Aibu to think my ds (almost 6) won’t night train on his own...

[Eboblah]

First post (can’t believe took me 5 years to become addicted to mumsnet).

DS is 6 in September and still in nappies at night. I know this is still considered relatively ‘normal’ and have heard doctors won’t get involved till 7. He’s been out of nappies daytime since he was 3 but always wakes up with a full nappy. He’s quite motivated to get out of nappies (obsessed with having a sleepover with friends) but is a real deep sleeper, asked me today how do i know that I need to do a wee at night. I’ve seen a lot of people mention online that a hormone needs to kick in, but never seen anything about this officially. I’d be really interested to hear if anyone’s ds ‘naturally’ night trained after this age, or did it take some kind of ‘intervention’, and if so what? I just don’t see it happening naturally so would prefer to start intervening sooner rather than later if that’s what it’s going to take. Thanks for any thoughts

My son wasn't dry at night until he was 7, he wore pull ups and eventually they just were dry in the morning with no intervention. I don't think wearing pull ups slowed the process down, it's not the same as learning to be dry in the day - we tried without and he soaked the bed and slept right through regardless! I did look into washable pull ups (we'd used washable nappies) but it didn't seem worth it.

He often gets up for a wee in the night now he's a teenager, dunno if that's related at all!

Wait wait wait.

Always baffles me how anybody thinks some kind of training is going to prevent bed wetting.

If someone asked you to stop doing something in your sleep, what would you be able to do about it?!?

Wait for the ADH to kick in. It’s rare not to develop it, but can be taken in drug form if it doesn’t happen.

For what it’s worth, the hormone kicked in at 6 months old with my first. Never had wet nappies whilst sleeping.

With second child, it didn’t happen until nearly 7. Was starting to worry, and then all of a sudden.....magic

I agree with ChocolateDoll, you can’t train the brain to mature, and that’s what needs to happen. I’ve never understood the point of lifting them to pee overnight.

My youngest has taken a long time to become dry at night - finally seems to be happening as he becomes a teenager. The other three trained much much younger, and with no particular input from us.

We’ve used care mats rather than pull ups - because I think it must be sweaty sleeping in a nappy - plus maybe the sensation of being wet will help him wake up.

Why does drinking more during the day help?

For me it was to do with them not getting enough sleep so I moved DS bedtime back to 7pm and put him in underpants and washable small sheet over his fitted one and within a couple of nights he was dry.

Same situation so will be watching with interest

looking drinking more is important in the day because it helps the bladder get stretched and fully full up and so helps the body recognise a full bladder. I think it might also be to do with preventing the bladder becoming irritable. I think it will explain it on the ERIC website.

This page I ueful

www.eric.org.uk/why-do-children-wet-the-bed

My daughter was in night time pants until the age of 8. She is an intelligent and delightful young lady. They all get there in their own time.

I'm definitely on the lazy end of parenting too. My youngest son still had to be put on the loo in his sleep at the age of 9/10 or would be wet in the morning regularly. He didn't even know he did it. He slept so deeply he wouldn't even wake until morning in a pool of wee otherwise. I remember reading that as long as he was dry by the time he leaves home at 18 it's no problem so took that literally, LOL.

Fast forward to him being 15 now, I know he's dry and has been for years but can't remember when. Never been an issue as I just accepted it was something his body would sort eventually and it did.

DD was wet at night until almost 8 just kicked in over a couple of weeks. Until that point she would wake up with a soaking wet pull up.

In fact I was more worried DS would be dry before her as he was dry at night before he was during the day. So when he potty train late at 3 almost 4 was dry both day and nigth at the same time. Luckly she made it jus before her brother did thanks to his laziness at potty training stuban child.

I lifted him because when he did pee it was an enormous amount of fluid which could not be contained by a pull up or mat, it ruined the mattresses and his brother slept in the bottom bunk under him

DS was 7.5, and just suddenly became dry at night. That was 4 months ago and he's only wet the bed twice since then. I'm on the lazy end of the parenting scale and was comfortable with waiting, but there were also some contributing factors that made me reluctant to do any kind of "training"; DS sleeps on the top bunk with his little sister underneath (makes "lifting" difficult) and he also possibly has ASD and reacts angrily and noisily to being woken.

I'd leave it if I were you OP.

