night training - how many accidents should I expect

[elliott]

OK I'm sorry to create yet another thread on night training....
I am thinking the time may have come for ds1 (he's 3.5). In the last 10 days or so he's only had about 2 wet pullups in the morning and has frequently got up and used the potty in his room during the night. He also seems keen to try without his pull-ups.
I'm dreading it however! I found potty training v stressful and don't think it was my finest parenting hour(!) and I know I won't cope well with wet beds in the middle of the night. I don't know if it would be better to leave it a while (and maybe he'll be more reliable if he's older) or whether I should grasp the opportunity now. Presumably some rate of accidents is inevitable, but what is a realistic expectation? I found with potty training we had good phases and relapses for ages and ages (and in fact the relapses still occasionally happen) and I really don't want to go through that with the night training....

I think the eurenisis(sp) website suggested 2 wet nights a week was a good cut-off point between bed pants or not.

Would say you are there or there abouts on that basis.

We've just finally got DS(newly 5) dry. First weeks was probably 3-4 wet beds, week after 2 then has only had wet beds 3 times in the past 8 weeks or so.

We started with a treat for every night he was dry then a small toy for 7 dry nights in a row, then a big toy when he did 14 nights in a row. We tracked this using a sticker chart where he got a start sticker for a dry night and a boat sticker for a wet night. Didn't want to be too pushy and only give him stickers for dry nights

Good luck

thanks soapbox. it does all seem to have turned a corner in the last week or so (previously we were getting occasional dry nappies) but eeek, the thought of 2 wet nights a week on a regular basis just sounds grim....we'd never get the sheets turned round in time! And I'm aware he's still relatively young (think I did potty training a little bit too early). hmmmm. I think I have to decide how long to try it for - I guess 2-3 weeks should be enough to see if there is improvement?

Eliott - we use a waterproof pad think that goes on top of the sheet - if he wet we just whisked that off changed his pjs and popped him straight back into bed. In case he wet again we had a normal waterproof cover for the mattress but he never did wet more than once a night.

You can get a similar thing from pampers which are disposable, most supermarkets and boots sell them. It says on teh packet to put them under the top sheet but I've used them when away from home and just put them on top of the sheet and thrown them away if they get wet. The have long sides on them so you can tuck them in to keep them secure.

They were quite pricey though so better for occaisional use!

I think the waterproof pad thing was definately worth the £15 we spent on it!

thanks again. I do use the pampers mats under his sheet at the moment (we have had occasional leaks from his pullups) but only tried them on top of the sheet once - he wriggles so much that it just became a screwed up mess! So maybe I should invest in a washable pad

I never had a wet bed with either of mine - dd trained at 2, and ds at 2.5. ds was actually an accident - I forgot to put the nappy on one night and he's been dry since. dd was having wet nappies, but only slightly, and we just risked it. I never bothered wiht waterproof sheets or anything neither. So maybe see how it goes, it might not be as bad as you think.

You have to let them learn to be dry.... and it sounds like hes ready to try so if i were you go for it!

If hes a 'wriggler' i find the washable bed pads move even more than the pampers bed mats!

Can i suggest you do waterprrof sheet, cotton sheet, bed mat, cotton sheet....

so then you just 'whip off' wet sheet and wet mat and are left with a dry sheet and waterproof undersheet just in case! *as suggested before

alternativly you could jeust get a couple of terrysheets with a water proof back and put one on top of the other, and just whip off the top wet one if it gets wet!

Dont be cross with him if hes wet... he HAS to learn!

My 4.5 year old charge (boy) stopped wearing his pull ups around febuary time... the 1st 3 nights he was dry, and then had a few consecutive nights of accidents...

they seem to have got mreo and more infrequent and in the past 4 weeks we have only had 1 accidnet... he was occasioanly waking up with a dry pull up (maybe twice a week max) but HE WANTED to give it a go... so mummy let him (half expecting after a week or 2 to go back to pull ups... but no hes been succesful 1st time!)

