Please help how do I get my 5 yr old dry at night?

[willowcatkin]

My dd (5 last June) and ds (just 4) have been dry in the day for years, but not at night until this summer when I started dd without a nappy.

She was Ok for a bit but never compeltely dry - maybe every other day. We lifted her at 10ish.

Now every night she is wet and soemtimes 2 or 3 times By contrast ds has eschewed night time nappies and has been consistently dry for a while now.

it is upsetting dd that her little brother is 'better' than her, and i would dearly love to stop washing sheets every night as she refuses to wear a nappy.

Can anyone give me any ideas to help please?

You can't do anything much until she's physically able to be dry.

There's a hormone that kicks in that suppresses urination overnight, and until that happens she won't physically be able to do it. My dd is 5.5 and still in a nappy overnight because it upsets her too much to wet the bed, but I can understand your dd being upset that her brother is dry before her.

All you can do is reassure her that when she's ready it will happen.

Agree with WigWamBam and understand how you feel. My DD is nearly 6.5 and still not dry at night.

How do you tell, do you think, whether a child just likes having a wet nappy (DD is 5, and near as we can tell just likes to have a wet nappy when she's falling asleep/waking up) or whether they really "can't" do it overnight?

DD doesn't respond to bribes, like chocolates or similar promises. I sometimes wonder if she couldn't try harder to be dry, but I don't want to her to feel bad if she really can't do it, either.

Have you tried her without a nappy? Is it ever dry, if she has a few dry nights perhaps you could try her without one and see how it goes. I know what you mean about the reward type of system - if they can't help it you could end up making them feel worse about it.

Agree with Wigwambam. Not much you can do until the child is ready. Just reassure your dd that different children do things at different times and that it doesn't mean that her brother is better than her.

thanks, TTT, no DD's almost never dry in the morning, but I don't know if she could be if she actually wanted to try.

Flack - I don't think whether she really wanted to or not comes into it. Once she falls asleep it's out of her hands. I think that children like to please us and if she could be dry all night I don't think she would deliberately wet herself, even if it appears that she isn't bothered by it. I would go with the belief that she just can't help it. Once the pressure is off she might just stop anyway or it might take a while longer yet.

trust me, juule, dd schemes to wet her nappy before she falls asleep. Which is why I question whether she could actually go dry overnight, if only she wanted to.

Just curious - how does she scheme to wet her nappy? When she wets before she falls asleep does she ask to be changed? I'm just wondering whether it's a bedtime delaying tactic If it's as she's falling asleep then she could be relaxing and as she lets everything go, her bladder empties.

It's important not to 'lift' children to pee during the night. If you do that, you're taking over the responsibility from the child, which won't help them. Also, if a very sleepy (perhaps even still sleeping) child is lifted to pee, they're going to become accustomed to peeing in their sleep, which again won't help. Maybe try using cloth nappies at night, which are less comfortable when wet.

Sorry if I'm hijacking your thread, Willowcat. Think if your dd were mine, I would make her wear a nappy as daily washing sheets is unfair on you (and hard on sheets). Agree that lifting isn't likely to be progress.

But then maybe I'm not one to advise, my DD doesn't want to stop wearing nappies!!

Answer to Juule who asked what I meant by my DD "schemes" to be able to wee in bed:
DD is supposed to have a last wee before bed. She goes to loo, comes back, insists she had a wee. Then we put a nappy on her. She takes over an hour to fall asleep (no matter what time we put her down). If we check her again before bed, she is often wet. She doesn't even try to go use the toilet and certainly wouldn't want me to change her. Sometimes she is soaking minutes after we put the nappy on, she is saving it for the exquisite moment when she gets to let go.

Recently we put her in bed without a nappy, knowing she wouldn't fall asleep for over an hour and we would be checking on her before then so could put nappy on later (& hopefully she'd get too uncomfortable, would really just go use the toilet, and not be in such a wet nappy in the morning). Within a minute of lying down she flooded the bed. DH was livid. This was AFTER she said she had been for a last wee. It's obviously one of her big comfort habits in life. She probably looks forward to it all day (sigh).

I used to think that using cloth nappies made this behaviour worse because she really got to enjoy the warm wet nappy. Now I think she just enjoys weeing while lying in bed, daringly, illicitly away from a toilet, so disp or cloth makes little difference.

I would just leave her in a nappy at night. It all sounds like the situation needs diffusing a bit. If your dh is getting livid at her and you think she's doing it deliberately and possibly feeling a bit resentful to her, I can see it could possibly become something of an issue for your dd. It might help to take a step back for a while. One of mine was 8+ before getting some control at night and even then there were 'accidents' at times. I couldn't begin to hazard a guess at whether your dd is doing this because she wants to or because she can't help it. Either way I would think that she will stop when she is ready.