Potty Training at Night - Signal Mountain, TN

hello, H.. my name is S.. i don't have any advise for you but, i am looking for the same kind of answer for my son's nighttime potty training. he's 5. if you could forward me whatever kind of responses you get, i would greatly appreciate it. thanks!! ____@____.com

I never even woke him, all I did was pick him up take him to the bathroom and stand him at the toilet. I would tap his bottom and say go peepee. He would go and then I put him right back to bed, he never even woke up while I was doing it.

I got my kids up once during the night. My son is 3 and I still get him up right before I go to bed. He usually never even opens his eyes! I just talk softly and tell him what we're doing - I keep it very low-key. It seems to work... Good Luck!

get ready to wake him up, or buy pull=ups til he is five. i didn't want to wake him up and ending up buying pull ups and he's almost six

My son is also 3, potty trained during the day and not at night. My pediatrician told me this is normal. Until he can actually get up and go to the bathroom himself when he needs to go--then I shouldn't expect him to be trained at night. He also doesn't wake up dry--ever. So once he starts waking up dry and gets better at using the bathroom on his own--then I will start PTing him at night--and I recommend the same for you. :)

Wow, based on the responses here I am surprised so many kids can get up and go potty without waking up. That would never happen with my son. I guess every child is different, but I never had to wake him to go potty during the night.

Does your son go on his own when he wakes up in the morning? Does he consistently stay dry at night? I found that there really was no need to go through a separate process for night time training if both of these things are happening. I would say, if he is waking up dry and going to the potty on his own, then just bite the bullet and let him go without a diaper and see what happens. Just make sure no liquids an hour before bed, and make sure he goes potty right before bedtime.

My son is 3yo, and was potty trained about two months before his third birthday. He was consistently waking up dry and insisted he was potty trained, so we ditched the diapers altogether, even at night. He did have one nighttime accident about three weeks after that, but that was the only one, and it has been five months. He just goes before bed, and when he gets up in the morning, like anyone else would do. Some kids might have smaller bladders, so I think that waking up dry is your best indication that you can eliminate diapers at night. But that can be tricky, because how do you know he didn’t go in his diaper right AFTER he woke up just because it was convenient? Like I said, I think the only way to know for sure is to try without and see what happens.

Hi H.,

Do not get frustrated, some kids take a little longer to learn to not wet their beds at night. I was reading an article and it is not a matter or age or sex, but the biological system of each individual. Give him some time to get used to the process and make sure you take him to the potty before he goes to bed and as soon as he gets up in the morning. He will eventually get it. I would not get him up at night to go, that will disturb his sleep and you want him to get used to hold it through the night.
I loved potty training my kids - as a matter of fact my 21 month old is almost trained; I am surprised but happy at the same time. Potty training means no more diapers and more $ for my pocket. Yeah!

Good Luck,
S.
Mother of 2
Peter 4 and Luke 21 months

I know how you feel! My son just turned 6 and we are still trying to get him out of night time diapers! He was out of daytime diapers at 20 months! My 2 older girls never had night time issues and were out of day and night diapers at the same time (age 2). My son seems to have a mini bladder. We have had to train him to wake up at night, sometimes 2 times, in order to stay dry. Now he is waking up by himself and he has been dry for 3 weeks. He doesn't even remember getting up at night.

My experience is that waking up your son at night can work. And limiting his water intake at night!

Good luck

what worked with my sons and me nieces and nephews is after 6 you do do give them any liquids to drink. right before bed they can have a small sip of water and then go potty.try it it might work for you too.

I have found with my two older children, that when they have enough bladder control to make it through the day without accidents, they usually will wake themselves when the need stikes. That being said, I did limit fluids in the hour or two before bed and put rubber sheets on the bed (just for the first month or so). My pedi says the pull ups can actually create a problem because they are so absorbant, the child does not experience the sensation of being wet and cold if an accident occurs. He suggested the cloth training pants, they should prevent the majority of the mess.

My son is three and also doing great in the daytime. I am going to keep putting a diaper with a doubler in it on him at night until he wakes me up and says he has to go to the bathroom. I have read that if a child is dry in the morning that is the sign that your child is night potty trained or at least on the way.

Have a nice day and don't rush things, they're only little once and a year from now he'll be using the toilet all the time.

God's Peace to you and your family,
A.

Getting through the night dry has something to do with the brain (pineal gland?) excreting a hormone. Some kids do this early, as my first born (now almost sixteen) was almost always dry at night after about 18 months. My other two? I also don't want to get up at all hours (get to do that enough anyway), and I'm not.

The six year old started being dry at night somewhere in her third year. The three year old is still wearing a diaper at night, and many mornings it's dry. A couple of times we forgot it and that did not make for a fun morning (pre-dawn!)!!

I advise getting your rest and using a diaper at night until your child is ready. You'll know. It'll happen, and they'll be asking for the car keys before ya know it...

