Bed wetting / night training

[Sunnyday14558]

My son is 3.5 and has been out of nappies for almost a year. We started night training a few days ago and I’m looking for advice!

the first night I followed the Oh Crap book and woke him up twice so no accidents. I then read that it’s wrong to wake him up so let him be and we had one accident the second night and two accidents last night. Is this normal?

wondering if anyone has any advice and how long we can expect the bedwetting to continue for? Thank you

I think that probably is normal for kids who aren't quite ready to go through the night yet.

Both my kids were younger when they didn't need to have nappies at night anymore, but I knew they didn't need them because the nappies were consistently dry in the mornings before I tried taking them off.

They'd have the odd accident after that, but it was one every few weeks.

I don't think there really is such a thing as night time training, there's nothing you can really do about it other than wait until they naturally have the bladder control.

But that's just my experience, it might be that others have found another way.

I think 3.5 is so young! Waking them at night seems a little harsh, I imagine a good nights sleep and a pull up nappy is more important at this stage. I know everyone’s approach is different, but I’ve never night trained my kids and let them eventually just stop filling a nappy. Each child is different and does it at different times, I wouldn’t stress it. Google about ‘vasopressin’ it’s just a hormone that comes and does the job by around age 5. Don’t sweat it, it’ll just stress you and your little one out.

Had he been having dry nappies in the morning @Sunnyday14558 ?
You cant really train for nighttime as they need to produce a hormone that reduces urine output overnight and also need to be able to wake with the sensation of a full bladder.

If you take away nappies before they are ready to be dry at night then you are just giving yourself more work washing and drying wet bedding

Wetting at night is considered within the normal range until they are about 7/8 years old. It is controlled by a hormone so can not be trained.

’Lifting’ at night does not help- all it does is artificially makes them dry at night until the hormone kicks in. In fact in some cases it can make it worse by teaching them to wee in their sleep.
out of my three ds , 2 required support from 8years to be dry at night and 1 was dry at night at 3 years.

you can help them be dry at night by cutting out any blackcurrant squash, encouraging lots of drinks in the day and stopping drinks an hour before bed.
however I would stick with pull ups until either the pull up is dry when they wake up or they get to 7/8 years old and you can look at alarms/GP etc

I heard the hormone was a myth? In Oh Crap she says train them before 3.5 or the muscles atrophy and it just gets harder. I’m so confused. I’m not really keen on having him in nappies for the next four years

You can’t potty train at night time, it’s hormonal. They develop a hormone which wakes them up when they need to go to the toilet. Just keep them in pull ups until they’re dry. It can take up until age 7

Each kid is different, my little boy was dry 3 days into potty training in the day at 2 and 3 months. It wasn’t our plan it just happened !

My son is almost 6, I started around the same age as you I think. He would have his last drink around 6pm with his dinner. Usually milk or very weak orange squash and only a small drink.
when I went to bed myself around 10pm I would lift him and pop him on the loo, he wouldn’t even remember in the morning.
he was dry pretty quickly and now he gets himself up sometimes and goes back to bed and again doesn’t even remember in the morning.

It’s not a myth, it’s a fact. Doctors won’t even see children for night time dryness until they’re around 7 as it’s considered normal to not be dry overnight until then. Up to you if you want to carry on trying, but I would personally stick to nappies and have a good night’s sleep!

You cannot night train. The thalamus is responsible for it and it develops in its own time. Waking them will do no harm and it’s nothing to do with muscles. Let your child be a child and stick with the nappies.

I'd leave it a bit until you're getting dry nappies most mornings. My son was like it at 2.5, my daughter took till nearly 5, some kids go until year 2 or 3 at school (6/7), they're all different. All youll do is make him feel bad about wetting when he cant control it anyway. Also try Hygge sheets when you go for it, they are waterproof but nice and they go on top of the kids sheets, so to change the bed you just whip it off and pop a new one on top - no need to change the bed/faff around with a fitted sheet at 3am

You can’t night train. It’s hormonal. 3.5 is young to be out of night nappies, but it’s possible if the hormone is there. If it’s not there then your choice is pull ups or wet beds for potentially some years yet.

My ds1 was dry by 3.5 at night with no effort from us, just woke up with dry pull ups so after a few weeks of that we took them away. My ds2 was on his 5th birthday and that happened by accident (my ex husband forgot to put a pull up on him one night).

Bed wetting alarm worked for us with a few nights. No idea how, it didn't suddenly make a hormone set in I'm sure.
Many years ago, a very kind mumsnetter donated theirs to us.
Mine was about 8 yrs old.

It is normal for wetting at this age and all the way up to pre teen as it is hormone related.
i have had one child that needed medication but the paediatrician wouldn’t consider it until kido was 11.
Just use pull ups for bed and if you have made it a bit of deal with your child then explain in an age appropriate way that sometimes it takes longer.

Each kid is different. You can’t night train. They need to be consistently dry at night for a few weeks before you remove nappies. I have two boys, both day trained at 2 years old. One was dry at night by 2.5 years, the other at 4.5 years. I waited a month of all night nappies to be dry before I removed them, and with the 4.5 yo did a dream wee for 3-4 months after that. The other one wouldn’t dream wee without waking up so I left him be.

