Feeling terribly guilty about this

[SurprisEs]

DD is 2.2 yrs and has been dry during the day since she was about 21/22 months. She hates nappies used to rip them off at about 18 months old. 2 weeks ago she told me she didn't want to wear her pull ups to sleep " I'm too big and don't need it" were her words. She has been dry at night but very rarely but because I didn't want her to feel forced into nappies I let her sleep without. She has wet the bed everyday apart from 2 days and her sleep was affected by it as well as her mood. I told MIL this and she suggested I call the pull ups night time knickers. It worked. No crying about putting them on and she is sleeping through again, behaving better and feeling brighter. But I can't help feeling bad for misleading her into thinking she doesn't have a nappy on. Anyone else been through the same?

I wouldn't do it, not because I think you are being terrible misleading her, but because I think it will make it more difficult for her to become dry at night if she already thinks she is being dry at night.

There are two ways a child can be ready to be out of nappies at night. One is developing the ability to know when the bladder is full in time to wake up and deal with it before it's too late and the other is when they get the hormone that slows down urine production during the night. At sunset, your body releases antidiuretic hormone (arginine vasopressin/AVP). It decreases the breakdown of urine from your kidneys during the night, so that your bladder doesn't get completely full until the morning. This hormone cycle does not exist at birth - most children develop it between two & six, but others can take longer.

She can't be dry at night until she develops one of these things. If it was me I'd start calling them her night nappies without making a big fuss of it and tell her when she's had three dry night nappies in a row you can try ordinary knickers again. However, if she gets really upset let her call them what she wants and just 'run out' of the night knickers when you want to try again.

Chippingin- if I dare call them night time nappies I know she will cry. Not sure why as I have never pressurised her into knickers. I understand what you are saying about her thinking she is dry and therefore not actually achieving dryness but she wasn't trying to go toilet during the night or making progress in the 2 weeks she wore knickers at night. All that was happening was that she wasn't sleeping properly as she would wet and wake up crying. I just wanted her to feel confident again. I tried taking her to te toilet before I went to bed a couple of times, but it seemed to scare her being woken up.

SurpriseEs - then just leave it for now, when she's had a few dry ones in a row, 'run out' of the others and use normal knickers. It's nothing to feel guilty about (misleading her) and it's not worth making a fuss over.

Lifting them only works in that you are emptying the bladder so it will be later (hopefully the next morning) when it's full enough to empty again - it doesn't actually teach them anything or help in any other way and it's been proven to delay being dry at night.