Confused about night potty training??

[pottytrainingggg]

Tackling daytime potty trining and then planning to do night training in a few months. I am a bit confused however about logistics - can anyone help?

My son's bedroom is down the landing, and then there are about 3 steps down into the bathroom, before the full stairs go downstairs. We currently have a stairgate on the landing just outside his room so he can't access the bathroom or downstairs when it is shut, only his own room and my room. He is still in a cot as he's happy and doesn't try to climb out as it's too high. But once we've tackled day potty training I think it's time he switches to a normal bed. (He will be 3 in July).

If I opened the stairgate at night he would then have access to the stairs and all downstairs which we can't do due to safety (falling downstairs in the night), and also he would go crazy playing with everything.

Should we put a potty somewhere this side of the stairgate in case he needs a wee in the night? If so where do you place this - in his room? Not very pleasant for him though? On the landing? Not sure if he can open his bedroom door properly by himself as we have a handisure thing in there...

Sorry I am clueless about this!

You can’t “train” night time dryness.

it’s hormones and biofeedback. It’s physical.

he’ll either be dry or not. Nothing you can do to change it if the hormones to shut his kidneys down and the physical feedback from a full bladder aren’t there.

by all means leave the potty in his room but don’t think it’s anything you or he has control over.

bear in mind 1 in 5 kids aren’t dry by 7.

I put a potty in my DC’s room and he used it early in the morning, it worked really well.

Once my son was dry at night that was it - he didn't need a wee until morning. He's my only though so I've no idea if that's typical!

You can't night train. When his pull up / nappy is dry in the morning stick a potty in his room.

Agree with pp, no such thing as “nighttime potty training”. You literally have to wait until they are regularly having dry nappies overnight. It’s their bodies that dictate when that will happen, and depends on a hormone that gets released at different ages in different children.

So when he’s having dry nappies in the morning, you can start putting a potty by his bed.

A potty in the bedroom is best.

Boys especially can take years to manage to be dry at night time so don't "tackle" it just wait until he gets consistently dry nappies on waking then try it

I would do day time potty training and then switch to a bed and then see where you are up to after that. Don’t introduce too much change at once.

As others have said, a lot of nighttime dryness is out of your control. DS (3) was out of nappies by day before 2, but dryness overnight is still 50:50 and he still wears a nappy to bed. You can introduce good habits like drinking earlier on in the day and using the potty last thing before bed/first thing in the morning. But until they consistently wake to the sensation of a full bladder and shout out ‘I need a wee’ or can go the whole night without peeing, you’ll just be changing a lot of soggy sheets (from experience).

As others have said it’s hormonal and can’t be trained at that age. You can try to help it along with no drinks right before bed, a wee before and after bath etc but really you just need to wait for a week of dry pull ups and then remove them. Average age for this is 4 and anecdotally I’ve heard boys are often later so it might not happen for a while yet and if he’s older you won’t have the worry about the stairs. That said, there’s no harm in leaving a potty in his room, making sure he’s in a pull up not a taped nappy and saying he can go if he needs to and doesn’t need to call you for a wee.

We have a potty in DD’s room (on a towel!) as we only have a downstairs bathroom and I don’t want her roaming.

DD daytime trained at 2 but we are only just about ready to ditch the pull ups at night (nearly 4) as you just have to wait that out-it can’t be trained.

Okay great, thank you this is really helpful!

I read the "Oh Crap" book and she does talk about night training which is why I thought it was a thing. But I think we will use her daytime methods only, but not the nighttime, and just do as pp suggest and let it happen naturally.

I agree. Nighttime is a pointless battle. They need the hormones to concentrate the pee in order to not need to go. You'll never teach that. I've three boys and they were all over 7 dry at night. My daughter was 20 months old. Just for some reference.

We found that once ours was dry at night, she didn't need to wee overnight & just waited until morning.

She was almost 5 though and I think it varies quite a bit as to when they are ready.

Ignoring the not being able to night train them part, as that’s been covered, I would either put a potty in his room/corridor or change your stair gate configuration so he can access the bathroom but not downstairs. Get nightlights too!

Both my kids (boy and girl) were night dry pretty much as soon as they were day dry at age 2.5-3ish, so I think there’s a wide range of normal.

We also used to take my DS to the toilet when we went to bed at 10/11ish. This worked well for us. We woke him up and walked him through, but he was definitely still half asleep and went straight back off afterwards! Otherwise he’d wake up in the early hours and disturb us all by switching on all the lights (despite nightlights) and making a load of noise about the whole process. Very happy once he got old enough to just take himself to the loo in the night with no fuss.

I have twin girls - one of them was potty trained by 2.5 and was pretty much dry at night from day 1. My other girl was 2 years 10 months before she was potty trained. She's just turned 4 and still wears a pull up at night which is almost always wet at 6.30am. She did get up at 4.30am this morning for a wee which is most unusual and her nappy was otherwise dry. Unfortunately she refused to go back to sleep so I'm feeling pretty exhausted right now

It’s been a while since I read it but if I remember correctly I think she says it’s for over 3s, they need to be going 3+ hours between pees in the day and then the ‘training’ is essentially lifting them, not just when you go to bed but also in the middle of the night plus prepare for accidents with extra sheets and mattress protectors. Which sounds exhausting, is pretty extreme and I don’t think teaches anything. Rather it’s just waiting out until they’re ready themselves but creating so much work and disturbing everyone’s sleep in the meantime. Her daytime methods are great but I think she’s truly lost the plot with the night training stuff.

Yeah @FlounderingFruitcake I agree. I must say I did read that section and think there's no way I'm doing that!!!

My DS was just over 4 he had about 5 nights of dry pull ups then we took them away and he's never woken up for the toilet in the night and been dry ever since. He's my only so I don't know if this is what other children are like

My DS night trained himself at the same time he was day trained - no intervention from me. He has a wee before bed and then goes through until morning. He has a bladder of steel.

Our toddler didn't require any thing like that. She just stopped weeing in the night so we stopped using nappies. She doesn't wake up to wee. You might find the same.

I would get them out of a cot now if they're nearly 3, don't wait, they need the autonomy. Put a potty in the room but it might not get used if you have them do a wee last thing before bed.

@itsabigtree I don't want to move him out of the cot at the same time as we are potty training as it's too much change. I'm going to wait until the daytime potty training is smooth and then move him, probably over the summer. He's perfectly happy and I know we will lose sleep when he moves as he is a bolter and will be up and down all night so I don't feel the need to rush that!

There is a lot of rubbish in oh crap, I definitely did a double take at the night training thing. She recommends that you get up in the middle of the night to take them to the potty literally never heard of anybody doing this IRL.

You just keep them in nappies at night until they start waking up dry.