I wouldn't bother night time training, it will happen naturally when they start producing the right hormone. The timing varies a lot between children. One of mine was dry overnight at 2.5, the other at 6.

As others have said, you can’t night train. You can help your child develop good habits such as reducing fluid intake in the hour before bed, going for a last wee etc. But taking him to the loo in the night, having regular wet bedding etc is counter productive as it will affect his sleep.

Night time pull ups were used with mine for a good year or two after they were dry in the day. Once we had 10 consecutive days of dry pull ups in the morning, we stopped using them. My dc are teenagers and neither wet the bed, not even once.

Night time wetness is hormone related. It'll happen when it happens you can't train it out.

Thank you this is really helpful. I found the Oh Crap book great for day training but it seems she missed the mark for night training. I’ll check out the Hygge sheets and alarm too. I’m finding he’s getting his duvet wet too. Any advice for that? Running 1-2 duvets through the washing machine and tumble dryer each day is going to get expensive!

I honestly think you are making yourself so much extra work over something that will just naturally happen when it’s the right time. Remember nobody gets any parental awards for an early dry night or a quicker potty train. Don’t stress yourself and your boy out and save your money on gimmicks. People sell these books and products to desperate parents to make money, simple as that! If someone knew the perfect process for making every single child - sleep through the night / wean perfectly / potty train / night time dry etc etc then the nhs would adopt it or there would be one single approved method.

@Sunnyday14558 the hormone is absolutely not a myth "Vasopressin (or Antidiuretic Hormone - ADH) levels increase at night, signaling the kidneys to produce less urine and more concentrated urine, preventing waking to urinate. A lack of sufficient vasopressin, especially in children, leads to the kidneys making too much dilute urine overnight, overwhelming the bladder and potentially causing bedwetting." You can look into night time wetting, lots of medical stuff on it online.

The best place to get any advice is ERIC https://eric.org.uk/

My son was medicated with Desmopressin which is the synthetic version of vasopressin so it confirmed he didn't produce the hormone himself. We followed all the advice from the GP and mainly ERIC website, monitored liquid input and output, alarms etc and he wasn't reliably dry at night until he was 10. We only medicated him for holidays and overnights in hotels but backed up with pull ups. I would not medicate him all the time. I wet the bed as did my Dad. It tends to run in families. Ds was dry in the day at 2 1/2.

You need bedding from incontinence websites, mainly aimed at elderly etc but there are waterproof duvet covers available from Amazon etc. We just had a good system in place to strip the bed if needed but had fully enclosed waterproof protectors on everything.

My DS was day time dry by 2.5 years but not night time until about 4 years. We initially stopped night nappies about 3 years but went though 2-3 months of constant wetting so we reverted back to nappies. We waited until we had a good 2-3 weeks of dry nappies before trying again. He still had the odd night (I'd say once a month) between 4-5 years that he wet the bed.

DD is 3.5 years now. Been out of day time nappies for well over a year but we only get a week max of dry nappies at night before there is an accident again. We tried the start of Sept but still constant wetting at night if not in a nappy.

With DS wearing pants at night seemed to help under his PJs. The accidents seemed to coincide with none pant wearing nights.

The Oh Crap chapter on night training is utter nonsense. The rest of the book is good but that’s where it shows that she doesn’t have a medical background. Of course the hormone is real. A social worker turned author doesn’t have some secret knowledge that paediatricians don’t. She’s just trying to sell books to desperate parents and maybe got lucky that she landed on the right time with her own kids.

You also really don’t need an alarm or waterproof bedsheet recommendations for a 3 and a half year old. It’s controlled by a hormone and the average age for dry at night is 4. Medically it’s not considered late until 7 which is usually when you’d think about some of those measures after discussion with the doctor. It’s not totally true that you can’t train night time dryness and things like limited drinks before bed or double voiding can help but they would need to be producing the hormone for that to be successful. If he’s still doing 2 big wees a night that soak through the duvet it sounds like he isn’t yet, if he were it would be more like small amount right before he wakes up. But that’s normal because he’s only 3 and a half!

Put him back in pull ups, let everyone get a good night’s sleep and reduce the mountain of laundry. Ditch the pull ups when they’ve been dry for a week. Which more likely than not will happen in the next year with you doing absolutely nothing.

Night time pull ups. You are wasting time and money on alarms, washing and drying duvets etc. Plus, you risk disturbing his sleep, which will be counterproductive.

My daughter is 6 and potty trained in the day at 2 (though wasn’t reliable until 3.5/4). She still regularly wets at night. She was desperate to try without nappies and the HV told me to go for it so we have been trying for about 6 weeks. About 50% of nights are dry. The others she doesn’t even wake up when she wees. Quite often wakes up seemingly dry because the accident happened so early in the night and she slept through and her body heat dried it. She regularly manages to wiggle off the waterproof mat and get on to the sheet and yes also the bloody duvet. It’s a nightmare. Wish I’d left her in nappies but she was getting very self conscious of it.