I am not sure if my soon to be in year 1 5yo (5y 9m) Is actually night trained?

He has been night dry for a few months now (barring I'd say 3 or 4 accidents) but he doesn't waken to wee overnight. He just sleeps through and wakes dry. He seems to be able to hold it for the most part? When he can't hold it he has an accident. I think he has maybe twice got up in the night for a wee?

Lifting him out for a wee before we go go bed isn't an option as he is in the top bunk.

Are you sure he is wetting whilst asleep? we worked out that my DS was just weeing in his pull up in the morning instead of getting up for the loo.

I think that's the purpose of the hormone that kicks in Crunchy, to slow down the production of urine while the body is sleeping so we don't need to wee all night.

So sleeping through most nights, with a couple of nights getting up to pee sounds "trained" to me. Did the accidents happen when your DS was especially tired?

I thought you were putting your 6 year old on a train alone at night op when I read your post

Hope you get sorted. I was a bed wetter until 11 and it just stopped.

Crunchymum my ds was like that. Once he became dry at night he slept like the dead and would wake up dry. Now he’s a bit older (8) he will get up for a wee if desperate but I think he sleepwalks to the bathroom. He’s very dopey if happen to see him get up.

I have boy/girl twins.

Both potty trained in the day at just over 3 years, but continued to soak pull ups at night. Some nights they'd fill the pull ups so much they'd leak.

We had a dry spell at 4 years old with DD, but DS was struggling with various things and I decided to keep them both in pull ups at night because I didn't want to add another thing he couldn't do to his list. I sort of regret that now.

We (the children and I) always had a plan that we'd try with no pull ups after three dry pull ups on waking. This was partly to stop them wanting to try after a single dry morning (it just meant wet beds the next night every time) and partly to give them an incentive to get up on waking and use the loo rather than be lazy and use the pull up, which I think was happening. We had a few three-day dry spells with each of them and tried for a week after each, but always ended up back in pull ups.

At 6.5 years DS had three dry pull ups and tried without. We have had less than 10 accidents in the night since then (nearly 8 now).

DD is still in pull ups and still fills them every night. I am hopeful it will just happen like it did for DS, but it is starting to get her down now that things like Beaver Camp are on offer and she's reluctant to go partly because of the pull ups. She's terrified her twin brother will tell someone at school

I am reluctant to try the alarm as I don't think it will work for DD. Like someone else said, she sleeps so deeply I think it'll wake me not her! I would like to try the desmopressin route, but am wary of making it a bigger thing for DD by taking her to the GP if they're not going to help.

For what it's worth, I was a bed wetter until at least 9/10 years. I remember taking a plastic sheet to sleepovers (long before the days of pull ups for primary school kids). So maybe it's hereditary, which could fit with the hormone development reasons for wetting.

I read the title and thought:

Wtf sending a six year old on a sleeper train by themselves

On the drink side of things, avoid 'dark' drinks late afternoon and into the evening. They will make accidents more likely to happen.

Thanks for explaining about the drinking during the day, Wonderwoo.

Re other topics -We did try an alarm once, and I know people find them helpful. But it just stressed us out. I’ve preferred to go with a low key approach, and realise it’s fairly normal, and just wait it out.

Most stressful bit was when we stayed with MIL, because obviously hers were both fully trained by 1year. We had to hide his ‘incontinence pads’ as she called them. Really annoying. How to demean a young child.

We tried Desmopressin, but he read the side effects and reckoned it made him wet the bed. Apparently this can happen - so since then we’ve just waited for him to grow up, and the wetting is getting less and less.

Ds was perfect during the day from 2 but it took until 7.5 to be dry at night. One morning his nappy was dry and he said he didn't think he needed them anymore and that was it!

i was worried but my paediatrician friend said it wasn't worth getting worried about until he was 8-9 and she was right that it just happened!

My eldest only was dry at night at 9 and 4 months, we'd just approached docs for a referral and whilst we were waiting it happened.

He's had the very occasional accident, but what I wanted to add he's been on 2 night camps and 2 night school residential and none of his friends knew he was in pull ups.
For the camps he had the clean pull ups in his sleeping bag and put them on whilst in the bag and then discretely bagged them up in the morning and put them in his case. He also did one night sleepovers with friends and did the same, but just left the wet pull up in the sleeping bag and I sorted it when he got home and also washed the sleeping bag.