Pull Up's at Night

My daughter is 7 and still wets the bed. Please don't listen to the "shame on you" type of people. I believe it is just something that varies from child to child. My doctor didn't seem worried about it and my aunt and uncle are doctors, too, and they also told me not to worry.
Hope this helps--thanks for asking the question. =)

Waking a child up to pee disrupts her sleep cycle and can lead to other problems. Many people do it but in the long run its more harmful.

Biologically, "night-time dryness" takes even up until 7 years old.
It is not the child... but the body's biological development and maturation of their bladder and nerves.
This is per our Pediatrician as well.

Now... as far as being "embarrassed" about her being in pull-ups/diapers and having night accidents.... THIS IS NORMAL. My daughter's Kindergarten Teacher, and 1st Grade Teachers... said the same thing. BUT, they said the parents will NOT go around admitting it... because they are embarrassed. But it is normal, for a child this age, to not be dry all night and to have accidents.

My daughter was still in night diapers at 5. She is now 7... and she will every blue moon, have an accident at night.

Even if you are embarrassed, try not to put that feeling onto your child. Children are tender hearted... and it will only give them a negative hang up.

Also, use waterproof bed pads under her. I got mine from Amazon. That is what I do with both my kids. I have 4 of them which I change out and rotate if needed. No laundry problem then and I don't have to wash the entire bedding.

Also, Pull-ups are useless for night time. They don't hold much and they leak. A night-time diaper is better and cheaper. I used Huggies Good nights.

all the best,
Susan

Some kids just cannot hold it all night til they are a bit older. It's not her fault. Why put yourself through the misery of sheet changes and night time bathroom visits? Just let her keep using a GoodNight or Pullup and layer the sheets and waterproof pads so you can peel off O. wet layer in the morning if needed. Good luck!

I know that as kids get older, anything outside the "norm" can be a touchy subject. My daughter will be 10 at the end of this month. She has been in overnight pull-ups since she potty trained. Just this week, she has stayed dry for 4 nights. It is incredible. We have had her to the doctor and the doctor says that they just have to grow into their bladder sometimes.

While I certainly hope that your daughter doesn't continue this until she is 10, I know many children go through this until much later. Know that most other moms are understanding when it comes times for overnight parties and such. I have just taught my daughter how to discreetly deal with the pull-up.

Good luck!
S.

You may want to try taking her to a chiropractor. Sometimes bedwetting is a result of a misalignment that makes it impossible to hold in urine at night.

I had this EXACT same problem, and I felt the same way you are feeling! I was beginning to wonder if my daughter would EVER learn to go pee at night! And she was such a heavy sleeper, I didn't see any way she could wake up to go. Finally, I decided to try waking her at night to pee. Every night around 2 a.m. for about a week, I woke her up and took her to the potty. This made her aware that there was a need for her to use the potty at night. Then after that week was over, I replaced the pull-ups with water-proof pads on her bed, and left it up to her. She wet the bed a few times (I had two pads, one on top of the other, so if she peed, I could just take one off and go back to bed) but the reason this worked better than the pull up is because she woke herself up when she peed. Two or three nights of that, and she realized she was going to have to get out of bed and go. I've never had a problem since.

Hope this helps! Good luck!

Shame on you. There are 5-6 million children aged 5 and up with bed wetting problems. Your little girl sounds like one of them. Some children don't attain night-time control for several years after they have complete control during the day. Nighttime wetting is not considered abnormal prior to 5 years of age. And even then, there is usually no cause for alarm because most of the time the situation resolves on its own. It is not a behavioral problem and may not be related to how a child sleeps. Many parents have the perception that their children are very 'deep' sleepers and this is what has caused the bedwetting. However, studies have shown no difference in the sleep patterns of bed wetting and normal children. There is more evidence suggesting that bed wetting is the result of a developmental delay in the normal process of achieving nighttime control. The normal process involves the release of a hormone that prompts the kidneys to slow down production of urine during nighttime sleep.