Good luck!

thanks. We started on Friday night - when he wet sometime in the middle of the night. Saturday was dry but he slept really badly - up calling from us two or three times I think, maybe he was anxious about it - then last night he slept really well, we didn't hear from him till after 6.30 and there was a nice big wee in the potty!
I'm fully armed with waterproof sheets, pads etc but so far the bed mat on the top has worked ok.
here's hoping it keeps goign well....
I think he is very pleased with himself

calling 'for' us, sorry....

Oooh! That sounds very promising elliot!

Think I ma be joining you with the night training. DD is 3y 2m and has been dry during the day since being just 2yo. She went through a stage of being dry in a morning almost all the time. Since having chicken pox this has gone backwards a bit, but I am pretty sure it is laziness in a morning and/or before she falls asleep. She wears Bedwetters and she is treating them as an excuse not to use a potty.toilet, I know that. And she has started to get a sore bottom as a result - first time ever she has suffered from any form of nappy rash.

I have ordered a reward board and some gold coins, as an incentive too.

DD had her potty in her room last night and did use it when she woke up for water. I did chicken out and put her bedwetters on in the night. She woke thirsty and had a massive drink of water (not unusual for her int he night, but not sure how to stop it). But she woke dry this morning So she gets her first treat

Good luck!

we have just nt trained ds age 3yrs4mths, wasn't even having dry nappies in a morning, now going for about 5 weeks and have only had one wet bed in the last 10 nights. We do however lift him at about 10.30pm (he has got to the point of not hardly waking when we do this - I do not know if this is a good or bad thing?)

We use the pampers mats ontop of the sheet-used two at first and only one was getting wet but the other was there for the wriggles! Didn;t bother with star charts or rewards and touch wood appears to be working-we did however go camping at the weekend and resorted to pull ups and thankfully he was dry in them and the minute he woke he asked for the potty!

Good luck

quick update - only one more accident since we started. Its become apparent though that he needs to get up for a wee sometime in the middle of the night - clearly isn't making it anything like all the way through the night. Is this usual? I suppose I worry that any night he sleeps particularly heavily he will have an accident. It always seems to wake him up though...

Elliott - we lifted DS when we went up to bed each night when we first started.

His bladder seems better able to cope (3 months later) and we don't lift him any more.

We do limit his bed time drink to just half a cup now, so I think that helps too!

yep, I'm going to phase out the bedtime milk soon I think- but will need to do it for ds2 at the same time and he's only 18 months.
I'm not sure about lifting him, though I think it would probably do the trick. He's not the world's greatest sleeper - it doesn't take much to spark off a run of broken nights. And sometimes he wakes around 11 anyway and gets in a bit of a state. at the moment when he goes to the potty in the night he doesn't disturb us, so I'm tempted to let sleeping dogs (and ds1's) lie!)

I have to say I've never understood the point of "lifting" - particularly if they don't wake up. IMHO, it doesn't seem to teach them, just avoids the issue iyswim.

Elliot, I've not read the other posts but with ds1, he just got to his 4th birthday and said 'silly Daddy, he's put a nappy on me and I don't need a nappy now I'm 4' (he had pull-ups on at night). Took it off, not a single accident has been had

His pull-ups were not dry in the mornings either and we didn't bother with the lifting. We just thought we'd try it and see how it goes and luckily it was very easy.

You may find this too! Does your ds have good bladder control anyway? Ds1 did and could always hold it in the car till we could stop etc so in a way I wasn't surprised he had no night accidents. Once he was potty trained he didn't have accidents either.

I hope you don't think I'm being smug about this! It's only ds1 and I've got ds2 and ds3 to go yet - might not be so easy! Just trying to say, don't worry about it and just give it a go - you may be surprised how easy it is! Good luck!

thanks gdg. Actually ds1 is NOT particularly reliable - haven't worked out whether he has poor control or poor motivation, but whatever, we still have occasional relapses/accidents during the day. That's why I have been dreading night training.
but so far so good.....not at bad as I had feared. But because day training was such a drawn out process, I'm not going to feel smug yet!

