Night Time Potty Training for 3 Yr Old

Try letting her have less to drink, especially closer to bed time. It sounds to me like she is drinking too much. I woke ,y girls for a while, once after I was ready for bed, 10:00 or 11:00 and they went to bed at 8:00 at that age. That did the trick ost of the time. Good Luck!

Hi B.. I woke my two children up at intervals in the night. First, I suggest limiting drinks after 6 if your child goes to bed at 8. This, in itself, will help. then I just woke my kids up every 3 hours or so (you can adjust this as you find your child is not peeing or is peeing at a certain time period)... I found by waking my kids up to go potty, they stayed dry and eventually they began to realize when they needed to go pee and would get up on their own. The thing is, if you have heavy sleepers (as my son was), it is really important to wake them up - and you may have to for a long time - because they don't realize they have to go potty. Limiting the fluid intake before bed is crucial though. Since she doesn't like to wake up in a diaper, maybe you can talk to her, let her know you're going to wake her up and if she can stay dry for a period of a week, then you'll agree to no pull up - or something like that. Let her be involved and be sure to communicate your pride in her efforts and that you're working together on this! Keep trying and don't lose faith. Good luck!

I would suggest stopping liquids at least an hour or maybe 2 before bed time and make sure the last thing she does before going to bed is potty. That's worked for us.

The best advise I can give you is to monitor the amount of liquid she drinks after 4:00. Even at dinner time she should only get a few oz of liquid. If she says she is thirsty give just a bit at a time. And absolutely nothing after 7:00 (unless she goes to bed earlier than 8). Regular visits to the potty from 4:00 on - every 30 to 45 minutes up until bed time and definitely right before bed time. If you follow this, she shouldn't have much liquid to discharge during the night.

This is what I did with both of my boys - both were very young.

I will say this - my neices took much longer!!!

Good luck!
Sam

Barely age three is VERY early to be night potty trained. Most kids, even girls, wear pull ups or 'Goodnights' until somewhat later. You can choose to wake her out of her sleep to have her go to the bathroom, but my opinion is that is creating a TON of work on your part AND disrupting the normal sleep of you and your child. Waking her really isn't 'training' her, it's just periodically having her empty so as to avoid the wetting in bed. She wouldn't really be learning anything and wouldn't be naturally holding it nor recognizing that she has to go... these things have to happen naturally. Once she matures enough to recognize the urge at night or is able to physically hold it, then she will be actually be ready at night to be without a diaper. Sure, you can help her ability to hold it by keeping her bladder less full - by not having her drink a huge amount right before bed, but overall she will be ready when she is ready....

I'm confused about why she is fighting the Pull-Ups? Most kids see them as fun with all the cool pictures and designs... Maybe make is fun/exciting for her, change brands, let her select the style? If she is still fighting the use of them, yet is still peeing overnight, maybe put her in a cloth diaper with a super thin absorbant layer, so as to disquise the 'diaper' aspect?? How about the absorbant 'piddle pads' on the bed and rubber sheets so it wil at least minimize the work and clean up for you??

If it were me I would just come up with a way to convince her to accept the pull-up and see it not as a diaper, but as a back-up just in case she makes an accident.... Maybe some special new pj's she can wear if she puts her pull-up on first, since she won't want to mess up her new pj's with urine!

Best wishes....she sonds completely normal and will potty train herself at night when she is ready it will just happen.

Continue to wake her up at regular intervals during the night; eventually her body will be trained to remember to do so itself, and as she matures her body will recognize the need to use the potty & she'll wake up on her own anyway. But it's not unreasonable to demand that she wear a pull-up at night at least until she's been able to keep herself dry a little - don't let the 3yo run the house! :) Good luck!

My daughter was able to sleep through the night without wetting the bed by 3 however my son is now three and a half and it is not the same with him. When I talked to our pediatrician about it his answer made sense. If your child is a very deep sleeper the urge to urinate may not wake them up as is the case with my son. I use the night time diapers with him because he was leaking through with regular diapers. Sometimes he does wake up and ask to go potty but I find that there is still urine in his diaper when he does and usually there is more in the morning as well. The doctor said it can take until 5 or 6 for some kids to go through the night without a problem. Not what I wanted to hear, but it is good to know that it is in no way abnormal for a child to need nighttime diapers until much later than 3. I would suggest using nighttime diapers to prevent having to change her and the sheets late night and reward her when she wakes up to ask to go potty. We also cut off fluids at least an hour before bedtime.

try cutting back all drinks at least 2 hours before bed time, and if she asks for a drink just give her a sip or two hope that helps,
and if she is using a potty chair you may want to put in in her room at night by the night light

Congrats on the easy potty training!! That is great. My youngest daughter trained herself too which is great. My advice is to not allow her to drink anything after dinner. Make her go potty a few times before bed. This will help cut down on the amount of urine. (I think.) It is so hard b/c you want her to be independent yet wanting her to sleep through the night dry is so important. Good luck!

