4 year old still in pull ups at night?

[Mumanddone]

were on night 3 of trying to get out 4 year old out of pull ups. We just went for it - she always had a pretty soaked nappy on waking. It’s been messing with my sleep and causing loads of arguments in all honesty. Pull ups work but my husband thinks we should be training her at night. For context, DD is 5 end of November and has been potty trained in the day since 2.5 with no issues. Will it happen without intervention?

4 is not old at all for a child to be in nappies at night. My 3 kids all were in nappies until much later, with the youngest only stopping using them at ten. This is unusual but we never fretted as we knew if was a matter of waiting until her hormones kicked in 🙂. You can’t train it so there’s no point stressing yourselves and your child over it.

I have three DC, they were all potty trained in the day time at age 2. Night time dryness came between age 2 and age 7.

Does it say she's at boarding school?

Both my dc were dry at night shortly after age 5. You can’t rush it.

It is hormonal.... You just did it at the right time...

@SenseofPride I assume the chemical is the hormone

I bet many parents never talked about it as openly in the past, but as it can run in families a late bedwetter might have a parent/grandparent who was the same (so have the numbers increased significantly?)

The convenience of modern nappies might also have some impact as not feeling dampness in the same way as old cloth nappies.

For those commenting about school, those running residentials either school, scout groups etc are all well versed in how to deal with this issue (bearing in mind older children may be attending in nappies/incontinence pads due to special needs/health issues who probably wouldn’t have attended such events in the past)

I think it's more likely people are more honest now, partly because of the anonymity of internet forums. Also the massive reduction of shaming in society.

I know my uncle used to wet the bed until he was quite old, because my mum has mentioned it.

The Eric website is super helpful and different to most of the advice here,I just read it as we are at this stage (age 4) and says over 5s can get help but there's a lot you can do to help them learn.im just going to follow the Eric steps and see how that goes!

Young children used to wet the bed and be shamed and punished for it. Lots of verbal abuse and shaming, occasionally physically punished and quite a few accounts of having urine-soaked sheets forced over their heads. Perhaps it would have been better for those children if pull-ups had been available in the past because, guess what, adults don't enjoy frequently changing soiled bedsheets and often take it out on the children, at the very minimum by showing frustration.

This tracks my experience - I wet the bed loads until I was about 7. I desperately didn't want to and found it incredibly shameful and thought I was dirty and naughty (because I was told this). My mother wouldn't have discussed it with anyone she was ashamed of me too. My son actually was out of pull ups at night before 4 and literally never had an accident.

My friends and siblings with similar aged children discussed all this pretty openly and quite a few were still in pull ups at night until 5 or 6. Zero trauma all older and dry at night now.

Much better in my opinion than how it was managed in the 70s/80s!

The average age to be dry at night is 4 so it logically follows that most, although not all, will be dry at age 5. 20% is still a significant number though. It would suggest that at the start of Y1 when all the kids are still 5, 6 out of a class of 30 are still wetting.

Chemical in that context clearly refers to a hormone. It’s called Vassopressin and it causes the kidneys to reasorb more water overnight so you produce less urine. Doctors prescribe it as a medicine called desmopressin for older children that don’t produce enough of the hormone on their own.

I think OP’s mostly had pretty good advice on this thread because when a 4YO isn’t dry at night yet then chances are it is hormonal. Weeing only a few hours after bedtime and dilute urine would also be the other signs. If that’s the case then it just needs time and usually by the time the DC is 5 they’ll be dry without any need for training. Yes absolutely you can also think about habits like limiting drinks before bed, an extra check wee etc. since they’re easy changes to make and will give the DC the best chance of staying dry but those alone aren’t going to do anything if their body just needs more time to produce the hormone.

So patience and pull ups are what she needs right now IMO and then she can revisit other strategies if she’s still here in a year. Kids don’t generally do sleepovers or brownie camp type things until around age 7 so that’s a longgg way off!

@SenseofPride if you have volunteered including overnight stays did you never see the forms sent out which would ask the question about such things as nighttime dryness. We certainly have it in our scouting camp forms. We make it very clear it is nothing to be embarrassed about and we are used to dealing with such issues, and will be handled sensitively. We would rather know than not and then find out the hard way or have a child trying to hide their wet sleeping bag/bedding.

