My daughter is very beautiful, independent, intelligent and has brat tendancies (my fault) but what concerns me is the fact that she has been potty trained for two years and still has to wear a pull up at night because she pees on herself. I have tried the making sure she doesn't drink anything a couple of hours prior to bed, the making sure she uses the potty before bed, I've talked to her, videos, books and at what point I even removed the pull-ups and was waking her up every two or three hours to take her to the bathroom. But the lack of sleep (Im a single working mom of 3) was starting to get to me and out of fustration I was starting to yell at her every time she had an accident. I felt so bad so I decided to go back to pull-ups. I'm starting to think I may have to take her to her doctor.
I would just leave her alone and put a pull-up on her. Kids don't potty train at night. It is something that they have to grow out of. Both my husband and I wore diapers at night at 4 years old. It isn't uncommon. Don't stress her out. She will outgrow this. It is a lot more common that you think.
I agree with Liz. My son is 4 and is still in a pull-up. He is just a heavy sleeper. His twin brother? Totally trained for the last year. They are just different. My pediatrician said that kids tend to outgrow it around age 5, and they don't really worry until 7.
As others have said, it's totally normal! My daughter will be 6 in March and is still wetting the bed about 25% of the time. It's not their fault so it's best to just go back to the pull up and when she keeps it dry for a week straight then try without it. Good luck!
Night-time dryness.... is not attained until even 7 years old... and this is normal. And per our Pediatrician.
Our daughter, was fully potty trained at 2 years old. She was 5 when she was able to stay dry all night without accidents. BUT, there are still some accidents here and there... and if she sleeps very deeply.
She even had a dream once that she WAS on the toilet, until she felt herself wet. We just laughed about it.
When my daughter has accidents, we don't use "methods" to get her to stop... she just changes her jammies, washes off and back to bed. I used a water-proof bed pad under her to make clean up easier for ME.
Its all biological.
Daytime dryness potty training is SEPARATE from Night-time dryness. 2 DIFFERENT time-lines.
MANY MANY Kindergarten children also have accidents, as does even older kids. Its all normal... even my daughter's Teachers have said that. But the parents won't go around announcing that their child wears night-time diapers.
BUT it is normal. Some 7 year olds still may have accidents too.
My daughter is now 7. She's accident free 98-100% of the time. BUT, once in a blue moon, an accident may occur. No biggie. Scolding/lecturing/punishing/withholding/rewarding her for it, to me... is not applicable. It is a BIOLOGICAL occurrence. She does not do it on purpose... nor do we wake her up during the night just to pee. But on my end, I just use the water-proof bed pads (which you can get on Amazon), and it is no hassle for me, because all I have to do is wash the bedpad and not the entire bedding. Then I have like 4 of them that I rotate and then just switch them out as needed.
Your daughter is normal.
If they get stressed about it...it may even make it worse.... and they will get hang ups.
I made my daughters life heall on earth due to her wetting the bed.
She is 30 now and I can say truthfully we went through every thing people recommended. No fluids after 8pm, none after 6pm, none after 5 then after 4. The poor child was getting so dehydrated she couldn't poop. Nothing worked, back then pull ups didn't exist. I can't tell you how many times I had to wash sheets and dry out mattresses. I did the waking her up too, all that does is make eveyone tired.
Children body parts develop at different rates. Her bladder/UT parts just aren't developed yet. If you have the means to take her to a Urologist and have her checked then do so, they might find something and they mgiht just put your mind to rest. Be sure and monitor her bowel movemnets before because they think constipation is a big reason kids pee the bed, the pressure on the bladder from the full insides....
My grand daughter that is 6 occassionaly has a dry night and she makes a big deal out of it. My grandson, now 11, still has accidents, his Urologist says he's still developing the signal between the full bladder and the part of the brain that wakes a person up to go.
I can honestly say the problem is "yours" and not hers. I say keep the pull ups and your sanity (lack of sleep drives me crazy).
I recommend the night time pull-ups that have the Disney Princesses on them. The package is a dark burgandy/maroon...K can pee several times in them several times throughout the night and there are no leaks. We just use several wipes in the morning to clean the area and it's off to school. We don't have time for morning baths.
