Wetting the Bed - Morrisville,PA

NO NO NO Pull Ups!!! They are just glorified diapers. They are a nightmare and I would never suggest them to anyone to use. I always used the training underware. They have a little extra padding but if there is an accident the kids still feel it and know what they did.

I may be odd person out on this one, but what's the big deal? Just put on a pull up and he'll do it when he's ready. I wouldn't push anything with regard to potty training. They will do it when they are ready. We haven't done any 'training' and my daughter is consistently dry during the day and at night. However, I know accidents happen, so we put a pull up on at night. She's almost three. I just don't see a reason to create bad feelings in a child over potty training and create larger issues down the road. Good luck. Back off, put on a pull up, don't say anything about what's going on, and in time, I'm sure things will be much better. Keep us up to date.

Hi, M.:

The boy is regressing for some reason. Do what you have to do while the change is occurring to help you keep your sanity.
Good luck. D.

I would. He is still little and his bladder is still developing. There could be a new stress he is feeling and he doesn't have the words to express himself. I'm sure it will stop before he graduates high school.

Your son is still too young to expect consistent nighttime dryness. This includes naptime too. Go back to using pull-ups during naptime and nighttime. Nighttime dryness is not something you can teach/train. When your son's bladder and sphincter muscle is fully developed, the nighttime dryness will happen on its own. Don't push it. Don't expect this to happen until your son is around 6 or 7 years old.

He is still very young... night-time "dryness" is something that is not fully attained until even 7 years old. It is biological based development. So, he could still have night-time diapers on, for bed. Even Kindergarten kids still wear night-time diapers at night, for example. Normal.

He has not been potty trained for very long. It takes time. They will not attain peeing/pooping/AND night-time dryness and going to the toilet at night themselves all at the SAME time. It occurs in stages. Gradually.

So, you are still at the beginning of potty training. No rush. Yes, it is a slow process.

Actual ability and night-time dryness expectations (from the parent) are 2 different things. If a child wets at night or at naps, which is normal still... then just use waterproof bed-pads under him to make clean up easier, if their diapers leak. That is what I do.

Mostly, do not "expect" a child, at this age... to just get up at night and go to the bathroom at will, perfectly and to not have accidents. Again, it takes even up until 7 years old, for night-time dryness to occur. But in the mean time their bodies and their ability will mature, and one day they will "master" it. So until then.... take the night-time potty expectations separately. They are still trying to daytime potty train and have not mastered that portion of it yet. So that is only the 1st stage of potty training.

Potty training occurs in 3 stages:
1) daytime peeing in toilet and ability
2) pooping ability in toilet and mastering it
3) night-time dryness and mastering it. (which is also for naps).

But keep in mind accidents will still occur. Normal.
My daughter was still wearing a night-time diaper until 5 years old. MANY kids do, even at this age. Per our Pediatrician, it is NORMAL.

Also as a side tip: a "car potty" is real useful for times a child needs to pee but you are in the car or on the road and no bathroom in in sight or you are stuck in traffic. We use one and it is a lifesaver. Here is a link:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3...

If he is wetting at naps, its okay. He can still wear a diaper for naps. My son who is 3, and my daughter at that age, still wore diapers for naps and night-time. They didn't get "confused" or regress... I simply explained to them that for naps and night-time... they have diapers, but daytime they have underwear. No stress. Gradually, biologically, they do attain dryness. And it also has to do with the myelin development of the nerves as well.

its okay. He is still so young, to be dry during naps/night-time.
Accidents still occur in even older kids. My daughter is 7. She has been potty trained since 2 years old. She STILL once in awhile has accidents at night. I don't think its a big deal. I always just have a waterproof bed-pad under her. Or when she is just SO tired... and sleeping so deeply, she doesn't even wake.

All the best,
Susan

I would not go back to pull ups, it seemed to undo the progress with my boys. During growth spurts, kids bodies can grow faster than their small bladders and they can't hold it as well. If that is the case with your son, just give him time and he should go back to staying dry.