I feel sorry for you, what is a problem you daughter has absolutely no control over you have turned into a personal issue and found embarrassing. It's not about you it's about your daughter. She will eventually outgrow this problem but in the process you will DAMAGE her self esteem by not supporting her during this stage in her life.

my nephew was 6 and in pull ups at night, it happens. but since you think it could be because she sleeps so long, maybe try cutting her sleep time out by 15 min/ 30 min. take a week out , and check her each morning while she is still sleeping, or during the night, and try and see when she is actually wetting her pants. if she is staying dry all night, then waking her up 30 min early could solve the issue. on the other hand, if she is peeing during the night then you and her could work on trying to wake her up before she goes. But try and pin point when she is going the most often. Good Luck...she will get it down one day :)

Your daughter will eventually start staying dry at night. She is totally normal. Nothing to be embarrassed about. Really, who is judging you on this?!? She is probably sleeping so soundly she doesn't wake up to pee. A childs sleep is different than an adults. Liquids at night made no difference for us. No sense in making your child dehydrated. There is a reason that there are nightime pullups for kids in sizes exceeding 100 pounds.

My sister's kids all have slow growing bladders and peed at night until 10 or so. Very embarassing for them boys. My oldest grandson also had the issue. So did my sister and I. It may be a heredity thing. Have here checked by the dr. My bladder eventually stretched. Most people can hold 500cc's but I can do 2500cc's when laying down but because I also have stress incontiece I lose it when I stand, Good luck.

hmmmm, have you talked with her pediatrician about it? Because cutting off liquids that early you'd think she'd be totally dry!

My son is only 3, and I give him a big sippy cup of water before bed, that stays by his bedside. I just don't want him to be thirsty. He of course wets and will rarely get up to use the potty at night.

It's no trouble as he wears a Pull-Up (they leak), but has a pad on the sheet I can throw in the wash, that's super easy.

I know she was a little harsh on how she said it but what she said regarding the developmental delays is very true. So forgive and overlook her personal comments. There are a lot of parents out there (I'm sure not you) think their kids have to make certain milestones or they are afraid that their children may not be normal. All children are different. We can't compare our kids to other kids nor our own children to each other. It is real tough being a parent because anything can happen along the way out of control. I hope everything goes well with you and your daughter. I am still waiting for my 12 year old son to stop having accidents at night. We continue to work on it and wait. In the meanwhile I enjoy every second I have with him. I have 4 kids and he is the sweetest of them all.

ALL you can do is provide layers of towels on the bed and just expect to do a lot of laundry. Some kids just can't hold it, nor does their body alert their mind that urine is going to come out.. muscle development is different from kid to kid. I guess I got lucky that my boy RARELY has wet the bed, ever since PT years... 5 is not 'too old to be wetting the bed'.. you're doing everything right.. just don't worry about it and the body will mature in time and you won't have the problem much longer :)

Hi H.,
Don't have personal experience with this but my sister's son still wets the bed sometimes at 6 years old. Our ped told her the hormone that slows urine production at night develops later sometimes in children. I think other factors can be involved too, but I think it's normal. Hang in there!

I just talked to my sons ped. about it. He is 7 and still does the same thing every night. We have sleep walking in my family (my brothers and uncle would wake up and pee in random places throughout the house--closets, shoes, kitchen--you would have to search the house for pee to clean it up 3-4 mornings a week). She said to not wake him in the middle of the night to take him to the potty. It could bring out sleep walking if he's goin to do it. She also said she would like to wait a few more years to do a bed alarm or medication. Give it more time, stick with the pull ups and encourage him to pee. She also said she has seen very little help from withholding fluids and if they aren't drinking all day long at school, then stopping fluids could lead to dehydration; which would be worse than peeing the bed.
I have tried waking him but he is sooooo sleepy he doesn't go and has actually almost fallen into the toilet falling a sleep standing there. I also tried to not let him wear a pull up to bed for a week...by the end of the week he was sleeping through peeing--and when I woke him up in the morning he would be wet and cold and his sheets were soaked from top to bottom. :( Definitely did not work for us. On a side note he is SCARED TO DEATH of the dark. He does not get out of bed even with me in the room until the light is on. On weekends, when he sleeps until the sun comes up, he will not get up until he knows I'm awake. So this may have something to do with it.
So...at 7....we are still waiting.

