When to stop using Night Nappies ?

[rookiemater]

DS is 3 3/4 hasn't worn day time nappies for about a year and bar over excitement fully toilet trained.

However he still wears nappies at night and these are full each morning. In the evening sometimes once I have put his nappy on he tells me he needs a pee but is quite comfortable doing it in his nappy, doesn't want to take it off and go to the toilet.

I suspect we are never going to have a dry nappy in morning, I still go to the toilet at least once in the night so I'm not holding out for that one.

I have tried bribery, he wants a cabin bed so have said he can have one once trained, and advising that santa will give more toys to big boys who don't wear nappies. So far no joy, quite happy wearing nappy at night. With day time toilet training, he just suddenly decided he didn't want to wear nappies any more. Do we just wait for that to happen or do we need to do something. I must admit I'm not looking forward to broken nights sleep having to change wet sheets. All advice ( unless randomly insulting) welcome.

Am in a similar position with ds,liked your phrase randomly insulting.Sorry I have no advice.

Don't do anything.

Not a problem (medically) unless they are still in nappies at night at 8.

Personally - I (and my friends) have found it easier to night train if they don't drink red/black-currant based juices (at all - not just efore bed) as they stimulate the bladder.

I don't think sleeping children respond to bribary. You could try putting him cloth nappies for night. Motherease do some bedwetter pants which can be used as pull ups.

My ds is still in night nappies at 4.1. He has wee at night in the loo, but still has a full nappy in the morning. I don't give him blackcurrant drinks. He is just not ready at night, and was later to train in the day. Not sure if the two are linked. I will wait until he has a few dry nappies and then stop, no rush really.

If you can keep your calm, and are prepared for some washing, it could be worth trying him without nappies. DD at 3.6 hadn't had a completely dry nappy, but we gave it a go anyway, put a potty in her room, said she could call for us if she needed us to help her, etc. She had a couple of wet beds in the first few weeks, but that was it - I'm fairly sure she was weeing first thing in the morning, either consciously or sub-consciously and without the nappy, again either consciously or sub-consciously, knew she couldn't do that.

But I think you need to be really light-hearted about it, no bribes or punishments, and just go back to nappies if it doesn't work out, because it's in no way a child's fault if it doesn't.

Try them on their mid-day nap first. If they are dry then then night-time should not be a problem.

Take them to the lav when you go to bed, and leave a potty in the room.

One drawback is if they get up at 5am for a wee they might not go back to bed - although this is soon sorted with some "encouragement"!

OOh mixed bag of responses there. The idea of the motherease nappies is good, we do have some pull ups and he has leaked through them in the night before so were thinking of swapping from ordinary nappies to those.

DS doesn't have much of a day time nap anymore. If he does then he doesn't get a nappy. GYF DS is up pretty early these days anyway.

Think we will leave it until its not so cold or dark at night.

My four year old boy tried sleeping without a nappy last night - his decision prompted by me forgetting to buy his nightimers and him not wanting to wear one of his baby sister's. He was dry - to my surprise. But trying again tonight so having tempted fate by typing this he is probably doing a wee right at this moment.

I don't think you should wait until you have dry nappies in the morning. Children are VERY aware of when they are wearing a nappy and so far as they are concerned it is just another convenient form of loo. Both mine were out of night nappies at approx 2.6 but we rarely had a dry nappy in the morning prior to that. DD1 - always a full nappy, but I just had a feeling that she was weeing first thing in the morning when she woke so tried her without it and with a potty in the room and she was absolutely fine (a couple of wet beds but no major issues). DD2 - she had a big potty training relapse after DS was born and I put her back into nappies (daytime) for a couple of days. She had HUGE meltdown about this, got over the relapse and then wouldn't let a nappy near her day or night - the screaming and tantrums were more than I could bear and after trying to get a nappy on her when she was asleep and finding it all a complete pain I just left it - and again she was totally fine, despite never having had dry nappies in the morning.

