- Pregnancy
- Baby & Toddler
- Parents
- Getting Pregnant
- Baby Names
- Product Reviews
-
Registry
- Community
-
More
Want a personalized experience?
Download the free app
Toddlers: 24 Months+
Doozieanne
member
Okay to wake DD to pee during the night?
Doozieanne
member
We used the 3 day PT method which worked for day and naps...but night it's hit or miss. She sleeps from about 8:30pm until 6-7am. Sometimes she holds it all night...sometimes she wakes up at 6am crying and wet in bed. I have tried to tell her to get up and go to the bathroom but she doesn't. I am still using undies at night...no pull-ups or diapers. BUT, changing sheets and washing them every day is getting old. Last night we got her out of bed around 11pm to pee and she woke up in the am dry. Do you think that is a bad habit to start? I am trying really hard to not do pull-ups...but maybe I should give in. Thoughts?
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Okay to wake DD to pee during the night?
Wow- I don't have an answer, I'm just super impressed. DD has been PT during the waking hours for about 6 weeks, but I put her in diapers for naps and bedtime. Sometimes she wakes up dry, but most of the time she's either wet or poopie. How do you train during sleep?
ps. your method sounds like it would work....
Well the 3 day PT method suggests if they are having night accidents to wake them up to pee an hour after you put them down for the night and an hour before they normally wake up. BUT, if I wake her up an hour earlier...she'll stay awake. So DH and I normally go to bed around 11:30 or so...so we tried last night to just wake her before we went to bed. She peed...went right back to bed...and woke up dry. I think we'll try it again tonight and see if it works again. Then maybe I will gradually move the time earlier in the night until she can go longer stretches.
I can give you a medical explaination. Most kids will urinate just prior to falling asleep or just as they are waking up. However, the reason kids urinate at night and adults don't is because there is a hormone released by the brain called anti-diuretic hormone. Once the pituitary gland is mature enough we start releasing this hormone during our sleep. This hormone actually stops the production of urine during sleep. In children this gland is immature so they continue to produce urine and inturn wet the bed. For most children the pituaitary gland matures between age 3 to 5, but for some it takes longer. This is why we have 13 year old bed wetters. We actually treat them by giving them an artificial form of the anti0diuretic hormone until their pituitary gland develops.
So in the end, you really can not train you child not to bed wet. You should definitely take them to the potty before bed and first thing in the morning. However, multiple studies have shown that waking a child at night does not stop bed wetting.
With my DD we have bought cloth training pants (Snap-EZ brand I believe). We just tell her we are putting her in her "nighttime underwear". She does not treat them like a diaper. They are waterproof, so we are not washing her sheets everyday (just the training pants). We also bought a large waterproof pad from Target to put over her sheets in case she did leak.
We didn't do the 3 day method, but my daughter was potty trained in 3-4 days and the 4th day she was wearing underwear. We still did pull-ups diaper over night for almost 2 weeks until she wasn't having anymore accidents. For the most part the pull-up or diaper was dry in the morning. At that point, I just put her in underwear overnight. She has had a couple accidents since then. My daughter was 21 months when she was potty trained, and I would say in the last 4 months she has maybe only had 4-5 accidents overnight, which I think is pretty good. She sometimes gets up during the night to pee, sometimes she gets up at 5am to go pee, and sometimes she sleeps until 7:30 before she has to pee.
Can you try limiting liquids before bed? Other than that, I have no suggestions. I don't think I would switch to the pull ups now, just stick it out. Washing sheets everyday sucks, maybe just get a couple extra sets.
I don't have the energy to wake dd up in the middle of the night. Esp b/c I fear she won't go back to bed!
My dd has been pt'd since shortly after her 2nd birthday.
Right now I just put her in a regular diaper at night---one of my ds's size 3's acutally! She isn't usually too wet but sometimes she is really wet and other times she is dry. I make a big deal in the morning when she is dry so she knows that I want her to be dry at night. It's just part of her routine and she even takes her own diaper off in the morning to go to the bathroom when she wakes up!
I don't have the time or energy to be changing sheets every morning!