Night Time Potty Training Advice

My son is 3.5 and he is totally potty trained in the day but still wears pull ups at night. He's been daytime potty trained for over a year. We have tried nighttime potty training by having a calendar with stickers for every time he wakes up dry. If he ever wakes up on his own in the middle of the night I have him pee. He still wets his pull up and I'm not too worried since it's just physical thing that his body just needs to figure out. So I'm being patient with him and reward him when he is dry at night. Such as being super excited and putting a sticker on the calendar. Just give it time.

K.,

You don't want to do much of anything to train them at night. It will be a natural biproduct of them being trained in the day. If you wake up your daughter every two hours, her bladder can become trained to produce MORE urine at night and it will make the situation worse, not better. Not to mention that neither of you will get a good night's rest.

Make sure she goes potty before she goes to bed. Don't have her drink a ton just before bed. If she is thirsty give her a little water. If she is old enough to handle this, have her practice holding the potty for a little while during the day to strengthen her bladder. I even had my daughter play "stop and go" on the toilet to strengthen the muscles.

When she has reached a point where you can tell that she can wake herself up or make it through the night, talk to her about the importance of getting up to go and keeping her bed dry. This is when incentive charts come into play - when they are capable of waking up and getting up or holding it all night. Make sure the path from the bedroom to the bathroom is lit with nightlights.

Doctors won't do anything about nighttime wetting until at least age 5-7.

About the poop - if she makes the mess, she should clean it up. If it becomes a habit because it gets attention, put her zip up pajamas on backward with a safety pin if you have to, put a onesie or leotard under her nightgown or whatever you have to do to keep her from getting her clothes off. Of course, this means that you will have to help her go to the bathroom during the night, but hopefully that phase will be short lived.

Good luck,
S.

I agree with the others, as much as I am an early potty training advocate, I don't think you can train a child overnight. I believe that comes with time, some kdis get it right away, some don't. My oldest was out of diapers during the day at 22months, and was dry at night right away too, and was in undies overnights by his 2nd b-day. My youngest was in undies full time at 15 months, but still wore a cloth diaper to bed until he was 22months. They are 5 1/2 and 2 1/2 now and we've never had bedwetting issues. I just think thats something that comes with time.

As for the wiping poop on the walls... at 3 she's old enough to get a consequence for that, she should know better, and she should have to help clean it up. If it happens again, I would make her help clean it up, make her put her diaper in the trash, make her wipe the walls and get herself cleaned up. But right now I'd make it clear to her that that was NOT ok, she's old enough to understand.

Sounds like you are doing well with the day-time training. However, the night-time dryness will just come with her being ready physically and understanding about going to the toilet. Certainly you should NOT wake her during the night to go to the bathroom! I believe you might just keep trying the day training and verbally talk about if she need to go during the night when she awakes what to do. I assume she can get out of bed, walk safely to the bathroom, remove/put on P.J.s herself, and wash hands herself? Or have access to you to help her? If not, I would just leave her in diapers overnight and not worry about it further until she gets to that point. For my daughter (2 1/2 yrs), she just wears the diaper overnite, is usually dry in the AM, but I'm not actively trying to get her out of night diapers. You might consider checking some books out from the library if you want to read further in-depth about it.

Good luck!
T.

you don't train nighttime pottying

Actually you shouldn't even really push daytime training til they are waking up from naps dry or waking up in the morning dry that's the #1 sign they're physically ready!

To help with nighttime accidents though you can limit liquid intake before bed and hope for the best.

She's still pretty young for night time training. Some kids do it early, but doctors don't even consider it a problem until at least age 7. Just be patient and keep her in the pull ups; be positive and encouraging if she has a dry night. Sometimes pushing them too much can make them backtrack so I would just leave her alone for now. If you don't make a big deal out of night time training maybe she won't do the poop thing again. Boys tend to be a little later than girls, but both of my boys were in pull-ups at night until shortly before kindergarten. Good luck.

My son potty-trained very quickly for daytime when he was 28 months. He wore a Pull-Up at night for quite a while longer.
I finally got fed up with him not being night dry when his Pull-Up leaked several nights in a row. In the heat of my frustration I told him he needed to start waking up instead of peeing in his diaper. I told him that if he would just wake up when he needed to go, he could yell for me and I would get up to help him.
It worked! He would yell for me and I would help him. Once he got in the habit of waking up when he needed to go he started getting up on his own. It wasn't long before we got rid of the diapers all together and have had very few accidents since then.
Good luck! I can't wait till my 2nd is out of diapers. =)