Give it a go. Make the bed up twice (mattress protector then a sheet, then a disposable bed mat (Pampers do these) then another sheet. Have a spare duvet or blankets to hand. If they wet, whip off the top sheet and disposable bed mat and you already have a clean sheet underneath and if necessary change the duvet too (often not necessary). Give it a week. If constant wetting then leave it 2 months then try again. You can't train them really - either they are ready or not - just try it every couple of months and see what happens. Do make sure you are aware of fluid intake - i.e. no juice, squash etc after about 3pm (just water) and give bedtime milk before you go up for the bath rather than just before bed so it has a chance to go through and insist on a final wee before bed.

has anyone tried brollysheets? Am considering them.

we're going back to pull ups tonight after 2 weeks of daily laundry of sheets and duvet cover and duvet and not one dry night, even though I've been getting her up for a wee once or twice in the night. she is nearly 4. AARGH Am going to wait until the summer and can dry the stuff on the line! Just don't have time in my life for that much laundry and tumble drying every day on top of the rest of the family stuff. So that's not much help, but to anyone out there who feels like they've failed, you've got company with me!

Well, I have 3 different experiences of night time training.

Ds1 - potty trained at approx 2.10, but still having daytime accidents till about 4. Came out of night-time nappies just before 5th birthday, which involved us lifting him (largely because ds2 was born, and we really didn't want 3 lots of nappies, as dd was still in nappies at the time). But lots wet beds - maybe twice a week - until about age 6, this has gradually tailed off, now at age 8 he's almost 100% reliable, but doesn't wake to go to the toilet. If he's unwell he might wet the bed, otherwise he's fine.

Dd - potty trained at 2.11, took to it v quickly (took half an hour to do wees(!), poos took 3 months or so). Pull ups soaking until fairly recently, took her out of nighttime pullups about 5 months ago, round about her 6th birthday. We lift her when we go to bed. Has occasional wet beds - maybe once a fortnight?

Ds2 - potty trained at 3.4 - obviously later than the others, but he has a speech delay and it didn't feel possible before then. He took a day to 'get it', and since then hasn't had any accidents - wee or poo. He is also totally self-reliant - takes himself to the potty/toilet and even empties his own potty into the toilet (he is 3.6 now). We realised his night time pull ups were dry, took him out of them around about the same time we did his daytime training, and he hasn't had one wet bed. Not only that but he wakes up to wee in the potty.

So all different experiences. One thing I have that helps is to make sure they drink lots during the day - this expands the bladder capacity and helps it to hold more overnight. But also, don't worry, it's extremely common for children to wear pullups at night till they are 7 or 8, and 7 is considered normal, and they wouldn't refer till 8+.

I stopped putting them on our boys once their night nappies seemed to be dry on a regular basis. But top tip - you really need a good bedwetting mattress protector as back up!

IME you can't train a child to be dry at night. You have to wait for the right hormones to kick in. My son was 7 and a half before he was dry at night. My 6 and 4 year olds are still wet at night.

GrumpyYopungFogey - you are wrong imo. my 4 and 6 year olds were both dry in the day for their naps years ago, still wet at night now.

I would say try it. My DS is 3.2 and he has been out of daytime nappies for a few months now. Last week we realised we had completely run out of nappies (we'd got out of the habit of buying them) and so sat him down and explained he was a big boy blah blah blah. We put his potty in his room.
We've had a couple of wet beds, but on the whole it has been a sucess. Like you mentioned, Ds seemed to be comfortable in a nappy, although he was perfectly capable of waking up to do a wee.
Good luck. I bet it'll be easier than you think.

ChilloHippi - we did the same with DT2. DT1 has been out of night time nappies for about 4 months, but DT2 wasn't ready. Her nappies are usually dry in the morning, and she was getting up to use the loo in the night, but still insisited she needed one. I decided we'd run down the bag of nappies we had and then explain that she didn't really need one any more (told her Sainsbury's had run out too) That was only 5 days ago, but so far so good. She's quite happy without, and is pleased that she's being a "big girl". I'm happy to be nappy-free finally! They're 3.5.

I really expected DS to be in nighttime nappies for a long time yet, so it's good in a way that we forgot to buy some nappies as it forced us to go for it. We'll be buying a new mattress for him in the spring, though!