Potty Training AT Night

Natasha - posted on 03/24/2011

my 4yr old pees in her bed EVERY night....i make her pee before she goes to bed, i wake her up every 2hrs as long as im woke and she goes. Morning time her sheets are wet, i didnt wanna put a pull-up on her then she feels like a baby & it sets her back but I guess it is something they have to learn on their own. There was a couple of nights where i heard her go to the bathroom but I also need to stop givin her juice around bedtime. So i need some suggestions too.

Aimee - posted on 02/08/2011

I don't know what the answer is, but we're in the same boat...except our daughter has been accident free during the day for some time now. Night time, not so much. Our ped. said it's not a concern, so we keep pull-ups or good nights on hand. Yes, I'm tired of buying them, but suppose its better than having a stressed out 4 year old! I've decided not to sweat it any more. :-)

Marcela - posted on 10/23/2010

As far as I know, actually there is nothing much you can do for night potty training.
My daughter potty trained herself at night, I didn't do anything. Usually it's something kids do, when they are ready.
I'm copy-pasting an explanation of how is this happen, I liked a lot:
"Night training is neurological, so not something you can help or force them in any way to do. It's a bit like trying to get a newborn to sleep through the night. Basically how it works is that when you're asleep your body releases a hormone to tell your organs to go into sleep mode. Everything slows down and works differently when you're asleep, and that includes your kidney's and bladder. They start to filter far more slowly and your bladder will fill slower too so that it takes much longer to reach the stage of needing to pee. Now, when your bladder does eventually get full at night and you've reached this neurological milestone it will send an impulse to your brain saying "wake up, I gotta pee!!" and your brain wakes the body up, you pee, and you stay dry. You're bladder will only hold so much before it will automatically release though, so once it gets to that point you will pee regardless. Now for night wetting there is one of two things (or both) missing. Either the sleep hormone isn't working right and your kidneys and bladder don't go into sleep mode and so therefore continue to fill at the normal daytime rate so that it reaches fuller sooner and there's much less time for the body to wake up before that impulse is triggered, so the bladder will reach it's full point and automatically release (which is a much lower threshold for a child than an adult), or the impulse to tell the brain that the bladder is full is missing and therefore the body doesn't wake up anyway and the bladder gets to it's point of fullness and automatically releases without bothering to tell the brain it's happening. Kids will stay dry at night when all these things come together and work as one. For some it happens very quickly, and for others it takes a bit longer."

Erin - posted on 10/22/2010

I have been haveing trouble with my youngest child and nighttime pottying,she just turned 4 and is still wearing pullups to bed, i restricted her fluids woke her up to potty in the middle of the night, and still had accidents, so i finally gave up and talked to rhe pediatrician who assured me it's ok at 4 if it's aproblem at 6 then we will investigate maybe somethin else, then a few nights later she was crying for a drink before bed and i gave in and gave her a juice cup low and behold she was dry in the morning, so I tried it again the next night this time i actually heard her get up and go potty on her own and again she was dry in the morning so i kept experimenting till i decided to not give her a drink one night and guess what...she woke up wet, so I think the concept of depribing fluids to prevent accidents was wrong for us, she needed fluids to give her a strong enough urge to pee that would wake her up, if the urge wasn't strong enough she wouldn't wake so might want to try this out for a while i'm sure it won't work for everyone but it's worth a shot.

Kristy - posted on 02/28/2010

Always make him go to the potty before bed and stop his liquids at least 1-2 hrs before he goes to sleep. Also they make potty training pants that get cool when they pee for night time, get some of those and then it might wake him up if he goes.....It's hard I know but it wont be long and you can get rid of the diapers all together. :)