Putting training pants or underwear *under* a diaper is what helped two of my kids night-train, at the age of three or four. The other two started waking up dry in the morning at two and a half, so we started potty-training then.

what’s a pullup?

yeah, joking. love the blog as i have a 15 yr old and would go back to pullup stage over the what-is-this-crusty-sock-under-your-bed-o-my-god-nevermind stage in a minute.

My ped said that if my son is still peeing at night when he’s 6-7 then we’ll start working out a fix…what ever that means…hoping there is some switch or button. Many of my friends’ peds say the same thing. My son is 5yr 3 mos & still fills a Goodnight nightly, probably once every other week he actually pees out. He gets 3 ozs 30 mins before bed & pees before getting in bed…NO IDEA where it comes from!!

Oh should add he’s been day potty trained since 3.

My 5 year old is still in pull-ups (has ben potty trained for years). I think about it every once in a while, but not enough to really do much. We’ve tried cutting off drinks early….half heartedly. Recently I bought a mattress cover to attempt to go without pull-ups. Again, half hearted attempt. Tonight we’re trying the mattress cover because we ran out of pull-ups! Our problem, I believe, is that my son is SUCH a hard, deep sleeper that a marching band could come through his room and he wouldn’t wake up. A little pee in his underwear doesn’t stand a chance of waking him up. I always forget to speak to the pediatrician about it at check-ups — maybe at his 6 year I’ll remember. I’ve heard about medication, but I’d hate to have to go that route. I read something recently about it being hereditary – I did wet the bed until a later age…… I don’t worry too much about it until I think of sleepovers coming up soon, I’m sure. I’d hate for him to feel self conscious about it and it would break my heart if he was made fun of by friends about it.

from my point of view as a pediatric nurse practitioner, i would definitely tell you that there is no magic age limit. every kid is different. (duh!) it more has to do with the maturity of his nervous system being able to sense that his bladder is full, tell his brain to wake up, then actually get up and go to the bathroom and fall back asleep. everything has to catch up and get in sync. at some point, you’ll notice that he will wake up dry some mornings, meaning that things are starting to “catch up” and it might be time to start losing the pull up. some kids may be night trained by 4, others by 7 or 8. some kids don’t reach that point until puberty, especially if there is a family history of bed-wetting. [although that’s definitely not something i’d worry about now, especially given that riley is only 4!] if you want, you can start limiting his liquid intake after dinner, make the ritual trip to the potty immediately before bedtime and see how that goes…then transition into the underwear and give it a whirl.

as always, ill end by saying discuss any concerns with your pediatrician. they know you and your children best.

My older daughter is almost 4 and still in pull-ups at night. She potty trained late (3.5) and had accidents almost every day for months. She’d get all absorbed in some game she was playing, not realize she wasn’t wearing diapers and… oops. What finally worked was not wearing anything at all from the waist down for a couple of days. She thought it was hilarious and it kept her aware of her body. We recently tried to get her to give up nighttime pull-ups – no liquids before bed, getting her up around 10 for a final pee, etc. What happened was that she still had to pee again around 3 or 4am, and it was such a production that she was then wide awake and couldn’t go back to sleep for hours. Or at all. So yeah, she’s back in pull-ups and I’m FINE with that.

My younger daughter, on the other hand, is not quite two and wakes up dry almost every morning. Go figure.

My 2 daughters (not biologically related) slept in panties all night by age 1.5. I did the 3-day training thing in the daytime, which trained their bladders to go longer and longer between pees (once the understood the mechanics, they would rather hold it a while than stop playing to pee every 10 minutes.) Since that worked pretty well, I ordered waterproof mattress covers and when they came, about 1-2 weeks after potty training, I put the girls to bed in the same undies (regular thin ones) that they wore all day. Told them to keep their undies dry. Somehow I knew the could sense the difference and do the right thing. They had a few accidents but were nearly 100% dry within 1-2 weeks. They were able to go about 10-12 hours without peeing. I did eliminate any drinking after dinner and make them pee just before bed as a precaution.

Shortly after age 2, they were able to take themselves to the toilet (if necessary) without waking anyone up at night. So I could relax about the liquids and making sure I got to them by x hour of every morning.

One of my daughters started coming to my room at ungodly hours when she was a little over two, just for company. I would always send her back to bed, but what stopped this behavior was: at bedtime, I told the girls “wake me up after the sun comes up” (with emphasis on “after”). That says they are very welcome provided they come at a civilized hour. It worked.