This is very often caused by a misalignment of the third lumbar vertebra. The nerve which exits here goes directly to the muscle which controls the bladder sphinter. When this nerve is not working at 100% it is easy for the child to have accidents at night. I had a 10 y/o boy who's mother brought him to my office for headaches, all he cared about was that he couldn't have sleepovers because he was afraid of wetting the bed, at 10 years old. We found a misalignment in his low back and very quickly corrected the problem. We also got rid of his headaches. I have before and after x-rays of this patient which clearly show the misalignment and correction. The mother and boy have allowed me to use these as examples so others may not suffer the same fate. For more infromation see my website mccollumwellnesscenter.com or [email protected]
Stop...let her be and check in with the pediatrician. This is not unusual by ANY means for her age. Disrupting her sleep is only going to cause her to be cranky and lower her immune system. Besides, she obviously doesn't have to go when you are waking her up.
It sounds to me like she is either a deep sleeper and is not aware of her body yet - not uncommon. Or she may have something along the medical lines going on... There may even be some background stress in there as well. When she has 'dry' nights, then consider trying again.
But to yell at her is over extreme.
All children are different. They fully potty-train when they are good and ready on all levels. Give her the positive attention she deserves, and let this one be for a while until her next well-child. For this one, I see no reason to rush her in. This truly sounds like you wanting to push her out of this stage before she is really ready.
EDIT: and I don't care for the chiropractor leaving his two cents behind. You can't diagnose everyone based on one person. And sorry, but Chiropractic is not the answer to everything.
Regarding 'pull-ups' at night. For my son, he was in preschool and we used these and then switched to good-nights underwear. For us, the diapers offered much lint to get caught around my son's penis. (sorry, I'm blunt.). This caused much irritation, even tho he received frequent washings ~ I also use natural products, so that was not the cause.
In my honest opinion, all doctors are going to have something different to say, but here's what I found... My son would surprise us once in a while by getting up in the night to go potty. If you use a diaper - guess what? Yup - the diaper is strapped whereas the pull-up can come down like underpants. Funny how someone's doctor doesn't think of this.
It is very common to be in a pull-up at night at that age. I have a daughter who turns 4 next week. She wears a pull-up to bed. Sometimes she wakes up dry sometimes not.
Please don't yell at your daughter. It is not her fault that she has night-time accidents. Her body is still maturing and she is not able to A)make it all night and B) realize when she needs to go during the night. It will come in time as her body matures. Have her wear a pull-up and leave it at that. You are causing yourself much unnecessary stress!!
So, I guess you got the message not to yell anymore. What's done is done. You can't do anything about it now. You live, do your best and you learn. Try not to waste time feeling guilty about it. Not many know what it's like to be a sleepless single working mom of three.
anyway, someone posted the same question earlier today or yesterday about a 4yo girl. You may want to search for that post to see the other answers. I responded with the following.
My daughter was trained through the night for about a month between 3-4 yo. We went away for the weekend and she started peeing in her sleeping bag. We went back to pull-ups and kept trying to train her but to no avail. At her annual appts., the doctor just kept telling me that she wasn't ready. (This didn't make any sense since she had been trained for a month.) Finally, at 6yo he recommended that we try a wetness alarm. As soon as any liquid touches the alarm, it buzzes to wake the child. Happy to say that it worked in 1-2 weeks!
One more thing: They recommend when the child wets the bed that s/he get out of bed, go to the bathroom, change their underclothes if necessary and put on new sheets. The plan is to make wetting the bed a chore. If the parents change the sheets, etc., it won't matter to the child if s/he continues to pee in bed or not as it's not totally inconveniencing them.
Janet- Boy do I understand your situation and frustration. My son wears Good Nites. I respectfully disagree with putting back in diapers. Enuresis, for the most part, is not something that a kid can help so putting a child back in diapers (affiliated with babies) whether it is punitive or not will be perceived by your darling daughter as being punishment. Honestly, put her back in pull ups, good nites and say good night. With my son he is responsible for the disposal and any mess he makes. He's older than your daughter but he started taking care of it about age 5.
Also, it's important to know that if your daughter was a preemie that this could be the cause. I was told by my pediatrician that there is a higher incidence in preemies.
My son wore pull ups till he was about 41/2. We did the same, cut out drinking a final trip to the bathroom to no avail so I waited it out. Then around that time he had been dry through the night for about 2 weeks. I told him lets give it a shot with out the pull ups. I kept the rubber sheet on the bed for another 3 months just incase and he never had an accident. He is 7 now and had maybe one accident. He can now drink right before he goes to bed and get out of bed to pee before there is an issue. His body just needed to mature just like your daughter does. don't drive yourself nuts. Pull ups till she and YOU are ready.
As most have said, 4 is way too early to have an expectation of holding urine through the night. Most doctors won't even consider it something to start dealing with as an issue until age 6. It is usually genetically and biologically determined depending on the physiology of the individual. Children need to start producing the hormone Vasopressin -- which limits and slows production of urine at night. This hormone begins being produced by the body at different ages, and with it, bladder control at night. Until it kicks in -- there's nothing an individual can do.
