Went to the Dr. to find nothing physically wrong that would prevent me from getting up. They said I slept really hard. Eventually I stopped, and was so relieved. The boys are lucky that they have made pull-ups so that it is not such an embarassment when this happens. Good luck and don't give up on them!

Hi Patti, My daughter is 8 years old and she still wets the bed EVERY night it seems like. I can understand your fustration believe me. I tried rewards, allowence, sticker charts, EVERYTHING and it was just like your case. So I took her to her doctor about it and they did some blood work to find out whats going on. Basically they said something in her blood was to concentrated so they put her on a anti-hormone diuretic. It was called Desmopressin. I DO NOT recommend that, (go to the FDA website and look that up and you will see why). BUT there are other meds they can give to replace that one if need be. So i would take them to the doctor explain the bed wetting problems and see what happens. I hope this helps in some way or another.

Hi I am a mom of two little ones my oldest is also 4. I just recently was alble to get home fully potty-trained. I first started with the nap time and then moved on to taking the pull up away at bedtime. I really found that just taking the pull ups away and dealing with the mess was the best way. It took about 3 nights for him to figure out either get up and pee or you will be wet. I have found that some friends have also just set their alarms and woken the child up at mid-night and 2:30 a.m. and make their child get up and go an then go back to bed to teach them they need to get up. I also purchased a dri-night sheet from one step ahead that protects your sheets from getting wet also. less mess to clean up

I have a little girl, so my experience may be some what different... But occasionally my 3 year old will go through stages when she wets the bed. I have found that it is ME that gets lax with the amount of liquid she drinks and the amount of times that I AM AWARE that she goes to potty. So now we have a standing rule!!! Any juice/milk/drink that she requests after dinner, she MUST go to the potty before we fix it (and each serving is a smaller than usual amount). (sometimes that means 3 potty trips between 7-8:30 pm, but she has learned that by going to the bathroom -- she won't wet the bed) The other thing that works to our advantage is her own disappointment in having to be got out of bed in the middle of the night to change sheets/clothes and take a bath - she LIKES her sleep and does not like to be WOKE UP!!! This is how it goes at our house, hope some of this might help at yours!!!

I went through this with my son. He wore one until he was four. My daughter who will be three in May wakes up dry everyday. The only thing that worked for me was to stop all liquids after dinner. He gets just a sip with his snack and when he brushes his teeth. This has really helped. Good luck.

A. M.

Hi Patti,

I went through this with my oldest daughter and this is what her doctor recommended. Take them to the bathroom right before bed. Now set your alarm clock for two hours later and get the little guy up and take to the bathroom. Again, set your alarm for two hours later and do the same thing. I know this is going to wear you out for a couple of days, but it really worked well for us. She was 7 or 8 and still wetting the bed. The problem was she slept so soundly she wouldn't wake up when the urge hit her. But by us getting her up and taking her she started going on her own in less than a week. Definitely worth a few night's bad sleep to stop having wet beds every morning! Hope this is helpful to you.
P.

We had the same problem with our girls and a few friends suggested that before WE go to bed at night, we pick up the girls and bring them to the potty, tell them to go potty, and put them back to bed. I have to say I was worried since we go to bed and they are up 8 hours later...BUT, it worked! Both my girls, who are 2 and 4 now get up in the middle of the night when they need to go potty, and we have reduced accidents to about 1x every two months! We got them up for about 3-5 weeks straight and sometimes still get them up if we know they drank a lot...but it does work! Good luck.

Well, I don't know if these comments helped Patti, but they helped me--LOL. My oldest child is 4.5 and is nowhere near night trained. He does fairly well during the daytime, but at night he sleeps like a rock and he is just not ready-- thank goodness for Goodnights is all I have to say. He truly doesn't have the control over it. I can limit his fluids, wake him (which is difficult) to go a few times and he will be wet between 8 and 10pm even--So needless to say, I gave up worrying about it and will continue to buy the pull-ups until he at least shows some signs of readiness. His 2 year old sister is night trained already-- which is difficult-- but I told him that boys are different and when he is ready he will know. In the 2 years that he has been potty trained, he has only gotten out of bed one time in the night to pee-- so obviously he doesn't feel it yet. Good luck

M.

Try getting them up before you go to bed even after they go before they go down. When you get them up they will go and most times the child won't wake up fully so they will go right back to sleep. Also you can have the last drinking before six at night that will help also