When you’re ready to go commando double sheet the bed: mattress pad, sheet, mattress pad, sheet. That way when you have to change wet sheets in the night (and you most likely will) you just pull off the top layer and voilà clean sheets. Also good for cribs and when kids are puking.

make him pee before bed and just kind of take your chances, no big deal if he has an accident. i bet he is completely ready!

My (then) 6 y/o didn’t become fully night-trained until we cut out the Goodnights. Not saying that will work for every kid, and his age was probably a factor too, but I think some kids, boys especially, become complacent. They have the pull-up on, why bother getting up? We had a few (expected) accidents right after he stopped using them, but it took less than a week for him to figure out that wet sheets are no fun, and he’s had a perfect record ever since.

With my older daughter, she was fully trained, day and night, at 2.5 and she never wore any nighttime diaper. And I didn’t even know how lucky I was!

Oh, the joys of the nighttime potty. My son is 7 and I always joke that there could be a mariachi band in his room and he wouldn’t wake up. Like someone else posted, we still pick him up and take him to the bathroom each night before we go to bed. He doesn’t wake up at all and pees like he’s been holding it for hours even though usually he’s only been asleep about an hour and a half.

I do think it’s hereditary. My moms tells a story about catching my brother about to pee in a drawer when he was little. I’m hopeful my son will have a dry bed on his own before he goes off to college.

I don’t have kids so this is seriously just assvice but I’d hazard a guess that if the pull up hasn’t had to do its job for a while he’s probably ready to segue from the Pull Up to the mattress protector.

My son was almost five.He never had a dry night with the pull-ups but one night he came stumbling out and used the bathroom on his own and went back to bed.That was the end of that. I truly think, in most cases, the brain is catching up with the body.I wouldn’t sweat it.These things tend to work themselves out.

So, I asked my pediatrician the same thing since my 5yo still leaks through his diaper – doubler and all. She said until he is 7 or 8, she isn’t so concerned. sometimes some kids don’t stay dry at night until 12. That seems like a long time to me, especially since he has been potty trained since he was 2 years old!

My 3 year old potty trained himself, day and night at the same time.

We’ll see what happens with #3 in a couple years.

All it took for my 4YO was him falling asleep with his big boy undies on, just purely by luck. He slept through the night that night accident free and we said good-bye to them the following night. He was probably about 3YO at the time.

If Riley is doing a-ok during the day in underwear, I bet he’d be fine through the night in underwear. Just make sure (as several of your other commenter’s have suggested) that you have a waterproof mattress pad on the bed. Just give it a whirl and see, you might be surprised!

My daughter wore the night time PullUps until she was almost 6. They were SOAKED every morning, and I finally learned (she admitted!!) that she was peeing in them on purpose, just cause she knew she could and it was “easier” than getting up and going to the bathroom. I stopped them cold turkey after she admitted that. And I felt like an idiot for thinking that she still “needed” pullups. She wet the bed almost every night for about a month, and then only every once in awhile. She is now 8 and hasn’t wet the bed in over a year. I also have a 2 year old boy, and when the time comes I will not rely on the pullups the same way I did with my daughter. We turned PullUps into a laziness issue, both her and I.

Not saying you should take them from Riley, not at all. Just saying that even if his PullUp is wet every morning, it may possibly not mean that he can’t stay dry at night. He may just be relying on the convenience.

It’s funny that what we used to call “wetting the bed” we now call “wearing a pull-up to bed”. I am so grateful to be raising kids during the Pull-up era!

My oldest two wore pull-ups (that were always wet in the morning) until one day right around her 5th birthday Kate was dry. And then she was dry 2 more nights in a row and wanted to wear underwear. She’s been out of pull-ups and dry ever since.

Her identical twin sister, however, STILL wears a pull-up (and soaks it) every night. She will be seven (7!! also: ???? how did that happen?) on Saturday, and is showing no signs of staying dry.

We’ve never made an issue of it at all, though David has asked her for permission to wake her before he goes to bed for a bathroom break. That doesn’t help though- she’s often already wet, and even if she’s not, she’s still wet again in the morning.

The only thing I worry about is her friends making her feel weird for it. So far, she’s just shrugged off the comments, but I hope she’s not internalizing them.

wow, you got really lucky there, but I’m sure it’s also a mixture of good parenting : – ) I can only hope my son will reach that point some day. Right now he’s insistent on sticking his every limb in my clothing while he sleeps – in bed with me – leaving my husband to sleep in the guest room.

I’ve heard scuttle about a hormone nasal spray available from the pediatrician that helps. I’d google it… But lazy prevails.

