To think this is actually very harmful rather than beneficial

[TheLadyEvenstar]

Was talking to a few mums earlier and discussing whether our dcs were dry of a night. I was quite upfront and said "No ds2 is nowhere near dry at night but it will come in time"
Another mum then piped up that her family do not use nappies on their dc of a night time as the feeling of a wet bed will "Make them dry quicker"

I have to say I was and didn't know what to say.
Surely they can see in the long run its got to be bad for the lo's skin?

justonemore - it's not muscle control but a hormone that starts to be produced with the body maturing between about age 2 and age 7 that effects dryness at night

Really. So hormones can't be controlled then?

yes - they can be controlled - but only if they don't start to kick in (hennce 7 usually being the absolute earliest that it's considered a problem) - not generally a good idea to start playing around with hormones unless really necessary

There is a good reason why Pull ups are made for up to age 11! Doctor told me to take DS away and bring him back when he was 10. He wasn't dry at night until he was nearly 8. It happens when it happens.

i wish the pull ups were absorbant as the washables I use when I run out of pull ups

OP said the child was under 3-I think this is very early to be expecting a child to be dry at night-especially a boy.

I don't think it's actually harming him, but that amount of washing is extreme and obviously a lot of effort for nothing at the moment.
My DS is 5 and still in pyjama pants at night. We've tried him a couple of times without them but he's such a deep sleeper he doesn't wake when he wets, then he got very upset in the morning to discover he'd wet himself whilst asleep.

I never tried to potty train him during the day, I just waited for him to be ready and one day he just was-he asked to try his pants and that was it, a couple of small accidents and then dry and using the potty. So I'm quite happy to do the same for night-time. He'll learn what to do when he's ready, so stressing about getting him out of night nappies and washing loads of bedding isn't going to make it happen any sooner.

Stable, thats what I did with DS2 he sorted himself through the day and will do through the night as well.

Glad to hear in a way that there are lots of other "older" children out there in night nappies (or "special pants" as we call them in this house) DD2 is 5 and still wears them. With DD1 we did take the nappies away, she wet the bed twice, woke up distressed then never wet the bed again. Tried the same with DD2 and had 2 weeks of wet beds, sometimes two or three times a night. Tried lifting her at 11pm, and sometimes the bed was already soaking. She slept through it, and had to be roused, washed down, PJs changed, bed stripped- not conducive to her getting a good night's sleep. Finally I put her back into special pants at night. Tried again a month or so later, same result.

From the research I have done, it is definitely hormonal. At a certain age children start to produce the hormone ADH in greater quantities at night, which slows urine production over night. Until they produce this hormone, you are flogging a dead horse trying to "train" them to be dry at night. It's definitely not laziness. DD2 desperately wants to be out of her special pants, and eagerly brings them to me each morning to be told if they are wet or dry. I was advised to wait until they had a solid week of dry nights before ditching the nappies. Hasn't happened yet, although we are getting sometimes 3 or 4 nights in a row.

I don't push it. they say it can run in families, and, interestingly enough, DH remembers being about 7 and waking up to wet bed in the morning. He would then hide under it, as he knew his mum would go mad . I blame him and his genes!

My DS was very hard to get dry. I did not realise it but he had AS. Anyway, I tried at 3.8months old and he was sort of fine but still having accidents. I thought I would leave it alone until the next Bank Holiday when we would have a long weekend to do it. He was then just over 4. He "got" it immediately. He was dry during the day and dry at night. I was still putting pull ups on him at night for the first 4 days then all of a sudden I thought "why am I doing this?". I praised him to the high heavens and just did not put a pair of pull ups on at night - not pointing this out to him. And lo and behold, not a single wet night ever.

I think with every child, they have their own "moment" and time and when the time is right, they will go dry.

for Huddspur. Being dry at night just happens. Punishing the child achieves absolutely nothing

My middle ds is 5 - he still wets most nights, ds who is 3 is dry at night and has been since he was potty trained at 2.5.

