When should I expect dd to night train.

[elaineandmichaelsmommy]

The pedi. said when she was dry 4-5 nights a week to try. At the rate we're going that's never going to happen since she insists on a bedtime drink every night. So right now we're still in pull ups and they're fitting thank goodness. But I'm at a loss as to how to get her dry at night without having several nights of wet beds which noone needs. We have christmas break coming up that will last for 3 weeks so we could try then and if a few nights sleep get messed up it's not the end of the world.
For moms who've already jumped this hurdle, how long did it take and what's my best approach or should I just wait a little longer to ask dd to do this.tia
jen

[Moneypenny]

I think there are two schools of thought on this. 1) Wait until kiddo is waking up dry most nights and then go for it with underwear. 2) Try to train night dryness by limiting drinks before bed and waking up a few times during the night to sit on potty.

DD is a bit shy of 3.5 years and we are going with approach #1. I do know some parents who have had great luck with approach #2, but that is just not going to happen in our house. I know once I wake my kid up to sit on the potty at 10 pm she will think it is party time and I just value my sleep too much, lol! Also, we eat dinner not much more than 1 hour before bedtime and I am not going to limit her liquids at dinner. She does go to the bathroom right before bed and we give her maybe 1 ounce of water in a little cup before bed, but she drinks a large glass of milk with dinner and that is fine with me.

ETA: I forgot to say that my ped said he doesn't even ask about being dry at night until the 5 year check up.

[2sweets4me]

The girls ped says it's normal not to be dry at night until age 7! but 85% of kiddos can stay dry at night by age 5:) She says to not even try undies at night until the child as woken up w/ a dry diaper for an entire month

[tny915]

I think there are two schools of thought on this. 1) Wait until kiddo is waking up dry most nights and then go for it with underwear. 2) Try to train night dryness by limiting drinks before bed and waking up a few times during the night to sit on potty.

We're going with approach#1 too. DD always has water before bed so I'd wouldn't feel right to suddenly start withholding that from her. She has had nights where she'll wake to use the potty and mornings where she'll wake with a completely dry pullup. I know that based on her personality, there's no rushing my child on anything, and I'm not in a hurry to train.

At DD's 4 year well-check, the ped asked where we were with nighttime -- pullups or underwear -- and made no negative comments when we said pullups.

[american_mama]

I took the approach that after three consecutive days of dry diapers in the morning, the child got to go to the store and pick out her own nightime underwear. I really talked up the underwear. I always took them to the store the day after the third dry night to solidify the reward, and this time, I even pre-scouted which stores had which underwear because I knew my DD wanted specific ones. These are pretty exclusively nightime underwear only, to make them special.

For both my girls, their three days of dry diapers was after they had been staying dry several times in a month, so I had confidence it wasn't a fluke. I may have done five consecutive days with my oldest. My DD2 woke up wet in underwear a few times, refused to wear them for a week or two, but I just kept asking and nonchalantly trying to put them on her, and she came back to accepting them. I did assume she was going to have to have a few accidents - how else would she learn? - so I wasn't bummed about changing sheets, although I was a little worried about her rejecting the underwear.

I did not limit fluids for all the reasons previously mentioned. I did try waking up my oldest daughter in the middle of the night a few times and this upset her greatly, as well as not seeming to work that well, so I dropped it quickly. I never tried it with my youngest. I also described to them and acted out what they should do if they have to go in the middle of the night, and I particularly tried to stress this if I knew they'd had a lot to drink that evening. I'd remind them of the feeling of a full bladder (motion to general area, tell them they would hold it (mimic a slight clenching of the body), their body would feel all this and they would wake up (big open eyes) and they would either slide off their bed and go to the bathroom and call out loudly for me or daddy. I did all this in such detail because I figured they were learning: how would they know all on their own how to sense it, hold it, and wake up from a sleep to go pee?

My older daughter was 3.5 years or a little older and my youngest was 3 years when they night trained and neither one of them was hard to potty train, so I may have had it easier going in. I took a slightly pushy approach to potty training in terms of instigating it, but was very low-key to try and not make it a battle of wills. I never made a child sit on a potty for more than a minute or two and the only reward they got was the pleasure of picking out underwear, flushing the toilet, and a high five or silly dance from me. I figure, those are the inherent rewards of toilet training anyway, right, so why not make them front and center?

My sister took a pretty similar approach with her four children and all potty trained without much trouble except the second (a girl), who wore diapers at night (not even pull ups) until she was about 5, way past her siblings. I say this only to show that the same methods work differently with different children.

[erosenst]

In addition to PP's "#1 and #2", I'll add #3 - some kids just figure it out and do it. Abby's one of those "I'll do things when I'm ready - but then I'll do them right" kind of kids. She stood and walked within two hours of each other...but not til 15.5 months. She then was running a couple of months later.

Same thing with PT. Sat on the potty for FIFTEEN MONTHS without pooping or peeing once. Finally peed in the potty one day...and hasn't ever had an accident. (I don't count the couple of accidents related to refusing to pee in an automatic toilet - she's terrified of them.) A few nights after peeing in the potty, she started staying dry. We kept a pull-up on til she decided it was ok to poop in the potty, right after her third bday. (She went through a period of refusing, and I knew better than to fight that one and end up with constipation. She would wait til her pullup was on at night, and THEN poop. Ugh.) Once that was done, she's never wet her bed. And when we went through the "pull-ups-for poop-stage" her pullup was only wet once or twice.

Not sure that helps much - but just wanted to offer it up there.

Emily
Abby - almost 4

[MarisaSF]

For a few months after she was day-PT'd, we had DD in the Pull-Ups where the flowers fade if she wets them -- "Learning Designs." She would get SO upset if the flowers were blurry in the morning, so even if she drank water (she keeps a cup next to her bed), she had the huge flower incentive to stay dry. She would run to the bathroom in the middle of the night and upon waking up.

She was wearing undies (and staying dry) during the day for a few months before she was totally dry at night.

Once she was dry for a few nights, we considered getting rid of the Pull-Ups. Her 3rd birthday was right around the same time, so we used that as the end point and gave the unused Pull-Ups away as "presents."

[Wife_and_mommy]

Some kids just aren't able to stay dry no matter how hard they try. I'd not fuss over it aside from limiting bedtime drinks.

Ftr, I'd kill to have a kid who only had accidents at night. My dd just started being daytime reliable a month or so ago but she's been nighttime dry since 2yo.

Also, if the dipe you're using isn't absorbent enough, I've bought diaper doublers in the past at my grocery store. They look like a menstrual pad sans the sticky side. You put them in the dipe to make them much more absorbable.

Hth.