Should I be doing something about the fact that my 4 year old is still in nappies at night?

[BarbaraVineFan]

I'm a bit confused about whether or not I should be toilet training my DD (4 a couple of weeks ago) at night. She has been reliably dry during the day for over a year now (barring the odd accident). When she was potty training, I read about the hormone that is meant to develop and enable them to be dry at night, and I guess I thought it would have happened by now. Should I be doing anything to encourage her to be dry at night? Or do I just wait until she is ready? She always has a full nappy in the morning, so she is definitely not waking up to wee.

Nope, 4 is still very young and it’s fine for her to still be in nappies at night. One of mine was dry at night age 4 and the other one not til 5.5. Don’t stress you and her out by trying to train her to be dry at night, it will happen in its own good time.

No expert here - just to be clear - but as far as I know being wet at night is not particularly uncommon at this age as you say due to the hormone which plays a part in this supposedly. Wouldn't be overally concerned given is consistently dry during the day. However if you are concerned / unsure then it won't do any harm to speak to someone who can advise further like Health Visitor / GP.

It's fine, my eldest was closer to 5 and this was very common amongst friends DC too. My second was dry at night the same time as she was in the day 2.5 yrs. My third was still in nappies at night age 4.

No it’s fine but just make sure your dc knows when they wake up to go to the loo and not just be lazy and wee in their pull ups like mine used to. I think dc1 was ready before I realised because of this!😄

Totally fine. DS still wears pull ups at night and turned 4 a couple of months ago. He very rarely goes in them but they're a good precaution to protect the bedding!

Same here. I've tried a few times without nappies and some times she's been dry, but other times she would wake up wet around 3 am. She just doesn't wake.

But we've also started to cut back on drinks before bed and encourage going to the toilet first thing.

I wouldn’t be concerned about it just yet. There is medication that they can be put on to encourage the hormone needed but if I remember correctly the gps won’t doing anything until they reach 5.

Do not worry it will happen soon, 2 dc were fine by 3

but I had a heavy sleeper one who drank a lot due to meds, so kept nappy til 5. After that still wet the bed occasionally. I had a system where I had fitted mattress protector then plastic pad and then sheet then on top of those a plastic pad and sheet, 2 layers and when ds wet the bed, she threw off sheet and pad and took of wet pj bottoms and went back to sleep on the sheet underneath. It was a bit princess and the pea but really worked and meant I did not need to get up in the night to change the bedding and rest of family weren’t woken up with lights on etc

No, it's fine. Pretty normal. No rush!

One of mine was 8 and the other 9 before being dry at night. They weren't the only ones in their class at school who were that late either. I wouldn't worry at all at age 4.

Also encourage plenty of fluid in the day. This helps the bladder expand and be more capable of holding fluid that your body naturally produces during the night.

Thank you for asking this. I've also got a 4 year old DD who isn't dry at night (same with the full nappies), and I've been wondering the exact same thing. She had a dry spell for a few weeks shortly after she'd potty trained, and I was wondering if I had missed the boat.

Don't worry about it, it can take much longer. Years. It will happen when it happens.

Mine were 6 (f) 7.5 (m). Gp won’t be interested until 8 as it’s hormonal. Don’t worry about it. Once they decided to go for it, we had maybe 3 accidents and all good. As a secondary teacher, I still have some kids at 15 we make a plan for. It’s fine.

No. It's perfectly normal.

Both of mine were 6 or 7 before they were dry at night, it's something you can't really train

Mine were all older than that before they were dry at night.

in the end, we used an alarm for them. The alarm senses the liquid, and wakes them (and you!) up.

We would quickly change the bed, then back to sleep. They were all reliably dry within 2 weeks of starting.

If you are worried (and you shouldn’t be, yet) have a look at the ERIC website.

My DD wore pull ups at night until she was 6

Thanks everyone. I think I'll stop worrying for a while then!

GP won't be worried until age 7/8

You can't train this one. It's all about the hormone.

My first was toilet trained during the day by 2.5 but not reliably dry until 5.5.

Nothing to worry about at age 4.

My boys are 5 and 6 still need nappies so don't worry

It's completely normal and there is nothing useful to be done re training in a young child. This is one of those areas of folk knowledge that don't seem to be passed on through generations and can cause anxiety as a result. A similar bugbear of mine is around newborn babies and their requirement to suckle frequently to build milk supply or indeed the fact that it is very usual ( and not a failing of the mother) for 6 month old infants to still wake several times at night.
Even in year6 of a normal primary school there are likely to be at least a couple of completely developmentally normal children who are still wet at night. Interventions can be tried from 8 or so if you really want to but the vast majority of children just 'grow out ' of this when certain hormones kick in.

I was so lucky that my DS was basically night dry at the same time as day dry (he wore nappies just in case but they were always dry so we went without after a couple of weeks). Speaking with friends and other random folk (as you seem to do about these things) revealed that there is both a lot of variation in when a child is ready to be toilet trained and between when they are day dry and when they are night dry - it's quite common to take a lot longer to be night dry! A lot of his friends were also day dry at around the same time as him (just after 2) but took much longer to be night dry (well into school age) - this is normal, and not to be worried about too much. Of course keep an eye, reassess every so often, and if he is still wetting at night well into primary school (so 7 or 8 ish) then it might be worth a quick word with your GP (though it still doesn't mean anything is wrong).

I wouldn't worry. I think people intervene too early to be honest. My son was still in nappies at night at 8!! I spoke to a doctor and she said its extremely common and she wouldn't intervene until a child was adolescent. It's all related to a certain hormone that can kick in really young or much later.
So we just waited it out and then some time before he turned 9 he just stopped wetting himself at night.
I didn't want to get in to a situation where we became obsessed with monitoring it and if he wee'd in the night it was treated like a failure or something bad. It's just hormonal and 99% 9f kids will stop well before adolescence.

Wouldn't worry. Whilst you can't exactly train, some things that might help are more fluids during the day, less fluid in the evening, pull-ups for night rather than baby nappies, nightlights on landing and in the bathroom, and (if your DD is a heavy sleeper) taking her to the loo for a dream wee when you go to bed - obviously don't do this if she's going to wake up fully and then not settle back to sleep!