Night time wee - is it ok?

[XXDeannaWsxx]

Hi everyone

my little one will be 3 in June. He has mastered potty training during the day but I think we are struggling a bit at night time.

when we put him to bed, he messes about saying he needs the toilet 2-3 times and to be fair most of the time he does go - sometimes I think he just wants to not go to bed 😂

once he is asleep, he does wake us if he needs the toilet but this can be 3-4 times during the night. He is in a pull up and usually his pull up is slightly wet too.

I want to teach and do the right thing but I think all of us are not getting enough sleep and I really don’t want to confuse him.

is this all part of him learning and eventually he will just learn to be dry at night? Is there stuff to say or do that might help?

thank you in advance x

Becoming dry overnight is due to the development of a hormone in the body, it's not something he can learn, it'll just happen. Could be soon, could still be a couple of years off. My 3 DC have all become dry at wildly different times.

Sorry to hijack the thread. We're about to potty train and I wondered this. Do you just leave them in pull ups through the night until they're dry?

We removed my DD's nighttime nappy when it had been consistently dry in the morning for a few nights in a row. For us this was just after she was daytime trained but I know this can vary wildly. We kept a potty in her room to start off with so she could go in the night without waking us and then removed it when it was empty ib the morning consistently which wasn't long after from memory.

3-4 times is too disruptive for everyone’s sleep. Either he doesn’t really need it, and it’s behavioural because he knows it’s the one thing that always works, like at bedtime. Or he does need it but that means he’s nowhere near ready to be dry at night, which is hormonal and not something he can control. 4 is the average age to be dry at night, so he’s on the younger side, and I would make any noises about getting rid of the pull ups until they’ve had a week of them being dry, with no wakes for the loo overnight either. I’d tell your DS that he doesn’t need to worry about keeping his pull up dry, it’ll happen on its own when his body is ready, and big boys much older than him still wear pull ups to bed. But in case he does need a wee overnight put the potty in his room on a puppy pad and tell him he can use that but he isn’t to wake anyone.

Kids can't 'learn' to be dry overnight ffs, its all to do with hormones.

I read a post like this every week, how are there that many parents not learning about potty training before they start it with their children 🤦🏼‍♀️ pretty much every potty training book/approach explaijs the difference between day/night dryness

Ouch! I don’t think it’s necessarily parents that are to blame so much as the nonsense in the Oh Crap book. It’s a decent method for day training and really popular these days because it works for so many kids. However, in the middle of the useful stuff there’s also a chapter about night training where the author, I have no idea why because she obviously knows her stuff in other areas, is totally unaware that it’s hormonal and tells you to get them up multiple times a night.

Why are you so angry at a mother asking for advice on a parenting forum?

That’s what we’ve done. He was 3 and 3 months when we trained and cracked say pretty quickly. He’s in pull ups at night and he’s dry 5/7 nights. He will wake for a wee sometimes but he’s not there yet. It’s hormonal so it’ll come in time x

I didn’t read any potty training books or follow any approaches. Thank goodness for mumsnet.

@Youcancallmeirrelevant

thank you for your post. I did quite a bit of research for both day and night time potty training.

with the night, we tell him it is ok to wake us which is what it says to do.

im not trying to teach him to be 100% dry - I understand that his body will get there when it’s ready. I was more asking if this is something other people have experienced, is it a phase or if they could be something I could do to help to get the wake ups down to maybe 2 a night.

thanks

@AllThePotatoesAreSinging

Thanks 😊 what age is he now? Are some children toilet trained in the day by day 3 years old, but still in pull ups at night for years to come?

My daughter daytime trained 7 months ago but is still wet every single night. She never wakes to do a wee, even if she naps she often still does a wee in her sleep. She always does a wee before naps and bed and even in the hour she is asleep she's wet. Frustrating but if it's hormonal then there is nothing we can do.

Yes…my daughter day trained just after 2. She’s now 5 and pull ups still wet every single night! Most of her peers are also still in overnight nappies (but all day trained) so I do think it’s quite normal.

OP does he need help using the toilet in the day? Can you tell him to go by himself (maybe in a potty in his room) without disturbing you overnight?

