Night toilet training

[Marmee]

Just wondering if there's any ideas out there........

Our little man is 4 years old. He has been day time toilet trained with no accidents for about 2 years.

Night time training is another matter.

I'm not too sure when to be concerned.

He had spasmodic success about 6 months ago, where he'd be dry one night, wet next 2 nights, dry the next etc, until it got to wek for 6 nights in a row.

We decided (with his understanding) to go back to nappies.

We didn't limit fluid intake at all for a couple of reasons - we don't really like to with-hold drinks of water from him and also he'd get distressed if we wouldn't get him the drink he wanted.

We started the star chart type idea with him, but canned it after he was wetting so often as we didn't want him to feel hopeless.

We chat to him occasionally along the lines of "I wonder if you'll wake up tomorrow dry?" to which he excitedly replies "yeah! I will" and then he's all upset in the morning when he discovers that he's not.

So - any thoughts? Should we stay "unworried" and not bother working on this, or is it time to start putting more effort into it?

I suppose I'm selfish in a way, as being pregnant and sick, I really don't fancy getting up in the middle of the night changing sheets (sometimes 2 and 3 times a night) and having to wash and dry them each day while I'm in hte middle of running to the toilet!!

Ideas are much appreciated!!

[hanabi]

To my understanding, night training is a different phenomenon to day training and it's really just a process of waiting it out. Like the onset of puberty, night training is enabled by a hormone release that can initiate anywhere between age 18mths and 8 years!! There are medications that you can use but they are really reserved for special circumstances. I would put any plans to night train on the shelf until your son expresses a certain confidence in staying dry all night all by himself. It's really something that is beyond his control, and yours.

Jodie

[lucky_mummy]

I think you are right Jodie, I think it can be quite normal for children to bed wet for many years. There are those dry night things on the market now. I am not sure how you feel about disposables, but that might save your bed sheets. Perhaps you could by the eco nappies and compost them since it would only be one per night (I have no idea as to what age they make nappies for).

Linda.

[Jakaluma]

I know quite a few 5 and 6 year olds who still wear night nappies - and even a couple of 7yos. Think a HUGE variance.

[KismetKat]

Marmee - don't worry. For a start boys are notoriously slower with night traing than girls. Secondly, "training" has nothing to do with it - it's developmental. Two things need to happen. Their bodies need to develop the skill to concentrate urine overnight for, umm, storage in the bladder - that's why morning wees are stronger in colour and smell. Secondly their bodies also need to develop a waking mechanism for when their bladders ARE full and REALLY need emptying (in the toilet).

Put the kid in some "dry ngihts (and they don't make these up to size 10 without a reason) and get some sleep. He's only four - it will all come together eventually.

[Bronnie]

justin decided he didn't want to wear nappies anymore so we wake him every night just before we go to bed. we also have a large sheet of pul and a wool blanket under the sheets to protect the mattress.

i'd be concerned about the fertility of a male who wore plastic every night for such a long period of time

[KismetKat]

again from memory - dry nights are not covered in "plastic". They are made from the same material that sanitary pads are which absorbs moisture.

[Artemis]

Yep... from what I understand it is a developmental trigger where children are able to wake themselves up and recognise that they need to urinate... when that actually happens is really varied. I understand that you want to move forward with this, but going back to using a night time nappy or pullup scenario, would probably just take the stress out of it for all of you.

Funnily enough I always think that these things tend to resolve themselves when we stop worrying about it so much. I know with our daughter that it definitely was the case. Hope it all works itself out soon!

[amala]

I used to go to my son's room at night and wake him as much as possible and get him to do a wee into a glass jar that i kept for this purpose. I sometimes had to sit him up, but often i'd leave him where he was. I would speak to him and ask him to do a wee, and then when i asked 'are you finished?', he'd nod and immediately fall back off to sleep.

Initially i worried that i would wake him and he wouldn't want to go back to sleep, but that was never a problem. Sometimes it was difficult to wake him and i'd have to sit him up and prod him a bit more, but generally, if it wasn't too early in the night i always got my jar of wee and a dry bed in the morning...

I also worried that i might be reinforcing the thing of weeing while he was sleeping and he wouldn't learn how to wake himself when he needed to go... but that didn't happen - he no longer needs to be woken... he either sleeps all night, or wakes to go to the toilet...

[astrogirl]

I was going through exactly the same thoughts as you with my son. I just let all thoughts of when it would happen go and let him do it in his own time. I had him in nappies and talked a lot with him about how he could wear jocks to bed when he was ready. I didnt cut back his drinking or wake him up after he went to bed. Eventually he was dry most nights and said he wanted to wear jocks to bed. We have never had a bed wetting accident so far. He was dry from that night on. He goes to the toilet just before bed and sleeps a good 14 hours over night but never wakes up to go to the toilet in the night. So my advice is it will happen when your son is ready. He will know when he is ready. I would talk about it with him to get him used to the idea but let him lead the way. Good luck