Dax wasn’t out of pullups until he was 3 and a half (right after his brother was done) when he decided “diapers are for babies”. I totally would have put a pullup on him if he was peeing in the night at all but he had been waking up dry for months.

That being said, my friend’s little girl is firmly in her fours and wears a pullup to bed every night. No biggie.

Now my boy is FIVE and he can’t dress himself to save his life. Seriously. And forget about tying a shoe. Ugh.

My little guy will be 7 on the 31st. He SOAKS a pull-up every.single.freaking.night. I hsve talked to the ped about it, but at this age, it’s still pretty normal. I was a bed-wetter about once every other month or two until I was 12 so it’s no suprise that he is also. Just dying for this everynight thing to be over.

We have one that is almost four and still wears the pull up at night (and then it is always wet in the morning). My other one just turned 5, and she started being fairly consistent around 4 1/2 about not going at night. We removed the pull up but then she suddenly started having accidents and I was tired of washing sheets almost daily so we regressed and used the pull ups again. Once she started being more consistent (a couple of months later), we tried again – only this time I didn’t let her drink too much of anything a couple of hours before bed, asked her to go before she went to bed, and then reminded her to get up and go in the middle of the night if she woke up and had to go (which I think may have been part of the problem in the first place because she is on a 3/4ish high bunkbed). It seemed to work like a charm and I can say that we’ve seen no accidents since then. Now, as for my other daughter that is almost four, I think it might take a different approach which I haven’t quite figured out yet…GOOD LUCK. It’s quite a great feeling saying goodbye to pullups for even just one child!

Crazy timing on this. I’m pretty sure Riley is the same age as my Sophia within a couple weeks or so (she was 4 as of Sept. 7). Anyway, we literally JUST decided it was high time we kicked the pull-up habit. I feel like that is just what it was becoming for us. A bad habit.

My daughter sleeps like a log. Really. A train could ride through her room and it would not wake her up. She was potty trained on time, but we just could not get the nighttime thing down. We tried at various intervals since she was 3, to no luck. We’d have a night here and there dry. But mostly it was stripping the bed down in the middle of the night or every morning with a wet little girl in it. So we would always go back to pull-ups. We tried the whole waking her up to go potty thing before we’d go to bed, but many times we’d either forget, or by the time we were going to bed and got her, she’d already be wet. Enter genius husband. He suggests no more pull ups and that we buy a cheapo alarm clock from Target for her room that we set early enough to catch her before wetville. Not that we can’t just use an iPhone alarm or something. But there’s something about an alarm going off loudly in her room to rouse her just a little from her deep sleep to get her eventually able to wake up on her own when her body is ready to go pee. And then we never forget because it’s set to the same time every night (We started around 10:15, but after about a week of that she was wet by the time we got there, so we’ve moved it up to around 9:30). It’s worked like a charm. We’ve only been at it for a couple weeks, but I haven’t had to buy a new pack of pull ups! Thank god! Good luck. I hope it works out for you guys. Because really, when you’re already spending your paycheck on diapers for the younger one (we are!), it sucks to have to throw in a pack of pull-ups for your already-potty-trained older child on top of it. I know this song and dance way too well.

We had one child who started being consistently dry at 4, so we did away with the Pull-Ups at that point. I now have a 7-year-old who cannot make it through the night without peeing. It’s only become an issue lately because of sleepovers and girls already being meanies.

Our solution has been to get her up around 11pm every night and take her one last time to the potty. We’re hoping her body might pick up the clues and start waking her up on her own. So far, no dice, but it’s not a big deal for us to take her since she goes right back to sleep, and she feels better not being in a Pull-Up.

All that to say, everyone is different, which of course you know. If he’s not waking up dry for you and you’ve tried to bring him to the bathroom before you guys go to bed, I wouldn’t sweat it. I wasn’t actually too worried about it either except that my daughter had started waking up dry more often than not, which is why I said it was becoming a bad habit for us. Because for us it was easier to just put a pull up on her than to remember to make sure to get her in the night to go to the bathroom. But my ped said some kids continue to have nighttime bed-wetting well into their 5 and 6 years.

Obviously, there are a zillion ways to go at this, so you have to decide what you want and what you think would work for Riley. In our situation, the 4 year old was 100% accident free during the day (and pretty much was that way from day one). His nights took awhile; there was a lot of laundry in there because we didn’t do the pull-ups. But that was helpful, because we learned what time of the night (actually, morning) he wet the bed (i.e., had to pee). We woke up the little guy to pee around 10:30-11:00 at night for the last time. Then, he would wet around 6:00 in the morning. So, for awhile, we woke him up at 5:00 am to go to the bathroom. He got up, peed, went back to bed, and slept for a solid 1.5-2 hours after that (sometimes longer!). We then stretched it out from 5 am. Essentially, we helped him train his bladder. And, it worked! Every now and then, he has an accident…but it’s a rarity now. It definitely took a lot of time and effort (and laundry!), but it was well worth it. He’s still so happy when he sleeps late and gets up by himself to pee in the morning. And, most importantly, he is a well-rested (and, thus, happy!) boy. Good luck!

