Being dry at night toilet training... should I force it?

Dd was 5 and a half before she was dry at night. Chatting to other parents in the playground at pick up, she certainly wasn't the only one.

@Winniethepig Maybe you could show your MiL some of the research ( not people’s opinions) referred to on here, and explain
the approach you and your DH are taking.
If she continues to comment critically then day you won’t be having more discussion and stick to that.

My dd is 7.5 years and only just dry through the night with the help of a 3 month course of medication.

My 5 year old still wets at night. But both where dry In the day by 3.

My 2 boys where both dry by 3 day and night.

It's a hormonal thing.

The GP here wouldn't provide medication until aged 7.

So I wouldn't be worrying just yet!

Always understood it was hormonal and thought it was strange that people would go to the effort of waking their sleeping child to put them on the toilet. A) them having undisturbed sleep is incredibly important and B) why the hell would you risk having undisturbed sleep yourself 😂😂

It is hormonal, but it’s easier to last 8 hours without a wee than 12. The idea is to lift them before you go to bed (not in the middle of the night!). I’ve only known one mum who did this. She had 2 children very close in age and the younger one was dry at night before the older one, so she did it with the older one.

Both mine were dry in day at 2.5 but in pull ups at night until 7. Boy and girl. DS had overnight beavers and leader said no problem, lots of the kids were still in pull ups. Didn't stress as they were both so good in the day. Their bodies just were not ready.

Please ignore your DH and MIL. Kids. like with absolutely everything, get there at different times. Both of mine were dry in the day and had been for years but still needed pullups for absolutely ages after. They were well into 6 by the time they started to go through the night dry. No issues, no problem, just patience and letting nature run its course. It's very rare for children to have issues that need exploring.

Not necessarily! DS always had a wet nappy in the morning but when I decided to try him without a nappy, he probably wet the bed twice in the first fortnight, then not at all afterwards.

However, that’s him. OP has tried her DD without nappies and has had constant wet beds, so it is madness to take the nappies away. Both she and DD are now very stressed while DH and MIL are standing on the sidelines bullying them. That really isn’t a recipe for success! It’s actually quite cruel as the DD’s anxiety is probably making it more difficult for her to be dry at night.

OP, I would put her back in night nappies for a good few months and maybe try again in the spring. Tell DH and MIL to back off; it’s obviously not them who are dealing with the consequences of wet beds.

Don't be silly. It's not cruel to give, for example, a small drink rather than a big one.

My DD was 10 when she stopped. Keep your child in nappies - pull ups might be better. Invest in some waterproof sheets - I personally recommend hippychick ones.

It is all perfectly normal and very, very common (just that people don’t talk about it!). In the end we got support from the Enuresis clinic but she stopped by herself. There’s plenty of info online. Do not force it, your DC can’t help it.

We are currently going through this with our 8yo, who's under an enuresis nurse. We've done an input/output chart, Desmomelts and now Desmopressin tablets.
DC has just had a scan of kidneys and bladder to make sure nothing is wrong there before starting a medication to help dull the receptors in their bladder which will hopefully stretch their bladder.
The specialist nurse has been brilliant, trying to work out whether medication or a bedwetting alarm is the right route to take. It is about waiting for the body to produce enough of the correct hormone, but can be a little more nuanced than that, which is where the nurse has been great at trying to find the best approach. We didn't get a referral until 7.5yo though.

Both my DC got the hang of potty training within a week when they were 2, but not dry at night until around 7. We used an alarm for DD, but DS slept so deeply the alarm just woke everyone else and not him! 🤣

My DD is the same age as yours @Winniethepig . She’s been dry during the day since she was 2 but we had a hell of a time trying to get her to do poos in the potty / toilet and it just stressed us all out. From that moment on, I just made a decision that I wasn’t going to put anymore stress on her or us to do anything and she will do things when she is ready and then 2 months later, everything changed and she was fine.