It drives me mad - but we put him in pull up every night - cant be changing wet sheets everyday

Okay, I get that urine production during the night is hormonal. But whether you wake up to go to the toilet or just wee in your sleep is a learnt thing, surely? Posters have referred to being given alarm devices by clinics for their bedwetting children before. Apparently these things sometimes work, too.

i think there is a bit of a confusion - a child that is wetting itself whilst totally unconscious is not going to be readily trained out of doing it - a child that is waking up, then weeing straight away - you have a chance at. i think our habits on waking are trainable...

if i'd never gone nappy-free i'd never have got a dry night nappy: DD likes weeing in nappies and would wet even before sleep. Taking them out of nappies can be part of training, though yes i agree that what happens in deep sleep isnt that tractable to training.

you wonder if before nappies, when people generally co-slept with their offspring, whether

1. they just wet wherever at the same sort of age range
2. extended breast feeding meant they got the hormones from Mum to go dry sooner, or possibly the smell of sleeping adults meant that the hormone signal would happen sooner
3. the habit of getting up to go and wee would arrive sooner, as they'd always know straight away when wet.

As with most animals, there is a strong instinct not to bedwet once no longer a baby.

Well, as one of those smug, mad, co-sleeping EC'ers, I find that my (italics to show that I recognise that my children's behaviour may not reflect any other child's) toddlers twitch about if they need the toilet. To the point that they would need to be soothed back to sleep after they'd had weed. And quite frequently a nappy change as well. So, I started taking them to the potty when they twitched about, so they went back to sleep quicker.

so, you night train kids the same way as i would a dog, that is sleep by them and wait for them to make noise :)

cos you see, i don't reckon that centuries of humanity has put up with waking up in their childrens wee.

still, offered the choice of sleeping with my kids and ECing them, or keeping them in night nappies a leetle bit longer.....

the latter option looks like a winner.

DS1 doesn't even make noise - he just wees and carries on sleeping (have on many occasions not slept right next to him - but in the same room and close by). It's incredible, I've even "spied" on him since we re-started trying to use the alarm and he'll be motionless (except for snoring), the alarm will go off........he'll carry on sleeping (does occasionally wake up to it - but often not) and not flinch a muscle.

I wonder if more parents did what hudspurs parents did..............

oh and DS2 (who was dry at nihght at 3.5yrs with absolutely no effort at all) doesn't wake up in the night for a wee at all.

Eh, it's swings and roundabouts, isn't it? My way is certainly faffy at the moment, but long term I am under the delusion believe it will pay off with them being able to take themselves to the toilet in the night. After hearing some scary stories from family and friends, I'm developed a terror of training the children to sleep through weeing! For every 15 children who is trained quickly and easily at 3/to be dry at night, there seems to be a child who just can't get the hang of it all.

Incidentally, I went through a phase of night-wetting when I was 6 or 7. My mother dealt with it by telling me that I couldn't sleep in a wet bed, and therefore I was going to have to sleep on the floor. It did work...

I can understand why she did that, though. She didn't have a washing-machine, and she had to do everything by hand in the bath-tub. Not much drying space, either.

I'm very much into 'they'll do it when they are ready'.
Both kids were dry in the day at average ages, but at night were very different. DD was dry at night fairly soon after being dry in the day. DS was very different. He wasn't dry till nearly eight. I worried a bit, but in laws made a big issue of it. The doctor told me boys can wet the bed until ten or so and it's quite normal. What comforted me most was when the doctor pointed out that pull ups go up to age eleven for a reason. DS was always distraught when he wet, and I didn't want him feeling bad about himself so I just let him wear them. We did the lifting last thing at night thing, but other than that there was no stress, no wet sheets, happy child. He was dry in the end, when he was ready. If you think about it, there aren't many people who reach adulthood answer the bed. Why make a fuss of something which happens in the end anyway?!

My DD was dry by night way in advance of being dry by day, I'm not sure how or why. She stopped weeing overnight aged 18 months, but we didn't potty train her until she was 2.7 yrs old. She only once ever had a night time accident, when she had a fever and was delirious. My only guess is that she needed to be awake to do a wee, and because she had always been such a terrible sleeper as a baby we co-slept, she breastfed loads during the night without fully awakening, so she'd get through whole nights without waking properly enough to do a wee. When she did get up in the mornings she'd do a mega wee, as she'd been taking on liquid all night. I have a baby DS now so will be interested to see how it all goes for him, as DD was so easy to toilet train I didn't need to plan or think about it at all, she just kinda did it all herself.

Now that she's nearly 5yo I finally bought her a waterproof sheet, as we've just had the sickness bug that broke the camel's back. Never any wee troubles though!

YABU to think it is harmful, YANBU to think it is probably not beneficial. As others have said, they will be dry when they're ready, however having their sheets changed during the night will do them no harm.

well aside from leaving them absolutely shattered if they're wetting several times a night......

You can't train a child not to wet the bed it is completly difernt from day time wetting.