Tried to night-time train my nearly 5 year old, ended up with a dry-at-night two year old instead

[Pidge]

Dd1 is almost 5 - was potty trained at 2, but still in nappies at night, and they are sodden every morning. We've had a couple of half hearted attempts before to get her dry at night, but have abandoned them amidst the sopping bedclothes after about one night.

This time we thought we'd give it a more concerted go. Night one was a fiasco - bed at 7pm, went to lift her on to the loo at 10.30pm by which time she'd already wet herself. She weed some more on the loo, then at 3am I woke up and checked her - she was wet again, AND she weed some more on the loo, and then at 5am she was up because she'd wet the bed again!!

Since then we've done 7 more nights - lifting her at 10pm - not quite so disastrous, but she's only been dry in the morning twice.

And tonight she asked if she could go back into nappies, so she has.

Meanwhile my other daughter is 2 years and 2 months and was out of nappies in the day around her birthday ... yup, the title said it ... she came out of nappies at night time this week and has been bone dry every night. No lifting on to the loo. Just dry.

So maybe that's a lesson in 'it'll happen when they're good and ready' .... or have I been feeble and given up too soon on dd1?

have you tried putting potty by the bed so your dd doesnt have so far to go and she may need you to put her on toilet every cpl hours after being put to bed! have you tried limiting the fluid intake before bed? say if she goes bed 7 restict drinks from 5.30pm and toilet her before bed then evey two hours when you go bed if you feel its nessacery put a nappy on her before you go to bed good luck

Thanks for the ideas elsieanjoanne - dd1 hardly has any fluids from about 4pm onwards, just a few mouthfuls of water with supper at 5.30pm. I honestly can't think where all the wee is coming from!

She seems to be able to make it through from 7pm to 10.30pm now, so maybe you're right a good approach would be to continue to put her on the loo then and stick her in a nappy. Then we've got some chance of progressing towards dry nappies in the morning. Not sure dp will like the idea though - he's been in charge of that bit, as she's so deeply asleep he's having to manhandle her out of bed!

She doesn't seem aware at all of when she needs to wee during the night, often she doesn't even wake up when she's done it - just lies in a puddle of soggy pyjamas and keeps on snoozing!

And I really don't think I can face setting the alarm for 2am to put her on the loo myself. Our other daughter is regularly up and about at 5.30am, and we're a bit sleep obsessed.

Pidge...we're having a similar issue with our just turned 5 DS....he was fine and dry most nights from just before his 4th birthday, then he started reception in September and has been soggy ever since, so much so that we've put him in pyjama pants as we were having to change the bed 3 or 4 times a night. He's always knackered after a long day at school and wasn't waking when we took him to the loo.

My HV recemmended that if he isn't awake, then there's little point as he's not learning to wake up when he needs to go by himself. Her advice was to give it some more time (I'm about to have another baby in the next few weeks) as they won;t do anything about it until he's 7 or 8.

The potty by the bed would seem to be the obvious thing, and maybe a sticker chart for a bit of encouragement?

Hmmm - that's interesting daisy. My dd started school in Jan, and she is also exhausted at the end of the day. She's a very very deep sleeper. And left to her own devices she's a solid 12 hour a night girl.

We tried the sticker chart and 'prize after 5 stickers' tactic - she liked the idea but she still wet the bed! My feeling at the moment is that she just isn't ready quite yet.

She doesn't seem that concerned - she knows some of her friends are out of nappies at night, and some still wear them. And fortunately she isn't remotely bothered that little sister age 2 is out of nappies altogether!!!!

I think you're right when you say "it'll happen when they're good and ready". Mine have ranged from just 2y to almost 9y to be dry at night.

Well, there turns out to be an interesting eplilogue to this ....

Having had our fill of wet beds, and on request from dd1 herself, we put her back into nappies at night, and after about a week we found that they were dry, or almost dry every morning. A week later we took her out of nappies at night again - we're lifting her onto the loo at 10pm, and we have had four dry nights in a row ... no accidents (famous last words!).

So I think we must have triggered something with our efforts!

And dd2 (2.2) is still dry every night too.

The joyous prospect of a nappyless pidge household looms.

Until we're crazy enough to go for that 3rd baby!