I feel your pain. ;) If she goes to bed at 8 or 9 pm then I would set your alarm for 1 or 2 am and take her potty. My husband gets off work at 2:30 am and takes my daughter at that time, it seems to work for us. I got tired of spending money on pull-ups. They are so expensive!!
Also, a helpful potty training hint I read that helped was to get her bladder active during the day so it learns to relax in the night. She needs to drink more water and pee more frequently during the day. It will cleanse her system during the day. If you have her drink water instead of other drinks, she can drink water up until bed time.

Bedwetting is a very common problem for children. From a developmental standpoint, many children's bladders do not grow to accomodate their fluid intake and they do not always have the bladder control needed to stay dry, especially for such long periods of time. I have a feeling if you are patient she will outgrow it. Since it's only at night, I would assume it is probably just the fact that she sleeps for 11 hours and doesn't get up to go potty and during the day she probably empties her bladder more frequently. If you are concerned, you can wake your daughter up at night to go potty if you think she will go right back to sleep. Make sure your daughter knows she can get up and go potty if she wakes up and needs to go. My friend's daughter didn't want to get in trouble for getting out of her bed so she had a wetting problem and I know some kids are scared to get up and walk to the bathroom at night. Hope it helps & you feel better!

Hi H. - I was completely convinced that my 5yr old would never be night trained. He was soaking wet every morning. We checked for physical problems like infection, etc. and found nothing. The doc told me that he was going in the pullup just because he could and not because he needed it. This was absolutely the case.

For a couple of weeks we woke him up around 2 and groggily took him to the bathroom (we kept a nightlight in there so we didnt have to turn on the light) and then took him back to bed. The nights we missed, he often had an accident but it started tapering off and now it's once in a blue moon kind of thing.

I read some of your responses, and completely agree that it very well could be a developmental delay, and should not be to concerning for you, but I also wanted to actually offer a bit of advice you could try that worked for my twins. Because not only could it be a developmental delay, but the pull-up could be a crutch. She knows it is there and does not HAVE to get up. They pull the wetness away so that she doesn't HAVE to feel it either. Babies R U has some lap mats that cover the entire bed that I bought a couple packages (2 in a pack), and tried them on the beds for a week or two to get rid of the crutch. I would suggest just offering a blanket to sleep under as they often end up on top of covers, but this kept me from having to change the entire bed if they did wet, and made them feel it to make them aware. It took about 2 weeks and both of my boys were night trained. It would not hurt to try this out for a week or two to see if it helps without condemning her if she does have an accident. If after a couple weeks you do not feel it is helping then you can go back to the pull-ups, and mention it to her doctor sometime to see if he has advice. Best of luck.

There's nothing you or her can do about it. It's bladder development. Can you encourage her to grow taller next week? Or make her grow a tooth faster? Of course not! Same thing. Some kids bladder's just don't mature/develop as fast as others. It's quite common for kids to wet the bed until 5-8 years old. Doctors won't even get concerned until age 8-10 -- that's how common and normal it is. I know it's frustrating, but that is why Huggies and Pampers have been making Big Kid overnight pull-ups in sizes up to like 80 lbs!

Studies have shown that withholding liquids in the evening usually has no effect. If it's not working for her, then there's no use in continueing. In fact, if she's dehydrated, the pee is more concentrated and therefore it results in more urgency and it's harder to get to the bathroom in time.

My advice is to stop stressing about it, buy Big Kid pullups (they don't really look like baby/toddler pullups) to put in her drawer and have her get them on/off by herself. If you make a big deal about it, she'll probably start to feel bad about it even though there really is nothing she can do about it.

I think you got some good responses but I agree with H. that they should always come in a positive form!!! After all, we write these pleas for help because we are at the end of our rope and desperate! My 3 year old decided to stop going potty and do it in her pants after seeing one ant in the bathroom. She used up all of her underwear and her sisters in one week. After washing like 5 loads just for her yesterday, I would probably have written a post with a negative tone too. So for all the moms that responded negative, think about that before responding!!! These are good moms, that is the whole reason they try to get help :) No more judging just pass on the advice with a smile. H., just ignore all the negative comments!...those moms probably had a bad day too!