How to start toilet training at night?

[Skyblue81]

Hi all,

I have boy-girl twins, aged 3.5 years. They are fully toilet trained in the day and never have accidents. However they are still in nappies at night. Both of their nappies are very wet and full of wee in the mornings.

I'm not sure if I should start trying to get them out of night-time nappies or not yet? Is it time, or too early?

I think if I talked to them and asked them to get up for a wee in the night, they would do it, but I also expect there would be some accidents as they begin to get used to waking up for a wee.

What do I use for the transition period - pull up drynite pants?

Any advice on how to transition my twins from nappies at night to using the toilet much appreciated!

[Saltedcaramellove]

I may not be too helpful and only have experience of one child but my 3 year old told me she didn't want to wear nappies to bed anymore after her baby sister was born. I think she began thinking that nappies were for babies and decided she didn't want them anymore. She had been dry in the day for 1.5 years but her nappies were always very wet overnight.

I didn't feel it would be right for me to force her to wear one so I went along with it. I explained to her that she might do a wee in her bed while she was sleeping and I also told her that I would take her to the toilet in the night.

To begin with, I lifted her at 10pm and 3.00am. There were accidents, lots of accidents. Lots of changing covers and sheets in the night. I stuck with it, she also wanted to stick with it. shes now dry overnight, every night. I only lift her at 10pm and I'm hoping to stop that over the coming months.

Good luck. They'll get there. Patience is key and making no fuss of the clean ups after the accident. In my experience, the kids can be quite upset by the accidents so praise them for trying, even if it doesn't go to plan :)

[FusionChefGeoff]

Unless they're asking, I'd stick with the nappies if I were you. DS is 4.5 and shows no sign of being dry overnight yet. He grew out of normal nappies so now has the Pyjama Pants instead and, until they are dry in the morning or until he says he wants to stop, I'm not doing anything.

Apparently, it's about a hormone which needs to be 'switched on' that dramatically reduces urine production overnight. This comes with age but can't be trained at all.

[DubiousCredentials]

You can't night train. Wait until you've had a week or two of dry nappies in the morn then give it a go. Just not worth the hassle and washing before they're ready.

[FaithAgain]

We went through this with DD who is about to turn 4. She picked up potty training very quickly at 2y 8m (once she decided she wanted to!) but needed pull ups until about 4 weeks ago. After she'd been dry 13/14 nights, we tried her without a pull up. It's been hit and miss - I'll stir her at bed time to see if she needs to go - but she's finally cracked it. We had a few wet beds and more recently, little wees in pants when she's stirred as she's realised she's weed. Then we had a couple of weeks when she woke me every night to go to the loo 😴 but now she's sleeping through most nights.

I really do think it just takes time. This is more about being physically ready than the psychological element of day time training. Like Fusion, I'd wait until they say they don't want pull ups at bed time and are frequently dry overnight before tackling this.

[MaryPoppinsPenguins]

I waited until DD was about 4... she was waking up with a dry nappy everyday so I just stopped putting them on her.

[Dannygirl]

Agree with PPs wait till their nappies are dry in the morning and they want to try without - no rush at all