Update for my DD:

Sunday night - dry = rewards with small treat from toy shop
Monday night - wet
Tuesday night - dry = rewarded with star (for reard chart) and a big "reward" coin
Wednesday night - dry = rewarded with star and a big "reward" coin

We have been waking her gently when we go to bed so she can go for a wee. I know she struggles all the way through the night otherwise - she drinks so much during the night. I tried to withhold her water by her bed, but she was very upset. Easier to get her to go again around 10:30pm ish instead.

She really likes her reward chart and coins. She knows that this time when she has 4 coins, she can trade them in for a special treat. I will then up the target for her.

oh what a slack mum I am - ds1 just gets a 'well done' and a chocolate at tea time if he's been dry! (maybe that's why ds1 lacks motivation - insufficient rewards!)

Well I don't think this is workign really
Its all getting a bit hazy but the record so far is:
First week 4 wet nights out of 7
Second week:
Friday: can't remember , i think it was a good night, dry and had used the potty
Saturday: 'lifted' at bedtime, dry
Sunday: woke in the night, prompted to use potty, dry
Monday: DH claims dry (I was away) but pyjamas stunk of wee so I'm not so sure...
Tuesday: wet
We seem to be goign backwards - nights that he keeps himself dry are getting fewer.
I have to say I am not surprised as this mirrors his daytime trainign pattern - he is still having occasional accidents long after I know it is not a physical capability issue.
However, I really can't tolerate disturbed nights at this frequency - takes me ages to get back to sleep after changing him. Lifting would probably solve the problem, in that there would be no wet beds, but it means he's not really learning to respond to his body. So-
How long is it reasonable to wait to see if things improve?
If they don't, should I resort to lifting or just go back to pull-ups?

I am instituting a more structured reward system (for days and nights) - where he has to collect 5 pieces of pasta to get a present. Maybe that will help.

I did the lifting thing with dd1 for ages, and we didn't have too bad a time - this was a child who took nearly a year to be dry during the day reliably. She still had teh odd accident (once every week or two) once I stopped lifting her, but this seems to have gone (shes now 6) last time was about 3 or 4 months ago. I used the washable pads from boots and they were great I didn't like the plastic ones as they made her sweaty.

DD2 decided she would go dry, and did!!

I would keep going, and keep lifting for the time being. It is hard for them and they hate going 'backwards'

Elliott - I'm not sure if I'm being a bit daft, but from your post as to what he has done this week so far, he has only had one wet night (last night) assuming that your DH was right about Monday.

Thats not going backward is it??

I would definately try lifting before giving up altoghether. Its not a long term thing but just helps them through the initial phase.

I've stopped lifting my DS and he has not had an accident for quite a while now. The nights I forgot to lift him at the beginning would invariably be wet, so he certainly has learned over time to stay dry and lifting definately helped with that.

I think it maybe good to offer a more structured reward system. We gave something quite substantial (£15 toy) for seven dry nights in a row, then something smaller for 14 dry nights in a row. Nothing required now

OK, maybe in my sleep deprived grump I'm being a bit unfair, but basically the only night that he has managed himself in the last week is last Friday (iirc) - apart from that he has either been lifted or been told to go to the potty after he's woken us up for something unrelated. All in all our nights have been more disturbed than not (which I'm afraid is the bottom line.....)
Oh poo. I so didn't want to jump the gun with nights - wanted to wait till he was definitely ready and then it would be easy (wouldn't it?)and I wouldn't be one of those mums up changing sheets every night....
He can definitely manage as long as he has one wee in the night. The problem is whether he wakes up in time and rouses enough to make it to the potty - I've noticed that wet nights tend to be after days when he hasn't had a nap, so presumably is sleeping more deeply. The week before we started (when he was dry all week) he had been having a sleep every day, so presumably was less tired at night.
How long did you need to lift for?

Yes the disturbed nights were pretty grim! Can't work out how I ever managed with a new baby

We lifted for about 6-8 weeks I would say. Not every night, sometime we forgot

Well, we've gone back to pullups for now. It just wasn't happening - in the second week we didn't have a single success of his own accord (i.e. when we didn't prompt him to go in the middle of the night).
He is fine about it though, and we are continuing the rewards for keeping the pullups dry.
We'll just watch again for signs that he is waking up by himself to go for a wee.