Night nappy leaking for almost four-year-old, soaking pyjamas and duvet

[Sandip01]

Hi all, this isn’t necessarily potty training, my almost 4 year old is fully trained for the day, he still has a nappy in the night as that hormone hasn’t kicked in yet that concentrates his urine for the morning, BUT, the nappy is constantly leaking out, we’ve tried everything we can think of to ensure this doesn’t happen.

1. tried all different sizes of nappies and brands including the plus size ones for more absorbency
2. doubled up nappies
3. tried nappies vs pants
4. currently on very expensive brand peachies which promises to keep them dry
5. tactical wees before bed, sometimes he does two!
6. no water/juice past 6pm

we have a waterproof mat protecting the mattress and sheet which we just wash whenever it does get wet, but the biggest issue is he gets wet as does his pyjamas, but if he’s sleeping on his back, the duvet cover and duvet itself also gets wet which means constant trips to the launderette as it’s too big to wash and dry at home.

when I google this and products I only ever get solutions for protecting the mattress and I wonder doesn’t anyone else have this issue of the duvet and anything on top getting wet? Surely it can’t be me? And also how on earth are my sons nappies getting so soaked and therefore leaking!?

it’s so disruptive for him and me as it disrupts our sleep, but also when we’re on holiday we have to ask them to change all the sheets etc. it’s a nightmare staying over anyone’s house as this will mean their bedding gets wet!

I think you should take him to the GP. This doesn’t sound normal. My 2 year old is dry day and night and even when she was in nappies she never leaked like that.

Could the nappy be too big?
Also I would try more to drink in the day to increase bladder capacity and I know there are mixed feelings on it being helpful for night training but lifting him when you go to bed would decrease the amount of wee going into the nappy so I would be tempted to try it.

Can you use bedsheets rather than duvet? At least you wash them yourself.

Or put an extra blanket or sheet under the duvet so that takes the hit rather than soaking through to the duvet

It can be perfectly normal for children up to age 7 to still need nappies at night. GPs will often only offer help from age 5.

OP, have you looked at the ERIC website? They have some good tips. https://eric.org.uk/advice-for-children-with-night-time-wetting/

My nearly 5y still isn't fully dry at night and can have very heavy morning nappies (well we've moved onto overnight ninjama pants to try but basically the same), so we still havent cracked this. We will try again in the summer holidays. But some of the things we've been told are that you could go to the GP to get checked for diabetes / UTIs. Is he constipated? That can affect nighttime wees. Have you tried a 10/11pm wee? You dont need to fully wake - just when you go to bed see if you can raise him enough for a wee. We also found that DD was waking in the morning and weeing in her nappy rather than getting up and going to the loo - have you been really clear that he must go for a wee as soon as he wakes up?

You could also try a coverless duvet in case that fits more easily in your own washing machine? Something like this from Dunelm? It might help on the laundrette visits.

Good luck - i also find all the washing and laundry to be so frustrating.

What does the GP / health visitor say? The last point "no water/juice past 6pm" I can understand why but it seems a very long time not drinking.

Under the sheet use a kylie which is an absorbent washable incontinence pad and they come in different sizes, if he’s wriggly in bed get a big one. They absorb the wee really quickly and hold it in.
A fleece or teddy bear type duvet cover will protect the duvet slightly or you can get duvet protectors. Or use cover less duvets as they are easier to wash.
Sometimes the kylies are listed as community bed pads or reusable incontinence pads for beds or chairs. There’s various makes available on Amazon.

Yes to more liquid during the day.
Otherwise, you seem yo be doing everything thst is likely to be useful.

Try Amazon for duvet cover protectors - they do exist.

Do a dream wee at 11pm just before you go to bed. Lift out of bed & take to loo or put on potty.

Don’t be so uninformed and ridiculous. Your 2 year old is actually the unusual one here as they clearly were early in producing the right hormone, so before you speak so boldly about the health of someone else’s child, you may want to do some research. Because it is perfectly normal to still not be dry in the night until 7 years old, and day time dryness is not the same as night time, because (as correctly pointed out by the OP), it’s all about the production of a hormone that reduces the quantity of urine produced when we sleep. My 4 year old went from consistently producing the most urine-filled nappies when she slept to being completely bone dry, literally overnight (it was so weird really) - because that was the moment she started producing the hormone. Every night since that first dry nappy, she has been dry. You can’t train night time dryness.