When it came to night time, I just waited until she was dry at night for 5 consecutive nights then gave it a go, this was about 6 weeks ago. She wasn’t quite ready so tried again a couple of weeks later and she’s only had 1 accident so far but, even if she does we don’t make a big deal of it and reassure her ( not saying you don’t btw! )

You can’t force them with the night time stuff and getting stressed about it does nothing and they pick up on it as well. My niece was in nighttime pull ups until she was 7 then the hormones kicked in, my other niece was dry from before she was 3, everyone is different!

Put it this way, when she go’s for a job interview or any other big milestones in her life, they aren’t going to ask her “ when you were dry at night? What was your first word? When did you start walking? “ don’t put any unnecessary pressure on yourself or your DD, it’s not worth it.

My sister certainly did I remember her having a rubber mat type thing under the sheet ,she ,s 53 .

It is not solely determined by desmopressin production. Lots of people need to learn to wake at night to wee.

Ass others, say you can't force it my disabled child was dry at night long before he was out of nappies during the day.

You literally say in your OP “we cut her liquids with dinner” which is cruel

Rubbish - incontinence charities standard advice is to restrict children from drinking after dinner/into the evening. They need to learn to drink plenty earlier in the day.

Lots of children can't be bothered drinking during the day when they are busy playing, then get to bedtime and realise they are thirsty, have a big drink, their kidneys desperately go into overdrive as they've been dehydrated all afternoon & lo and behold, the bed is wet.

This isn’t the advice you originally gave!

Your DH is horrible, and I hope he is the one who is going to wash all the wet bed linen - although I doubt it.

One of my DC had a bladder the size of Lake Erie and was dry at night months before her twin as she just had the capacity to cope with a night times accumulation of urine. That can't be 'forced'.

@Waitingforthecold the Eric website recommends periodically trying for at least 5 days to see if it's partly habit. It won't work until they're ready, but if they are partly waking up and peeing then it will help them to fully wake up.

I suspect it's similar to the reason that DD potty trained much earlier from cloth nappies than DS did from disposables.

Did so many kids regularly wet the bed 50...70 years ago?

I don't think they did from conversations with my mother and aunt. I do think disposable nappies & later potty training are a factor.

You literally say in your OP “we cut her liquids with dinner” which is cruel. She’s so young
still and to take her nappies away and give them back constantly is horrible. You say yourself she regressed in the day.

this

Id have agreed with you a few years ago but it isn't solely hormones. Some children have to learn to wake at night to pee (my eldest did). This is why later on ERIC & other incontinence charities will suggest alarms that wake the child when they wet, to basically make learn that they need to wake to go and pee. Those alarms have very good success rates over time. I do now suspect that over reliance on dry, comfortable feeling disposable nappies does allow children to get used to simply sleep deeply through wetting the bed.

How long have you actually tried no nappy? Put a washable bedmat on and do at least a couple of weeks. Both my kids needed to wet the bed & wake up a few times to break the habit of simply sleeping through peeing.

Also try:
Cut out all artificial sweeteners including those in squash
No blackcurrant squash at all!
Wake child and take them to wee when you go to bed at 10 or so.

Gently trying for at least 5 days can be helpful. We're now having success on the 4th try, having gone back to nappies each other time as it wasn't working. DD also got rewarded for drinking lots in the day until the end of supper, which helped for us.

However, it's only now at nearly 6 that she's actually ready. People are not in control while they're asleep, so there's no point putting pressure on about something that happens in her sleep.

My DS was 6.5 before he was dry at night. We did “force” it in the end by using a bed wetting alarm. As a pp said, there is an element of habit too and the alarm worked really well for him, to break that association between weeing and being in a deep sleep. It only took about a week.

That said, 2 years later and we still have to restrict liquids in the evening or end up with a wet bed in the morning. If he says he’s really thirsty, he can have a sip but left to his own devices he’d happily glug a 500ml bottle just before bed which doesn’t work.