DD 4yrs ready for nappy free at night?

[glowwormish]

I think I might be putting this off because I don't want to be disturbed again at night! DD is nearly 4. Should she be nappy free by now? Mum and MIL think that she is way too old to be wearing a nappy at night. (But always wary of unsolicited advice!)
She always has a full nappy in the morning so I'm sure this means that we will have lots of accidents groan. I have started telling her that she is a big girl now and doesn't need to wear nappies to kind of lay the ground work. Are there signals to watch out for in terms of when she is ready? Or do you just go for it?
Would like to know how to do it and others experiences.

does she wake up at all in the night? Does she wee when she is asleep, or do you get the impression that she wakes up and wees?

I wake up my dd1 and put her on the potty about two hours after she's gone to bed. This keeps her dry the rest of the night and means she doesn't spend the night in a wet nappy.

She only wakes, as far as I'm aware, if she gets caught up in her duvet or seems to have a bad dream (shouting no etc)

some four year olds physically are simply not ready to be dry at night.

I would recommend buying a plastic sheet and trying her without a nappy for three or four nights. Don't put any pressure on her, and don't show any disappointment if she still wets the bed. Don't make a big deal out of it. if she's not dry after three nights or so, I would go back to nappies.

Or you can do what we did with my dd1 as I've described in my previous post.

and always make sure she uses the toilet just before going to bed.

I don't know why people worry about older children still wearing nappies at night. My DD is 5 and she is still in a nappy at night, it is far better than having to change a wet bed every night.

ds always had a wet nappy in the morning, but has just made transition to no nappies with only one wet bed

he was coming up to 5 y o

I was waiting for signs of readiness but none came, so we just tried it - I couldn't believe he just woke up in the night and used the toilet instead of nappy!

recent thread of mine on night lifting in this section may be useful to you

oh agree get proper bed sheet thing and layer with ordinary sheets so you have at least 2 layers of protection

then if you have a wet bed you can just whip one layer of sheet and so on off and go back to bed

My DD is nearly 4. She ALWAYS has a heaving nappy by morning even if we stop all drinks after 5pm. Once stopped them after 3 and it was still the same. She sleeps really heavily and has no idea she has wet the bed. She is still in anppies at night but goes through phases of hating them. I take this as a sign of her being ready to try without and we try...and we get wet bed sheets 3 times a night! If I lift her I usually succeed in waking her out of a bad dream and she screams for about 20 mins and then curls up and sleeps as if nothing has happened.

I have gone back to nappies as I think she is not physiologically ready although I do feel the pressure not to have her in them as so many other mums are always talking about how their little daughters are nappy-free at night.

All I can say is, I'm going to wait as I just don't think she's ready, as much as she wants to be, she's just not.

Like others I thought that a sodden nappy in the morning was a sign that dd wasn't ready to go without at night. However, a thread on here got me thinking as some people advocated that it wasn't necessarily the case. So I planted the seed with dd (4.10) that when we finished the current pack of nappies we tried again without (previous failed attempt around the age of 4) and she decided on the spot that she would go without. She's now been dry for 11 nights.

I think it was a case of her being ready physiologically this time and not the first.

I don't think 4 is too old to be wearing a nappy at night. I was told (and this is backed up by loads of threads on here) that it wouldn't be considered a problem until she was 7 - and that was possible given that I was a late bedwetter.

In case you need picture books about bedwetting, I've just written one called 'Toby and the Flood' (available Amazon ans Play.com). I wrote it because there are very few children's books about bedwetting, and I always found with my own child that using stories can be a good way to bring a problem subject out into the open.

am excactly the same as newburygirl but my dd will be 5 un july

am not bothered, she sleeps so soundly and when it happens am sure it will go well

don't listen to pressure from well meaning relatives, let your wee one develop at their own pace

Am v interested in this thread because my dd (aged 4 + 2m) has just (last night)gone nappy (or rather pull ups) free for the first time. Fortunately, it was a success .
What we did was say to her, once she started asking to go pull-up free (which was only within the last few weeks) was that once she had dry pull-ups for three nights in a row, she could try without them.
Personally I have, and would recommend, going slowly on this one. My three older children were all out of nappies at night much earlier than dd3 but all this meant was lots of agonised lifting them to hold them over the loo late at night and lots and lots of wet beds . None of them were regularly dry until they were 6.

we've done the same, told her 3 dry nights and she can try without but she still has the heaviest nappies in the morning and I would rather have the sleep at the moment

dizzydixies, tbh I was amazed that she was dry this morning. Am hoping it's not just a fluke
You're quite right about wanting the sleep though. I learned that lesson after the torture of trying to have dry nights with my older three. If she starts to wet the bed regularly, it'll be straight back into pull-ups for her.

It's just down to the individual child. Ds1 was 4.3 when he stopped using pull ups at night. We had tried stopping before but he obviously wasn't ready but then decided himself one night. Ds 2 was only 2.5 and he also decided for himself! Unlike ds1, however, he's been dry ever since. He's got the bladder of an elephant that one...