My daughter was a hard sleeper & she would just sleep in the pee at night, so I had her go at 8pm bedtime, then I would wake her & put her on the potty at 10pm, then I would wake her again at 1:00am & then she would make it till 6am. I figured while I was training her I might as well do her brother too who is a little over a year younger. After about 2 months, they told me they didn't need me to wake them up anymore that they would go on their own & they do. He was fully trained about 3 months before his third birthday. I can't say it works for everyone, but it worked for my two & best part, no laundry!! :D

I havn't read other respnses but wanted to reply, so I am sorry if this is a repeat. Many kids are not ready for nighttime dryness until much older. I was 7 or 8 before I was staying dry at night but I was daytime potty trained by 17 months old consistently without an accident. I was fine during the day but nighttime was different, I had no control. My Mom had me in diapers til I was about 3 or 4 and then she just started changing the sheets. Of course by age 6, I woke up from being wet and was able to change my clothes and put a towel on my bed to go back to sleep til morning. But my point is, some kids dont' stay dry at night for a long time. I still use pullups on my 4 yo and sometimes she is dry and sometimes not. I use cloth pullups on her and she feels the wet, but doesn't wake up, even when she pees right through and soaks the bed, she will get up in the morning and tell me her bed is wet, but it doesn't even get her to wake up during the night from sleeping in wet sheets. When that starts happening regularly I go get some disposables and then she doesn't leak through and when she is a bit dryer I switch back to the cloth. I wouldn't worry or stress about it at all. If you don't mind changing the sheets, then you can continue to do what you are doing, but expect that it could go on for years if his body isn't ready yet. Or just use the pullups at night and nap. I used pullups on my daughter for nap til she was almost 4 and now she doesn't take a nap anymore, but she was dry for most naps by around 3 and a half. I just didn't want to be changing sheets so I used the pullups. So please don't stress about this. Just do what ever makes you most comfortable, you are doing great!!!!!

I think he's doing great, but you can't expect nightime (or naptime) dryness for a long time still. Make sure he goes potty before nap, and put him in a Pull-Up. If after a couple of weeks it is consistently dry, go back to underwear. If you don't make a big deal out of it, he probably won't even notice which he has on. But he's much to young for you to "train" him to stay dry when asleep.

*****After reading the other posts - I wanted to make one addition to my response. We ditched the pull ups because my son asked to wear underwear at night. He didn't want to go back to pull ups because he felt that it was too babyish. So that's why we initially made the move to underwear in the first place and why we were willing to deal with some extra laundry - because he wanted to be a "big boy". If your son doesn't really care one way or the other, then going back may not be a big deal. He might just not be ready. But if he's going to take it personally and someone feel like he's going back to being a baby - then another solution might be better.****

Took a long while for my now almost 4 year old son to go from wearing underwear all day to wearing underwear at nighttime. He was potty trained for almost a year before he could make it through the night. He still woke with wet pull ups - but i figured that was more about the fact that he knew he had them on and was lazy than anything else. One day we ran out of pull ups and decided together not to get any more. The first weeks were a little rough and we had lots of accidents.

Now we have gotten in a groove where we take him to the potty every night at 10pm pretty much in his sleep and then he almost always makes it to the morning. We've been dry now for a month or two at night. Also, we make sure he pees right before naptime.

The nighttime thing is tough - especially if they are sound sleepers. Don't give up and try to resist the urge to go back to pullups. I think going backwards will ultimately be worse than just dealing with lots of laundry for a few weeks.

Hope this is helpful.

my dd is just a few weeks younger than your ds, and we still use pullups at night. I was a bedwetter for a long time, so we're not pushing her at night as long as she doesnt have accidents during the day.

**********ADDITION***********
Not to be disrespectful, but in response to Brandi G., YES, pull-ups are glorified diapers, so use either!! Either diaper or a pull-up will keep your child from soaking the bed, which is the point. And while daytime dryness is certainly a developmental, as well as a behavioral issue, NIGHTTIME DRYNESS IS NOT. It is solely a matter of physical readiness.