Your child appears to have been potty trained at 2 -- which is remarkably early (most are not until 3). As pull-ups are effective, why not let your child develop as she was meant to, and reach her biological milestones when they arrive (you won't be able to rush puberty either -- nor would you most likely want to!). It seems you are equating her lack of control of her bladder (involuntary) with the "brat" tendencies you note she has. Brattiness at this age is normal too -- as a child is asserting her independence. So give your child (and yourself) a break. You've got a huge amount of responsibility with three kids -- but you are making it harder by having expectations that are unwarranted.
Here's some info from Familydoctor.com
Enuresis (Bed-Wetting)
What is enuresis?
Enuresis (say "en-yur-ee-sis") is the medical term for bed-wetting during sleep. Bed-wetting is fairly common and is often just a developmental stage. Bed-wetting is more common among boys than girls.
What causes bed-wetting?
Some of the causes of bed-wetting include the following:
* Genetic factors (it tends to run in families)
* Difficulties waking up from sleep
* Stress
* Slower than normal development of the central nervous system (which reduces the child's ability to stop the bladder from emptying at night)
* Hormonal factors (not enough antidiuretic hormone is produced, which is the hormone that slows urine production at night)
* Urinary tract infections
* Abnormalities in the urethral valves in boys or in the ureter in girls or boys
* Abnormalities in the spinal cord
* A small bladder
Bed-wetting is not a mental or behavior problem. It doesn't happen because the child is too lazy to get out of bed to go to the bathroom.
When do most children achieve bladder control?
Children achieve bladder control at different ages. By the age of 6 years, most children no longer urinate in their sleep. Bed-wetting up to the age of 6 is not unusual, even though it may be frustrating to parents. Treating a child for bed-wetting before the age of 6 is not usually necessary.
I have 3 friends who take their kids to a local pediatric chiropractor, as do I. Myself and 3 of us get amazing results with just the adjustments. My 3.5 year old son wets the bed about 2-3 times a year and it's when his L2 is out of alignment. Then, he gets adjusted and we are good to go. One of my other friends only needed to get her son adjusted once and he's been fine ever since. Another friend gets him adjusted AND has him take a homeopathic remedy called Noctural Enueresis. NONE of us have the problems like we did before getting our kids adjusted.
My son wet the bed until he was 12 years old and I tried everything. What I know is that no child would wet the bed on purpose. I discovered Educational Kinesiology when he was 14 and took him for a few sessions for reading and academic issues. It changed his life and mine, as I went on to get trained. Years latter I learned about stuck infant reflexes and discovered that was why he was wetting the bed. I now do this work to integrate those reflexes. If you want to know more you can email me at [email protected].
I'm sure you know by now NOT to yell at your poor child. You are traumatizing her! The poor thing! My daughter, age 5, is also beautiful, independent, intelligent as are all of her friends and they ALL wear pull-ups at night. I asked friends with girls aged 6-7 and they said it's TOTALLY NORMAL to wear pull-ups at night. DO NOT WAKE UP YOUR CHILD! Would you like to be woken up all night and yelled out when you're exhausted? You were frustrated due to lack of sleep which you yourself chose to wake up. You need to relax about something this since it's normal and NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT. I also have three and I can tell you there are far bigger things to worry about. Let her be. She'll grow out of it in time and go back to sleep.
Relax....she's only 4. I have four children and one of my daughters continued to wet the bed until she was seven. She wore a pull-up for that long. In my travels I'd met parents whose children wet the bed until they were twelve. You are worrying about this way too much, I hope you're not making it an issue for her. Some children's autonomic systems have just not developed to the place where they can wake themselves up. They are in a deep sleep. My research at that time suggested that 8 years was the cut-off and then you needed to seek assistance. Thank God for pull-ups, put her in one and go to sleep. I'm pretty confident that this will resolve itself; my daughter's did. Do talk to your pediatrician at your next visit though and they'll tell you the steps to follow if it continues past a certain age.
so you know yelling doesnt help, but hurts. Why would she not pee if you yell ! ? It scares them but doesnt stop them from doing somethin natural as pee....
She is obviously not ready .... just keep using diaper at night who cares. I have a great pediatrician for my daughter and he says not to worry when they are ready you will know dont push it you will make more damage and be frustrated. :)
make sure to tell your girl you are Sorry for yelling at her and give her big hug !:)
You've gotten plenty of responses but just a vote of confidence for you, some kids just take longer to make that connection. :)
I like the idea of trying the chiropractor, if you can afford that luxury.