Night training a nearly 5 year old, help!

[Notoutloud]

My daughter is almost 5. She potty trained really easily at 2.5 and has been reliably dry during the day since then. We didn't attempt night training at the same time, as everything I read online advised to wait for signs of readiness, particularly dry nappies in the morning.

She's getting older and is the only one among friends with similar aged kids still not dry at night. But still wakes up every day with a really full pull-up. She's also recently starting soiling (only a couple of times, and she promises me she doesn't know she's doing it). Can't help worrying that we've done something wrong, or left it too late? What should we have done/be doing?

I've tried restricting fluid after 6pm, multiple wees before bedtime and I put her on the toilet when I go up to bed at around 10/11pm. Even with all this, she's never woken up dry in the morning.

Do I take the pull-ups off and just hope that a few nights of wet sheets wakes her up and makes the connection? Bedwetting alarms? She'll sleep through if her pull-up leaks, so wetness doesn't seem to bother her.

Any words of wisdom would be very much appreciated.

her body simply isnt ready yet.

She is five. Her body is not ready to be dry at night. The soiling however is more of a concern so you may want to see a GP about that for some advice.

Lifting worked for us, both mine were extremely heavy sleepers and wouldn't wake up even if they wet the bed, we night trained at around 4. It's painful for the first week/10 days but worked. We basically used the Oh Crap method, tapering down liquids after dinner then lifting (taking them for a wee while still half asleep). We put them on the loo 2 hours after bedtime, then at intervals until we worked out their wee schedule. There are lots of bed changes the first few days but after about a week they seem to naturally hold it for longer or are more conscious of needing a wee, after 10 days they only needed taking once. We just take our youngest for a wee when we go to bed. We stopped doing this with our eldest when she was 6.

There is a hormonal element to being able to hold wee overnight but lifting did work for us, I don't know how long they would have been in nappies for if we had let it happen naturally.

You can’t night train - she is asleep and has no control over her actions. She will go dry in the night eventually, my son was 6 and he wasn’t the only one in his class. See the GP about the soiling.

For the soiling, could she be constipated/holding it in during the day maybe?

Or not enough fluids?

There’s no such thing as night training. Trying to force something they aren’t physically ready for is just setting them for emotional stress.

She needs to produce Vassopressin (sp?) - she isn’t yet. Until she is she will be wet. Simples.

I think if she's not waking up dry despite your best efforts to help her it might be down to her hormones. Could you make an appointment with your GP? Maybe they could make a referral to kids urology. Keep going, it will happen eventually!

She isn't producing the hormone vasopressin which supresses urine production at night so the bladder doesn't get full and therefore need emptying. Because this is still a taboo subject people don't talk about it and so people don't realise how common it is.

Brilliant advice on here https://eric.org.uk/ and Ds was finall dry at night consistently aged 10 in year 6.

She is 5. It is normal for some 5 years to still be wet at night.

My own 5 year old is not reliably dry at night. Doing stuff that causes her stress makes it worse.

The reason I know it isn't an issue that doesn't have to be looked at in kids without a known disability until they are over 7 is because I have lots of family and friends' children who became consistently dry at night anytime between 3 and 7.

In my view it’s not as simple as wait for the hormone, I think it’s a bit of this and a bit of behavioural. I say this because of using a night alarm with DD when she was 6, and how quickly it worked. Like you I waited for the dry nappies but had to do something as she was beginning to leak out of pull ups, and she was starting to be upset about it.

Got an alarm on Amazon for £40, slept beside her on a mattress. For several days she didn’t wake at all when alarm went off. Then gradually she started to wake as it was happening and stop the flow, then she started waking herself when she needed. So I think this is the behavioural part that can be trained - the alarms teach the body to wake to the full bladder signal and not just let go.

She clearly didn’t make the hormone for a long while after as she needed to get up to pee every single night - so on that I agree it can’t be trained. But we were all much happier with this set up. I will use it again on my 5yr old who is the same - will wait for a holiday or time when I can face the disrupted sleep for a couple weeks.

It really isn’t unusual though - maybe in your friendship group but searching threads here will show you how common it is at that age.

Stop comparing to other kids... She's not ready so please chill out over it for next two years.

My DD is the same age and day trained at about the same time as yours. I'd stop worrying about it if I were you. Doctors don't worry until they're 7 at least. We've not made a big deal out of it with DD. She's not fussed, she just knows her body isn't ready yet. I (and she) have no idea about any of her friends because we've treated it as such a non-event that we don't discuss it.

We went to the GP to rule out anything physical and the continence team recommended an alarm. I was hugely skeptical, convinced it was hormones, and almost embarrassed at how quickly it worked! Having been exactly the same as your daughter (huge nappies, not waking up for leaks etc) I was so sure it was going to be more difficult but the alarm worked within about a week and we've never had any problems since.

I'd give it a try if I were you - we did it a lot earlier with my younger child and had the same results minus the additional couple of years of nappies etc.

Is she a very deep sleeper? Have you ever tried her in just pants at night? None of mine were dry at night before I put them in pants, I put a potty beside their beds and if they needed a wee then they woke up to pee in the potty. I wasn't going to wait for them to be dry at night as I often still wake to wee at night.

Thank you all so much for your responses - a bit of a mixed bag, but all very reassuring.

Re the wetting: I'll give it a bit longer and see if there's any natural improvement. Grateful for the endorsements for alarms though - I'll definitely give it a go if/when we get to that stage. In the meantime, I'll take on board the advice to chill out a bit!

Re the soiling: she isn't constipated and drinks well during the day. I think I will mention it to the GP though. I'm almost more concerned that she isn't bothered about it?! For a kid who's been out of nappies almost as long as she was in them, I'd have expected it to upset or bother her.

OP ask your child is there any issues with the school toilets e.g. are they clean, can she reach them, is their loo roll, is there soap.

It maybe while they having poo issues at night.

My DC is 5.5 and wakes with massive wet pull ups every morning still too. We tried her a few times in the summer without any pull ups and she was just waking up absolutely soaked every morning and was also soaked when we checked her before we went to bed. She was fast asleep and had absolutely no idea she'd wet herself. She's a pretty heavy sleeper. Very occasionally she will wake in the night and go to the toilet, this is usually if there has been some noise or something which has disturbed her enough to wake her. She was finding the experience of being soaked with wee very upsetting when we tried her without pull ups. Otherwise she is not bothered by wearing them. I spoke to the GP, they advised they wouldn't be looking to do referrals or anything until about the age of 7 and just suggested I leave it for a bit and then try again for a good run of a week or so a bit later. So I'm planning to do that in the half term and see how it goes. I'm not optimistic but you never know. But I don't want her to be upset or to make a big thing about it which the GP stressed to me as well.

What age were you and her dad when you stopped wetting the bed? Often bedwetting is genetic, if one of a child’s parents wet the bed into childhood it’s more likely the child will too. If she’s not ready yet then you can’t really ‘train’ being dry at night.