Night time training a 4 year old

doctorchick

Evening all,

My oldest lad is approaching 5 and starting school this year. He toilet trained himself really quickly and missed out a potty entirely and always wanted the 'big toilet'. However this is just the daytime, he has never really got night times. Now he would never poo of a nighttime unless he was sick but would wet himself three times a night.

We have tried limiting his drinks past 6pm and getting him to bed for 7-7:30 and then waking him an hour later and then just as we go to bed and that will usually result in a dry night, but its not really him that is controlling the situation. When we get him up we do try to wake him and get him to walk to the toilet on his own rather than be carried there and held over the toilet but I think he has now perfected the walk whilst he is still fast asleep. We have now taken to putting night time pull-ups on him and either getting him up or if he is really exhausted just leaving him. I think one of the problems is that when he goes to sleep thats it - you could have a party in his room and he wouldn't stir and so the act of weeing just doesn't wake him and he obviously doesn't feel the urges.

Now there are times when he will get himself up, but these are few and far between. we will always offer up praise when he does get up etc and have tried reward charts etc but it just doesn't seem to have a long term effect.

So I suppose the questions I have is can anyone offer up any suggestions as to getting him into a good nighttime habit or should I just carry on as I am and get him up a couple of times a night. Alternatively should I just resign myself to the fact that he will get it at a later time point and leave him have a good nights sleep with his pull up pants.

Any advice welcome.

Nevyn

I would say keep waking him, while pull ups can be a help they can also be hindrance and as ick as the feeling of wetting the bed it, it can be the stimulus needed to get them to get up and go to the toilet, other wise they get used to just sleeping through the body signally them that they have an over full bladder.

Ickle Magoo

I would leave him with the pull-ups and not say anything and try not to make a big deal of stopping drinks and praise for dry nights because when it's not really working I think that can put a lot of pressure on them. We're friends with a couple of families who have kids that didn't night-train until they were six or seven and in one case, the parent knows they & their siblings were the same really deep sleepers - so some kids just train much later, I think.

If you have been trying the liquid intake limiting and lifting for a while and not seeing any significant improvement, I'd stop for now and try him again in six months or so...

Best of luck.

noby

I agree with Thaedydal.
We have been through this in the past, and will be going through it again in the near future. The advice we got from a local phn was to trian the body into night-time mode: no drinks after six, close curtains, no tv, wind down (read stories perhaps). You can start all this an hour before bedtime. Winding down the body, and brain, like this will help with getting a child to sleep, but will also train the body to recognise night time as opposed to day time. Get him to go to the loo when brushing his teeth, and then again just before he's ready to nod off. You will still have to get him up during the night, but it should come together over time.