My kids have a double whammy…both my husband and I were night wetters til about 10-12 years old. Our parents never had us using pull ups. We just did a lot of laundry.
Our oldest stopped wetting when he was 11.
Our daughter is 10 and still wets at night.
Our youngest just turned 7 and still wets at night.
They all potty trained by 2 years old with no day time issues.
Night time wetting is entirely different…there is no conscious choice to use the toilet. It is merely left up to the brain to trigger you to wake up. There is a hormone that increases to tell the brain that the bladder is full. The doctors have said that it takes some time for the body to create enough of that hormone…and in my kids’ cases…a LOOOONG time.
Other factors against my kids…my kids are deep sleepers. They were sleeping through the night by 8 weeks old and we trained them to sleep through all kinds of noises. They are also very tall for their age…all close to 100% percentile. We are tall people.
Soooo, with all that against them…they don’t wake up through the night easily no matter if we restrict drinking,wake them up through the night, keep the pull ups off or use a sticker chart. They don’t wake up!
The doctors have told us that we need to not worry about this. It will all happen when their body is ready. Sure enough by age 11 our son started waking up on his own. Halelujah!!! He is 13 now.
Our daughter attended a school sleep away camp this past June. She took her pull ups with her and was able to discretely take care of business.
Soooo, just be patient. It will all happen when your child’s body matures. Talk to your pediatrician…that helped us to better understand this issue and that is wasn’t laziness. You don’t have to use pull ups. As my kids get older…I teach them to do their own laundry. It makes them feel more power over this powerless issue.
Kids don’t “learn” to control wetting during the night, their bodies eventually produce the hormone vasopressin, which slows the production of urine while sleeping, resulting in less pressure on the bladder. That hormone kicks in at different ages, usually between 2-12, though sometimes later or earlier.
Please don’t “LOL” about a kid who looks 12 on a box of pull-ups. LOTS of kids (my own included) deal with not being able to stay dry at night. My 9 1/2 year old daughter wants SO BADLY to not wet the bed. We tried all the tricks years ago, and finally talked to the pediatrician. She is not physically able to control it right now. She has avoided sleepover invitations for years. Last weekend she was invited to sleep at a friend’s house. She wanted to go, but she asked me, with tears in her eyes, “What do I do about the pull-up? Should I bring a bag to tie it up in in the morning, so no one notices?” It made me so sad that she’s embarrassed. She went on the sleepover. The next morning when I was helping her clean out her overnight bag I saw the pull-up, wet, and wrapped in a plastic grocery bag. She didn’t even want to leave it there, for fear someone would find it and make fun of her.
I’m sorry if you feel that I’m easily offended. But the thought that other moms out there may also be “LOLing” about older kids in pull-ups breaks my heart and makes me want to cry for my daughter.
I’m going through this right now with my almost 4 year old. His older brother was fully potty trained at 18 months and night at just after 2, but my middle kiddo was not ready at the same age so we didn’t push it. He was day trained at 3 (after lots of hard work) and still has accidents when he is very distracted. I recently decided to try to help him with night training ( he recently had his tonsils out for sleep apnea issues which is supposed to help with the night wetting issues in some kids) so I spent the next month waking him up ( and me) at 1am and 5am… and after a month of sleep deprivation, I finally asked my mom for suggestions. She told me to just let it go, that it will happen differently for every kid but there is no forcing it on a sleeping kid, they have no conscious control over that yet ( which I knew) and to stop worrying about it so much… plus waking him up would just perpetuate the problem because he needs to let his body learn to either wake up itself or hold the pee until morning. So I’m doing just that… not worrying so much and letting my son’s body do what it needs to do, giving it its own chance to mature outside my timeline. My daughter on the other hand seems to be following her oldest brother… she’s 15 months and already wakes up dry many times… though we haven’t trained her yet for day because she hasn’t quite showed readiness yet. Anyway, it truly is different for each kid even within a family ( glad to hear I’m not alone though) and actually some is genetic too ( most of the boys in my family wet the bed until 5-7, some later than that)! So hopefully your kiddo stops wetting the bed sooner, but if not, know you aren’t alone either!