By Kindergarten Nick as out of pullups. When he learned his other classmates didn’t wear them he wanted no part of that.

We’d cut off liquids after he ate dinner. He’d pee before he went to bed and then he was fine.

Boys take longer I think.

I know the feeling of those early morning squirms oh so well – both of mine love to snuggle in, but no sleep can be had with such a fidgety child in the bed, so they get send back to their own room!

For both of my girls I took them out of night nappies a few weeks after their initial potty training. I never used pull ups either – for day or night time.

For a few weeks I would also take them for a night wee just before I went to bed, but that quickly became unecessary.

Both girls have a beaker of water by the bed, and my eldest can often drink it all in the night, but has never wet the bed. My youngest has wet the bed all of 3 times in her life, so when things like that happened I would restrict the water in the evening before bed.

I know that friends with boys had a lot more trouble than I did with my girls, I thank my lucky stars that I had it fairly easy – it really is down to the individual child.

My youngest will be 5 at the end of Feb. He stopped the pull up thing about 2 months ago. We still have “accidents” but I can see his body is starting to get it.

If he can keep the pull-up dry, then he’s ready for underwear at night. My son potty trained this summer at just under 3, and we ditched the night time pull-ups a couple months later. He has the occasional accident, but that’s what waterproof mattress pads are for :-).

If it stresses him out, don’t worry about it. But you can ask him, he may be ready to go without the pull-up.

My husband really wanted Leila out of a night time pull up around 3 (I couldn’t care less, and since I was the one washing the wet sheets every night, I said no). But then more and more often they were dry, so then we let her go without them (she didn’t want to wear them), but if she peed the bed, she had to wear them again until she had another dry night, etc. We also take her to pee at 10 every night. Sometimes she’ll wake up on her own around 4 or 5 and pee, but often she makes it til 6.

My daughter (who is now 6) didn’t stop using her pullups at night until about 6 months ago. And she was fully potty trained right at 3.

My son, who is 5, still uses them at night. And he’s been potty trained for well over a year and a half. We’ve tried to get through the night, but the morning I woke up to a pee design on the wall from where it had somehow leapt four feet from the bed as he dreamt was the morning I decided that until he went through the night for a week without wetting, he’d be hanging in his pullups.

It’s a brain/body thing…some kids just aren’t ready until later on.

My Twin sisters were between 5 and 6 before they were finished with pull-ups. I wouldn’t worry at all at 4.

My son potty-trained around 2 1/2, and lost the pull-ups just about a month after that. We had, maybe 2 nights with accidents, but it was those accidents that made him realize he needed to get his ass OUT of bed to pee. After that, we had a few nights of getting up to assist him (we live in a TINY house, and the bathroom is only 3 feet from everyone’s rooms). After that, we was on his own.

I wear pullups at night and I’m around, oh, say 49 and alot.
Oh, wait, I guess I should say I’m BACK in pullups. Guess I’m no help. I’ll be here when you ask at what age he’ll need to go back into pull ups. 50, the age is 50!
LOL.

my daughter was okay without the nighttime pull up around 4 but the pediatrician has told me that some kids are late in their fifth year before they can go all night without an accident.

I didn’t read all of the responses, since once I got to g~’s I knew I’d just be echoing what she said. My daughter, who turned 2 is December, now sleeps in her big girl panties and has for the past couple weeks. Once she was dry for a week in her pull-up, we took the plunge! We also do the mattress pad under her sheets, limit fluids before bedtime, and make sure to go potty as part of her nighttime routine. So far, we’ve only had 2 accidents – and both this week because she is sick so we haven’t done so well on the limiting fluids at night since we feel her health is more important than us having to wash her bedsheet. Luckily though, they’ve both happened around the time she would get up anyway so no pain-in-the-arse middle of the night changes, thankfully!

Long story short, if he’s dry in his pull-up when he wakes up, I’d say he’s ready – but really only if you are! ;) Good luck!!

