Nighttime potty training 3.5 year old who is very stubborn about using the potty

[Anonymous]

DD has been trained for daytime since she was 2.5 years old. She's a bit of a camel, so I am pretty sure she is physiologically ready for nighttime. I am kicking myself because when we first potty trained her she would initially stay dry all night, but we didn't want to train for nighttime right away especially since she was still in a crib.

Now, she is very used to peeing in her diaper at night and resists taking it off in the morning. During the daytime she often holds her urine until the last minute and hates being told she needs to go. But she rarely has accidents.

Now that she is out of the crib, and we are trying to ditch the diapers at night. We saw the method in Oh Crap that involves waking them to pee, which I think is necessary because otherwise she wets the bed. However, she is not interested in being told to use the potty at night. The last thing we want at 3am is a power struggle. Any advice? I'd hate to give up now and risk this being even harder when she is older.

[Anonymous]

Does she wake up dry and then pee as soon as she wakes up, or does she pee overnight. If she's not staying dry all night, then she is not ready. If she stays dry at night and just pees in her diaper when she wakes up in the morning, then try rewarding her for a dry diaper and using the potty first thing in the morning. It's biological and many kids take much longer to be dry at night.

[Anonymous]

It will not be harder when she is older. It will be easier.

Don't wake her up to pee. This just disrupts sleep and makes her reliant on you waking her. Why?

Require her to sit on the potty right before bed and also first thing in the morning. Bribe if necessary. Definitely don't let her sit around in a wet diaper, that's a non-negotiable. My DD also never wanted to take off her wet diaper in the morning, I think it's because taking it off makes you feel cold at first. I would take it off and then put her in the bathtub and do a little sponge bath with warm water, then dry her off and have underwear/pants ready to go, to make that transition easier.

If they resist, you just have to pull out your parenting tools for dealing with toddler resistance. Kids are different so I won't tell you exactly what to do. My kid was very resistant to being physically guided to something, she'd scream and cry if I tried just walking her to the potty or picking her up and putting her on it. But she was very responsive being told she had to sit on the potty before doing something she wanted to do (read books in bed, eat breakfast, etc.) plus I have a certain number of go-to bribes for situations like this where I just need her to do something quick and then it's over -- a small piece of chocolate, watching Baby Shark on my phone. Whatever it took to reinforce the idea that we use the potty before bed and upon waking no matter what, even if we don't think we need to go. Same with potty visits before a long car ride or a trip to the park. Eventually she stopped resisting and initiated this on her own.

Then one day she'll just be dray every morning and you can ditch the diapers. It didn't happen for my DD until she was almost 5. It's really not a big deal.

[Anonymous]

My who was also a camel and stubborn about when/where he would use the bathroom during the day, peed in his pullup every night until almost exactly 3.5 when one night he announced he didn't want to wear a pullup to bed. We took a leap of faith, said ok and told him to go ahead and use the potty. He did. Woke up dry and very, very rarely had an accident. I feel like it's very kid dependant and regardless of whether they are stubborn or pee in diapers/pull ups at night, when they are ready, they'll let you know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My who was also a camel and stubborn about when/where he would use the bathroom during the day, peed in his pullup every night until almost exactly 3.5 when one night he announced he didn't want to wear a pullup to bed. We took a leap of faith, said ok and told him to go ahead and use the potty. He did. Woke up dry and very, very rarely had an accident. I feel like it's very kid dependant and regardless of whether they are stubborn or pee in diapers/pull ups at night, when they are ready, they'll let you know.

+1. If she has a history of being dry until morning, put on a waterproof mattress cover and just go for it. We found out that our kid was nighttime trained after my husband kept forgetting to put his nighttime diaper on. He was 2.5 at the time, and it would have never occurred to me to nighttime train him since his older brother wasn’t daytime trained until 3.5. It was a happy accident for once.