Sounds like you're doing it all right, just keep on!

L. D., mom of three

My boys are 4 and 2 years old. We just completed daytime potty training last May and my 4 year old is night time trained (with about 1 accident a month). My 2 year old has a few night time accidents a month (usually when I loose track of time). Here's what we've been doing: Just before my hubby or I go to bed, we carry them to the potty and gently whisper "go potty" and hold them upright on the potty for about 30 seconds (or until they go). Sometimes one of us will run the faucet in the sink to help them "release" (sound of water has that affect). Then pull up their PJ's and back to bed with a kiss (they are never fully awake for this and roll right over and are asleep instantly). My 2 year old has to be taken to the potty the FIRST thing in the morning (when he is tossing and turning, usually 30 minutes before he actually wakes up). Although the past month or so, we've let him wake up on his own and just rush him to the potty within 1 minute of getting out of bed. So I think his bladder muscles are getting stronger.

This is setting the example of what is expected from them. We expect them to get out of bed at night and use the potty. Many times the boys will wake up crying in the middle of the night and try to get out of bed but are so sleepy, they need help getting to the bathroom and pulling down PJ's and such.

My 4 years old usually can do it at night all by himself now without help or crying. BTW, we've been a diaper and pull-up free house since May. I do, however have 2 layers of pads on the bed. If they have an accident in bed, I simply pull of the top wet layer and change their clothes and put them right back to bed (without having to completely strip the bed and make it in the middle of the night). Works great for us.

A lady in my Mom's group told us last month that her 5+ year old is just now night time potty trained. It obviously takes longer to night train than day train.
I wouldn't do the night wakings. (I work full time and my sleep is important to me because I have to be "on" all day (I'm a high school teacher), and my kids need a full night sleep for their schedules, too.)
Having said that, my daughter has been going to bed and waking up dry longer than she was daytime trained! The one night I put her to bed without a pullup on, she wet the bed. So even though she wakes up dry, we are still using pullups at night. My daughter will be three in two weeks and we'll work on getting rid of the pullups in the next few months... no hurries.

What we did with my son was: Let him use Pull-ups at night. But I would get him up just before I was going to bed for the night (usually 2 -3 hours after he fell asleep) and take him one last time to potty. He won't remember doing this. In fact, our son is such a hard sleeper that sometimes I don't think he was really even awake during this potty trip. Once you see that he is staying dry the remainder of the night, then you can slowly move up the time you get him up. Say from 11:30 pm to 11:15. Or 10:45 to 10:30 or wherever you started from. If after 2 nights at that time he still remains dry, move the time up again by 15 minutes or so. In a very short time you should find either at what point he has a problem staying dry or that he is trained! When you hit a "sticking" point, try limiting how much he drinks in the 30 - 45 minutes before bedtime. And by ALL MEANS, make sure that he goes ONE MORE TIME the last thing before climbing into bed.
My son was a VERY heavy sleeper and just didn't feel the urge during the night. My daughter never had a problem from an even earlier age. Some children just sleep much deeper I think. You may spend a long while at the point where you are getting him up to go an hour or so after he goes to sleep. He may just need some time for his bladder to grow enough to hold it throughout the night. So try not to be discouraged if that happens. It won't last forever. He might even be one of the "easy" ones..
Good luck.
And don't worry about waking him up at least once. He will go right back to sleep and won't remember. It won't be like going through the bedtime ritual all over again...

Hi H.,
With my 3 year old son, I don't even wake him up. I just go into where he is sleeping before I go to bed (which is usually around 11 or 12) and just pick him up and sit him on the toilet and say go pee pee and he does it, then he's back in bed and didn't even wake up. Then his father will take him, (because he usually has to get up around 4 to go. Sometimes I have forgotten to take him and he has actually woken up to tell me, and sometimes he'll sleep through it and pee, but we keep a pull up on him just in case at night. I am trying not to stress it with him, but he is just now getting the hang of it from over a year of trying to potty train him and one day it just clicked.
Maybe this will help you. Good luck!
V.

With my oldest I would kinda wake him up. Enough that he knows he has to use the bathroom. My husband would wake him up around 2 or 3 am to do it all over again. This lasted 1 week before my son told me "I will not pee the bed, let me sleep" And well I listened to him and we got night time training down in one week.

But i was also very lucky with him as he was fully potty trained by 18 months. My 2nd son is 19 months old and shows NO intest in the potty.

No, do not wake a sleeping child. Potty training at night is slower than daytime. What I've always done is insisted on going potty just "one more time" before getting tucked in and no drinks past 8 P.M. Usually night time training happens upon the child's discovery that he or she has woken up during the night because of the sensation of having to go. It takes time...3 years old is a bit young to insist on staying dry all night long. Use pull-ups during this time of training.