So by letting a child wet the bed at night, what is being accomplished? Even if the WET FEELING wakes the child up after the fact, THEY STILL DON'T HAVE CONSCIOUS CONTROL to PREVENT the peeing from happening! What good does it for them to wake up after figuring out they've wet the bed?? And as another poster stated, some kids are such heavy sleepers that they don't even realize they are wet until they wake in the morning! I was a bed wetter until my early elementary years. And I can assure you that I HAD NO CONSCIOUS CONTROL of my bladder while I was sleeping. I WISH they had the big kids pull-ups and that there was a better understanding that this wasn't totally abnormal when I was a child.
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Your son has no "conscious" control of his wetting while he is sleeping, so I do not believe that he can learn the "lesson" of nighttime or naptime dryness by wetting in underpants. Continue to use pull-ups until he is consistently dry, demonstrating that HIS BODY is ready to hold urine for longer periods of time, not that he has learned the lesson of remaining dry.

Pull ups at nighttime is the way to go. For naps, just be sure that he uses the potty before his nap.

Boys are notorious for having nighttime wetting issues. I don't know if it is an X Y chromosome thing, but it seems that their bladders just aren't big enough to last all night long. My own son, had the bladder too small thing going on until about 4, maybe 5 years old. Then, the "issue" was just that he sleeps too heavy/hard to wake himself up and he would not be roused by the urge to go, so he would wet the bed. This continued off and on, in waves seemingly, until he was about 9 years old. And he is not the only one, I see posts like his story all the time. It is not uncommon.

Also, nighttime wetting seems to run in families, so keep that in mind. Continue to NOT make a big deal about it.. and make sure he understands what to do should it happen... when my son was old enough, I taught him to put his wet things in the bathtub and clean himself up, while I dealt with a dry place for him to sleep (some nights simply putting a thick towel down was sufficient, some nights the entire bed needed to be changed, quilts included).
To help avoid the issue, I would wake him before I went to bed for the night (usually about 3 hours after he had gone to sleep) and take him to the bathroom. This is actually how I realized that he just slept too hard to wake on his own. Because I couldn't wake him up! After trying for a minute or so to wake him (unsuccessfully) I would have to pick him up out of the bed and carry him, then stand him up and keep him from falling! He was THAT asleep. He never remembered this process the next day. But it usually kept him from wetting that night.

Please just know that some kids sleep heavier and this is a bigger nuisance than it is for other kids. It is NOT anything he is doing on purpose or even knowingly. Maybe his bladder just needs to catch up for that long overnight stretch... and maybe it is sleeping too deeply... only time will tell. But there is nothing wrong with using Pull ups to manage it for now. When he gets a little older, he may object, or get too large... worry about it then if it is still an issue.

Being that he just turned 3, his bladder is not full strength and won't be for years. It is not unusual to regress. The younger they are when they "train" the more apt they will regress in one way or another. Nap time is sleeping for a couple hours. Your son can hold his bladder for a few hours at a time so it's expected that he may do well at nap time, but kids still do regress with no known cause.

Do not expect or try to have him stay dry during the night. He has no control over his bladder while he's sleeping, period. He is expected to hold urine for 8-12 hours during the night and his bladder just cannot do that yet. Until you see him showing signs of staying dry during the night for several nights in a row, don't attempt to put panties on him. It will only make him feel defeated when he wets. You want it to be a positive experience that you and he can be proud of. Why set him up for failure? Once he has stayed dry at night for one or two weeks straight, then try pull ups. When he does well with pull ups for a week or two, then move on to panties.

As for his wetting at nap, one of my kids did the same thing and we had to start from scratch with naps. We put him back into pull ups. It took him a while but he started being dry again. I even took him to the doctor to see if he may have had an infection and he was fine. She said this is typical with kids and not to worry about the regression. Just remember, he will not be in college wetting the bed, lol.

K. B
mom to 5 inlcuding triplets

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Go back to the pull up at night until he always makes it thru. No hurry. Also, be sure he is not drinking anything1-2 hours before bed and always pees right before bed. Good luck! I'm starting to train my son soon (not looking forward to it), and my daughter was no walk in the park-hang in there!