OP, that sounds tough. The only thing I’d suggest is bringing forward when you start reducing fluids. Before my eldest was dry at night, we had to stop anything but little sips of liquid at 4pm. Not ideal, so we made sure she was drinking more earlier in the day to compensate.

Try a wetting alarm? It worked for us.

Nice stealth brag

As someone up thread said, plenty of water during the day. Avoid brown drinks eg ribena, tea after 5pm. Invest in a waterproof duvet (Amazon sell them and they are easier to wipe clean or spray with anti-bac and hang out if you have space to hang washing). Try to get you ds to help with the cleaning but don’t ever shame him for being wet (I’m not suggesting you do but it’s so important that they don’t feel embarrassed or ashamed). I found that the pull-up pants were better than nappies as were more snug and da can remove and dispose in a nappy bag themselves. Keep a window open in the bedroom too, for odours but also fresh air which might help to wake him up when he needs to go to the loo in the night.
it’s also possible to get an alarm that goes off to wake them up when it senses wet to get them in the habit of feeling the wet but he’s very young for this. There are also drugs they can take with synthetic hormones but they didn’t work for my eldest and my youngest dint want them.
Both my ds’s wet regularly until puberty. Some people do and it’s only when it’s happening in your home that you discover it’s incredibly common, especially in boys. Then they grow out of it as hormones change. It very much something that people don’t talk about - other than those whose kids have been dry since they were tiny who manage inadvertently to make it feel like a failure. It’s not, it’s just one of those things.
I went to the health visitor for both of mine and that’s basically the advice they gave me.
Hope it helps OP but I would say that the waterproof duvet is a game changer - plus umbrella sheets, which were great too.

A little bit of wee during the night is normal for some children, but not to the extent that OP describes. It’s worth seeing a dr. 7 years old is very old unless there’s a health condition. 3 years old is fairly normal.

What is the time between the last drink and bedtime? My son is allowed a drink with dinner but nothing after 630pm - bedtime is around 730-8pm and I make him do a last are around that time

if you can’t fit a single duvet in the washing machine I’d change to a blanket for a while

OP ignore the ones saying this isn't "normal". My DS was still wet at night at age 8. I know of others who were the same.
It was very annoying, had spoken to the GP who was useless but I realised he was also a very deep sleeper which is ironic as he was a terrible sleeper as a baby.
He eventually stopped on his own. I just bought the pull up disposable pants which did sometimes leak.
There are small adult ones but they will probably be too big.

Please educate yourself before you share outdated information on MN to a parent asking for help. Your contribution is inaccurate and not helpful. This is a national charity who support bladder health in children and have loads of advice about potty training / night dryness. https://eric.org.uk/advice-for-children-with-night-time-wetting

Sorry it's not very helpful but just to say you are not alone and it's more common in boys.
I would try to get DS up to the toilet later after he had fallen asleep but it was very difficult.

My DS used to wet through his nappies overnight. We bought some nappy inserts (usually used as boosters for washable nappies) made of charcoal or bamboo. We put them inside his nappy and they create an extra, washable, absorbent layer.

What nappies are you using? The only ones that work for my DD are the size 8 Pampers nappies in the blue packet, the pull ups move around far too much! I would definitely try normal tabbed nappies again

The volume of wee seems unusual. Most children are dry by 3, some up to 6. However, bladder health issues are a thing and some older children may need extra help and that’s not a shameful thing.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/grownups/nighttime-potty-training

Wake him up around 10/11ish before you go to bed to do another wee.

The woman who wrote that article is not an expert on potty training or children's bladder health. Neither is she a doctor.

Information from the actual experts:

Bedwetting (nocturnal enuresis) is a medical condition which should be treated in children from age 5. Around 15% of all 7 year olds regularly wet the bed.
...
We all make vasopressin – a special hormone – at night. It tells our kidneys to make less wee while we sleep. Some children don’t yet make enough vasopressin so their kidneys produce lots of dilute wee – too much to fit inside their bladder.

This. We picked our youngest up from bed, carried him to the loo and held him while he sat and wee’d, still half asleep. Did this for ages abd worked really well

We had this issue - DD finally dry at night aged 9. It’s not that unusual - ask any teacher on a residential!
The coverless duvets (we got SilentNight which had really nice space themed pattern) are fab, you can chuck them in the washing machine and they dry really quickly.
I also got an Emma mattress protector and used a reusable mattress continence pad. If I’d known about re-usable nappy inserts I’d have tried those.
The Eric website is really good. We did try the alarm but my DD was completely freaked out by it and it was an expensive mistake!