That’s interesting as I also volunteer with young children, ranging from 4-10, including overnight camps and there are pretty much always children who have to wear night pants or pantyliners or have spares with them because they occasionally have accidents, especially being away from home can be a trigger. It’s always handled discreetly by leaders so the others aren’t aware.

As other posters have said, it’s hormonal and not something your dd has control over.

A friend of mine had the same with one of her children, she ended up seeing a gp who gave her some tablets to kick start the hormones , but he was about 11, so a lot older than your dd. I don’t think it’s something you should be overly worrying about at age 4.

My daughter told me herself she didn't want to wear them at night anymore. She was 4.

Let her tell you when she's ready or when she can stay dry at night for 2 weeks

It will happen when she is ready. Its partly hormonal - there's a hormone that helps regulate urine production when sleeping which can still be developing up until 7 years old. It partly environmental e.g. how much they drink later in the evening, routine before bed, toilet routine in the day (regularly going to the toilet and not holding it in apparently helps with night-time wetting)

My eldest took a good year after being dry in the day to be dry consistently at night. He was probably just over 4 maybe nearly 4.5 years old when we stopped pull ups. We still got the odd night every 2 weeks wet for a few months after that.

My youngest was dry in the day at 2.5 years. We probably have half the week with dry pull ups now so I am going to try in the summer holidays. I think she needs a few more weeks to get consistency and build a good toilet before bed routine.

I thought the same reading the comments. My son was potty trained by two and I did night time training at the same time.. I just set an alarm for a couple of times in the night and carried him through to the toilet. He then just started doing it himself.

Agreed. Although given some of the judgemental comments on this thread it's perhaps unsurprising that some parents don't feel comfortable commenting openly on it.

Bedwetting until late in life is not something new at all. But it used to be seen as something shameful, so that explains why you rarely heard about it. Even today, parents are reluctant to discuss it openly for fear of being judged.

I think it also depends on what you count as being dry at night, and what your aim is. I had friends who took kids for midnight wees and it seemed counterproductive to me as my priority was sleep. I didn't want to start a routine where my daughter was having to get in and out of bed during the night because she couldn't last until the morning. She also sleeps very deeply so I don't think we would ever have got to the point where she'd be waking herself up. (She's 7 now and I'm not sure she's ever woken up to wee.)

Agree - I was aiming for mine to go through the night without needing the toilet, not be setting multiple middle of the night alarms and training them to wake up over night which also wakes you as you’re hardly going to roll over and ignore the sounds of a toddler moving around the house. To me that’s totally counterproductive and just not necessary as most kids get there before age 5 without anyone needing to do anything.

I toilet trained DS1 before I knew about the mumsnet orthodoxy that 'it's hormonal', so I think I was vaguely expecting him to start waking up if he needed a wee, which seemed to make sense as the night-time pull-ups you get are designed to feel wet for a while so they notice. Instead, he stopped needing a wee during the night at all. Then I learnt about vasopressin and it all made sense. It was also quite a relief as I wasn't keen to have to teach him to wake up if he wasn't managing it. (Though it took quite some time after taking away the pull-ups for me to be sure that he actually would get up for a wee if he happened to need one).

However, I think this is one of those things that's only partly true - I'm reading the ERIC site in preparation for training DS2, and delayed vasopressin production is only one of the possible causes they mention. Right above that is 'poor arousability', i.e. not waking up when you need a wee, so it looks like I wasn't being totally thick.

Anyway, based on the ERIC guidance, it sounds like for OP's DD it is hormonal (big wees, early in the night), and that the PP who insisted it wasn't hormonal and alarms were the way forward was right in the case of her own DD (and hopefully will be for her DS too - but it's worth considering a change of approach if the alarm doesn't work for him).

Your husband is a silly. Pull-ups until they are reliably dry in the morning. Potty in the bedroom in case the need wakes them - this is a sign of readiness. Why waste your precious sleep trying to force something that will come in its own good time.

My eldest was like this I used to wonder if it would ever happen and everybody said the same to me - it’s hormonal; they get it when they get it. It turned out to be true he just started waking up dry one day and that was it. He hasn’t once wet the bed in his life either despite being very late to be dry through the night - this isn’t a stealth boast btw because his sister was a different story!

Unbelievable that people are setting alarms and dicking about messing with their own and their child's sleep to train nighttime dryness. They will do it when they're ready and the majority of kids are done by age 5. I don't understand why some people feel the need to martyr themselves.