Four Yr Old dd in Nappies and Dummy at Night

[Kate161203]

Hi all,

We have a wonderful 4 year old daughter who is really happy and confident.

However we still have her in nappies at night (night routine - toilet after bath/teeth brushing. stopped her night milk recently as she no longer wants it. She sleeps from 7 to 7.)

Her nappy is half full in the morning

Also, once she gets home from Creche she insists on having her dummy which she also uses all night. She will be five in December and will have started school by then.

Any advice on moving her away from all this without being too brutal?

Also is this normal for a 4 1/2 yr old???

Can't help with the dummy, but the nappy isn't something you can do much about.

Night-time dryness can't be trained; there is a hormone which kicks in anytime up until the age of 7 which suppresses urination overnight, and until that happens the child is physically not able to be dry at night. It just takes patience; when she's ready it will happen.

My daughter was over six and a half before she was dry at night ... totally normal.

Not sure there's any such thing as normal. My DS was very attached to dummy (night time and comfort) until 2.5. Removing it was actually much easier than I thought- we went cold turkey and after one dreadful night and a couple of tough ones, he was fine.

As far as night time nappies go - I'm a firm believer that a child will not be dry at night whilst wearing nappies - what I mean is that wetting the bed (i.e. feeling the wet) is what helps them to learn to get up. I don't have any miracle solutions here but my DS (now 3) occassionally wets but is pretty much there now (we did have several weeks of bed changing .)

Oh - and school isn't a problem. At the age of four, one in four children will still be wet at night. At five the number is one in five. She won't be the only one. And it's not something that she will discuss with her classmates anyway!

Night time dryness will come and like Wigwam said there is a hormone that kicks in somewhere usually up until the age of 7 that means they can go all night without a wee. I do have to disagree with the fact that you cannot get a child in nappies dry at night and also why woudl you want to give yourself all the extra weeks of work changing beds at night and all the washing for something that will happen anyway. DD was always in night nappies and never has had an acciddent since she came out of them.

DD is 4 and a half just now and a few weeks ago announced she didn't want her dummy anymore and has not had it since. I never forced the issue but I did mention now and then that when santa came at the end of this year we should maybe put the dummy on the tree for him to take away things like that. I put the seed in her mind that the dummy was not forever and that she was starting school this year getting bigger now. But never actually said that is it NO DUMMY! It did take a month or so but once the seed was sown she came up with the idea herself and I took her out and bought her something just for her something too grown up for her little brother for doing it.

Had that failed the idea was always going to be in her head that at christmas it would be going anyway and I would have gone cold turkey. I wasn't bothered that christmas is so far away she only had her dummy at night or if she was poorly so it wasn't a big deal.

Thanks for the advice and suggestions. She is such a brilliant character and she is aware that she shouldnt really have them - but its habit.

She is aware of how much wee is in her nappy in the morning and is pleased when its not much - so maybe we are turning the corner!

If we get to a stage of dry nappies in the morning then I'll try taking them away - She has mentioned she would like to wear her pjs without a nappy - but I think its pointless if she wets the bed each night.

Re the dummy - She is definitely conscious of it - but wont go to sleep without it and wakes in the night is its not there.

She occasionally tells us that she doent want it anymore and then a couple of hours later cries for it - and I am such a softie and give in.

I will see how it goes and report back!

DD did that for a while re. the dummy saying she didn't want it but asking for it later. That is why I decided to give it a cut off, ok it was nearly a whole year ahead but she kind of got used to the fact that she wasn't going to have it forever and when she gave it up earlier she was so proud of herself because it was all her idea.

DD was also the same with the nappies she was aware of how much was in them in the morning and knew if she was dry. Shortly after she was totally dry at night.

Don't make her feel that she shouldn't have them. She doesn't need to feel this because it's not true.

Being aware of how much wee is in her nappy won't help her be dry - if she is not awake when she wees then what can she do? Dd was always aware that her nappies were completely dripping by the morning, but that didn't help. She hated nappies and would have given anything not to wear them ... but she hated wet beds even more!

Sometimes there is an element of laziness, where a child just can't be bothered to get up and go to the toilet, but it doesn't sound as if your daughter is like that.

When the anti-diuretic hormone kicks in, she won't need to wee in her sleep. Until then, it really is not a problem. She's not even four and a half yet - still very little to be worrying about something like this.

night nappies are "normal" for about 10% of kids until 5 or 6.

In case you're interested in picture books about bedwetting, I've just wrtten one called 'Toby and the Flood' (available Amazon and 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 problem subjects out into the open.