@modgepodge thank you - that is a good idea.
he is still in a cot bed at the minute but we are thinking about moving him to a big boy bed (single bed) in about a month or so.
we are working on him being more independent during the day with the potty.

we were thinking to try to get him more independent during the day and then when we move him to new bed, he has the potty in his room too?

But asking him to wake you up is relying on his body waking him up...which it won't do until it produces the hormones to wake him up and tell him his bladder is full. Ao you're setting him up to fail

He is 3 years and 7 months. Just checked and he was 3 years 4 months when we potty trained.

I would say that night dry might be years later. The night training pants are suitable for age 4-7. NHS says some kids will be dry at 3.5 or 4, and 1 in 5 will still need pull ups at night at 5 - and that’s normal.

@Youcancallmeirrelevant

hi

thank you for your post.

So the thing is he IS waking us up when he does need a wee. He just started doing it so we say to him it’s ok to let us know if he does need to go. We don’t want to ignore him if he calls out for us at night as we don’t want that to confuse anything during the day.

The only issue is he is waking up multiple times a night for a wee.

I guess as he gets older, his bladder will continue to grow and he will be able to go longer so will probably get to fewer toilet visits in the night.

I was just wondering if other parents have gone through something similar and to share experiences.

thanks

If he was producing the hormone he wouldn’t need 3 wakes overnight, he shouldn’t even need 1. And most that aren’t yet dry at night, which is very normal at 3, aren’t waking and are just weeing in their sleep.

I wonder if it’s behavioural and he’s waking for other reasons, and then rather than rolling over and going back to sleep, he’s asking to get up for the loo because you’ve given him the ok to wake you so long as that’s the reason. It could be some combination of either he thinks it’s bad to wet at bedtime because you’ve been planted a seed, or just because he’s learned that it will also get a positive response in a way that general messing about at 3am wouldn’t- what you describe at bed time with the messing about and asking for the toilet 2-3 times when he obviously doesn’t need it also fits with this. I’d just be tempted to tell him it’s ok to wee in his pull up and we don’t get up overnight. He doesn’t sound anywhere near close to dry at night, which is totally fine and normal at his age, so I don’t think you’d be setting him back and 3-4 wakes a night is newborn territory and no good for anyone so my priority would be stopping that. Dry at night will come in time, when his body is ready.

@InTheRainOnATrain

Hi. Thank you for your post.

I think you could be right.

my husband and I have had a chat and will try to give this a go.

it’s so hard. You try to do your best and make the best decisions for your child … I just feel a bit of a rubbish mummy because we might have confused him slightly and I’m scared of making it all worse. 😭

thank you everyone for all your comments, advice and support xx

Absolute nonsense that you’re a rubbish mummy! You’ve done amazing to have him potty trained before 3 and obviously want what’s best. In this case it’s just hormonal and totally out of your hands, so no need to let it mess with sleep IMO! And he sounds like an extremely smart cookie to have figured out it gets away with bedtime silliness like nothing else does 🤣

I think you are doing really well with this and I get it must be hard getting up so much. I’m not sure what the alternative is though, I don’t think it’s a great idea to tell him he should go in a pull up and can’t get up at night. It’s not always as straightforward as being all about producing a hormone then suddenly going through the night.

It won’t be forever and he’s still very young and you are doing great.

Update:

we told our little one a few days ago that we want to try to sleep through the night so could go in his ‘nappy’ (pull up) if he wanted to.

since then there has been little to no messing about before bedtime and during the night he is asleep all night and is only waking up once (around 6.30 am) to say he needs the toilet.

When he tells us we do still take him because I don’t think we want him to fear going to the toilet at bedtime or worry about waking us.

we have been working on him being more independent when going to the toilet during the day.

I think we will see how this continues to go and in about a month, move him to his new room, single bed and put a potty in the room. Then we can say to him if he does need the toilet he can go there by himself

I feel like this plan could work … 😁

Fantastic!

His body is obviously waking him to tell him he needs to go, if he is having a wee on the times he wakes.

I wouldn't go back to telling him to wee in his nappy of a night.

Just pop the potty in his room and ask him to use that, he doesn't need to wake you up, Just use it and go back to sleep.

Try that for a week or do and see how you go.

Sorry, just seen your last update please ignore 🫣🫣