Hi B..
I agree with Darlene,
I'd ALSO make sure there's a nightlight in the bathroom
AND walk her to pee as often as you feel is needed until you go to bed.

If sleeps and pees herself,
have her help change the sheets
(perhaps a vinyl protector beneath,
during the transition
will be a help to you).
If she awakens DRY go buy her a new set
of the panties she loves.
If she awakens DRY for an agreed
consecutive length of time,
and you can afford to do so,
let her pick out new sheets!

She sounds REALLY motivated.
AWESOME

My son still has issues with not peeing over night. Some nights he does great. Others he does not. He also refused the pull ups when he first potty trained and now refuses the "nighttime underwear" (which is really just a pull up for a bigger kid). I have to wait until he's asleep to put on the pull up/nighttime underwear. He is a heavy sleeper which is part of the problem. Sometimes he sleeps through peeing the bed even. He's always peed a lot overnight. I used to have to keep him a diaper at night, even after he switched to pull ups in the day b/c he peed so much. One suggestion that does help, not a lot of liquid at least two hours before bed. If she does want a drink, just little sips. I usually get him up once before I go to be between 10 and 11 pm. For your daughter, I really think stopping the liquids 2 hours before bed will help. Is she a big drinker? My son sure is! It really does help. But since she is just turning two, I think that she'll get the swing of it before too long and this won't last very long. Good luck! :-)

The only advice I can give that I know really helped us is to cut off liquids early in the evening - try for 1-2 hours prior to bedtime. We did that with my older son and also woke him up around 3 or 4 to make him go. Otherwise, he would have accidents. He will still have accidents if we let him drink close to bedtime, and he's nearly 7. My younger son (almost 4) has only had one accident ever. We limit his liquids before bedtime, but we don't wake him up at all. Somehow he just has better muscle control. All kids are different. You just have to try things and see what works for you. Good luck!

Jason is 3 1/2 and we waiting about 6 months after he was potty trained before we moved to the night portion. We started restricting fluids after 7 pm, bedtime in our house is 9pm. and for over a month now he has been diaper free at night.

When we restricted the fluids he started peeing less at night and after about a week we stopped diapers all together and he mostly sleeps thru the night without peeing. if he does have to pee he wakes up.

And by restricting fluids I dont mean keeping him from drinking, we just didnt let him walk around the house with a cup, it had to stay on the table and if he was thirsty he could come drink, and he drank less and obviously peed less.

And now after the month of being diaper free, I no longer have to restrict the fluids

it worked on both of my boys.......hope you find something that works for you

I never used pull ups - just confused my girls. Stop all drinks after dinner - it sounds like she may be getting too much to drink in the later part of the day. Just make sure she goes before bedtime and do not make a big deal out of accidents. If problems continue - you may want to see a dr to make sure she does not have any underlying medical conditions. Good luck!

I don't want to disappoint you, but I have two girls who are 4 (in April) and almost 7 (in August). Only recently has the oldest one become capable of making it through the night. The youngest one has probably been mostly dry at night since she was 2. The girls were dry through the day very early (the oldest was wearing underwear at 2 and the youngest by 18 mo. The youngest has always done better at night. What we did was use cloth diapers at night, so they would hopefully feel wet (as opposed to being in a pullup or diaper) and wake up. Also I would take them to the toilet in the night. Now I still take them to the bathroom about 2 hours after they go to sleep (when I am getting ready for bed). We used to consume a lot of dairy and after cutting out that and reducing the amount of processed foods we ate we noticed big differences in ability to hold through the night. We had a lot of years of wet bedding. We had some success with our "positive potty mantra" - every night before bed the girls and I would say "tonight when my bladder is full I am going to wake up and use the potty" I think some children do sleep more deeply than others and just don't wake up as easily. I actually walk my oldest to the toilet (instead of carrying her) and I believe there is some benefit to that muscle memory of using one's own body to walk to the toilet. We didn't have much success with limiting drinks in the evening because we eat dinner around 6:30 and the girls usually go to bed around 7:30-8:00 and it seemed wrong to not give them anything to drink at dinnertime.
Best Wishes. This too shall pass.
Victoria

With my oldest, she night time trained herself. From the time she was 3, she didn't wet during the night. We didn't start training her until she was three because we were in the middle of a move across the country, but when we did, she took her time and we were patient with her. She did very well. We have done the same with our youngest. She is now 3 and we are taking our time with her. She doesn't mind the pull up at night, and so that saves me the hassle of the bed being changed daily, but she is doing really good during the day. She has only been training about 1 month and is going several times during the day, so my advice to you would be to go get some cloth diapers that look like underpants. for girls they make potty patty panties, i used these for a while, but decided convenience for me was the pull up, so we are in pull ups. these are much more absorbent than the diapers are, and she will feel like she is wearing real panties at night. also you can put her in big girl panties during the day and she will not want to have accidents in those. good luck