Waking a child to go to the bathroom at night, right or wrong?

Kimberly - posted on 09/17/2010

I think you should continue waking her up until she starts waking up on her own to go. As long as she isn't hard to get back to sleep I don't see any damage being done.

Elissa - posted on 02/07/2010

Bedwetting is such a common thing. My parents always woke for toilet before bed when toilet training. You should only limit drinking if you are monitoring exactly what they are drinking during the day. Dehydration is a much bigger problem than a wet bed and hardly anyone drinks what they should as it is. If you are going to try that, check exactly how much fluid they need per day for their age group and make sure they are getting it.

Why dont you try a star chart - it worked why one of my brothers went through a bed wetting phase about 5. Every dry moring gets a star and a week of stars gets a reward. No hassle about wetting the bed of course, just lots of praise when dry. Good luck!

Dolores - posted on 02/06/2010

I think that what ur doing is fine..My son is 4 going on 5 n sometimes I would do that 2 him too. He eventually got the idea to do it himself. But what u can also do is make sure that before she goes to bed that she goes potty, n 2 hours b4 her bedtime make sure that u don't give her anymore to drink. That really did the trick 4 my son! U can still do what u have been doing..she's ur child n what works 4 u stick with it!

Lyn - posted on 02/05/2010

Has your five year old always wet the bed? or is it just recently? Also, if she always has, maybe you should not let her drink anything after 6pm, so when she goes to bed her bladder will be empty. As for the three year old, if she is not exhibiting any bed wetting problems, I wouldn't wake her up to take her as well. good luck... just another trials and tribulations of parenthood! lol

Donna - posted on 02/04/2010

i don't see anything wrong with taking her to the bathroom. i do have a great trick i did though so i thought i would share :) layer the bed with plastic then sheet do at least 3 times. so if she has an accident all you have to do is peel the first layer off and strip her clothes off. all done :) bed is dry again and child can get right back in bed. no need to change sheets! really works. saves your sanity in the middle of the night when your too tired to even open your eyes LOL

Brooke - posted on 02/02/2010

I believe that there are some definate benefits to waking her and taking her to the bathroom the biggest i feel is the confidence your building in your daughter when she's not waking up in the morning with a wet bed. I did this with my oldest child and it worked great. I say if it's working for angelina continue doing it.

Angela - posted on 02/01/2010

i do it with my 6 year old she still wets the bed and she doesn't even wake up when i take her lol i just carry her to the restroom she goes and i put her back to bed i think its better than her laying in tinkle all night i asked the Dr if there's anything i can do and she said not til shes 7 so as for now i guess we will just learn tricks to deal with it i do also take away all liquids at 7:00 this has helped some 2

Laura - posted on 01/31/2010

Thank you it all help, I'm so glad to be able to ask questions.

Amy - posted on 01/30/2010

My husband and I use to wake our 3 year old up to go so he wouldn't pee the bed. I will tell you it didn't mess up his bladder, we haven't woke him up for a couple weeks now and he hasn't peed the bed, and he sleeps all night. He gets up every now and again to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. He was our hardest to potty train too, so I am not sure if he was just transitioning, but we did cut the fluid intake to nothing after a certain time. If he did say he was thirsty we gave him crushed ice or a very small amount to drink. I also was making sure he was going to the bathroom before he fell asleep. Another thing you might want to take into consideration with her still wetting the bed is did either you or her dad have this problem when younger. Also, maybe your daughter will get used to this routine and just start getting up to go on her own. Our bladders are not set to a clock, they are set to how full they get to signal us when we need to go. Maybe your daughter has a small bladder that doesn't hold a lot? Sorry I am just thinking as I am writing this, I hope this makes sense!

Brandy - posted on 01/30/2010

I know this is gonna sound crazy but, when my little brother wet the bed my parents did the getting him up every few hours during the night, and limiting fluid intake in the evenings, nothing worked. Till my mom saw an article that said that wetting the bed can be caused by a milk allergy. My Mom took my brother off all dairy products and in just a few days he completely stopped wetting the bed. She thought it might just be a fluke, so after a couple of weeks, she gave him one glass a milk during the day, and sure enough, that night he wet the bed. She had to keep him off of milk for about 2 years till he outgrew the allergy. She only had to stop milk itself, because he rarely ate cheese, yogurt or ice cream. I would start by removing all dairy at first. Then after time you could try allowing small amts of other cheese or yogurt or ice cream and see what happens. Make sure to use Orange juice with calcium, or soy milk to ensure she gets enough calcium. Give it a try, mom said it was a miracle!!! (BTW my brother is now 33 LOL) And maybe you should try it with the 3 Y/O, might be the reason she doesn't sleep through the night, could be stomach discomfort or needing to pee that is waking her up. I hope this works so all of you can finally get a full nights sleep!!!

Amanda - posted on 01/30/2010

I dont think thats necessarily true. How would it mess a childs bladder up all thats happening is that you are getting them to pee in the toilet before they pee in the bed. And besides that I know lots of people who do that with there kids and one family that has potty trained 4 kids that way and they all are perfectly healthy. But ask your mom how its supposed to mess up their bladders if theres something to it then I dont want to keep doing it with my little one