My daughter is 4 and also wears pull-ups to bed. Right after she turned 4 in October I tried to transition her to big girl pants at night and I was up at least once a night changing sheets. I tried doing the usual — limiting drinks at least an hour before bed, going potty before bed, etc. After three weeks, I gave in. We’re back in the pull-ups. She has definitely expressed interest in going back to the big girl pants, but I’ve told her until she is dry three nights in a row — it’s pull-ups for her! She’s okay with it and I’m okay with it. I like my sleep and I figure she’ll do it when she is ready, ya know?

My daughter stopped wearing pullups at night right after she turned three (she’s two months younger than Riley) and I could probably count on two hands how many accidents she’s had (and some of those were very minor–just getting on her pj’s). Sometimes, yes, I’d have to help her in the middle of the night, but that doesn’t really even happen anymore, she takes care of it herself. So, in my opinion, a four year old should have no problem going w/out a pullup (though, you still might have the occasional accident), especially if he isn’t really using it overnight (is he?).

Gah, I don’t know how we will get out of pull ups and diapers with ours when the time comes. Having a cup of water handy is what got him to sleep through the night in the first place.
I’ve heard that first kids can take longer, and that boys take longer too. All the advice I’ve read here sounds good, though! Good luck!

Our son is 5 and still wears a pull up to bed at night. I think partially it is a comfort thing for him at this point, but he does have nights where he soaks right through the pull up. We have talked to his doctor about it and she said to wait until he is 6 to be really concerned. She said somethings their bodies are just not mature enough until about 6. Hope that helps!

Interesting question because I always thought potty trained was potty trained. Except for the occasional kid who has bed wetting issue, that is.

Yeah, we kept my youngest in pull-ups at night longer than she probably needed to be but she’s got a funky sized bed (thanks, IKEA) and I couldn’t find a plastic mattress cover to fit it. By the time she was four, though, I found a pad and decided just to let her go without. It had been a lazy crutch for both of us, I think. But, lo and behold! We had maybe on one or two incidences of nighttime peeing. She’s been high and dry ever since. I just had to take the plunge and trust her. And myself.

My now 5 year old (girl) completely trained herself just prior to her 4th birthday. By trained herself I mean she just stopped wetting in the pull-ups and would wake up in the night to go pee.

Now my now 9 year old (girl) was a completely different story. She JUST got out of pull-ups last month. We went to the Dr. a few times at different ages and he talked to her about her options. I never made it a big deal and he didn’t either. She tried a couple of medications that he suggested, her choice with our help with the decision of course. So just before her 9th birthday she brought up the subject again so I started researching options and ended up ordering an alarm that clips onto their underwear and has a cord to the alarm that you can get with sound, vibration or both. She wore a pair of undies with it clipped on and a pull-up over it for about 2 weeks. Then felt confident enough to no wear the pull-up over for another 2 weeks. And now she is done and not wearing the alarm anymore. She’s had 1 accident in the 1.5 months since then and she is over the moon with excitement. She just needed that extra kick so her body new when it was to wake up, and it worked. I really don’t think it would have worked any earlier because she was soaking every single night up to a few months before we started this process and then she would have about 1 dry night a week.

Very long comment…sorry.

My daughter is about to turn 4 this weekend but she gave up the night time pull-up maybe 6 months ago? Maybe a little less: it was possibly the end of last summer. Mind you, this kid toilet trained herself for solids at 20 months and then took what seemed like forever to reliably pee in the potty.

Oh and by the way, lest you get too jealous, our son is verging on 20 months and there is no way I can imagine him asking for a potty. For one thing, he doesn’t even say potty, whereas his sister was using sentences by now.

I have been wondering this too. I thought my 4 year old daughter would never stop wetting at night, but we seem to have been having some success recently. However, it does depend on the child, I know some friends with heavy sleepers who wore pull-ups until much later, like age 6 or 7. My theory is, don’t make a big deal about it. Our recent success has nothing to do with anything we did, it just happened.

I’ve read that nighttime training requires the brain to produce a certain chemical, which is a different matter than daytime training (more of a conscious decision) and can take different times for different kids. That said, I don’t see a lot of kids in other countries wearing pullups (or using diapers) to the ages that people do in the U.S. There is a huge incentive for the industry to encourage people to use these products for much longer than necessary. It’s also much easier for kids to pee when it is conveniently wicked away. Perhaps it might be worth not using Pull-ups for a while and relying on a mattress cover to see whether the discomfort of wetting the bed causes him to wake up. Or perhaps his brain just needs some more time to produce the chemical. Good luck!

Our daughter potty trained pretty late, for a girl, anyways- she was three years and four months old. BUT. As soon as she was potty trained, she was also night trained, so that was awesome. Even before she was potty trained she was waking up dry more often than not, and we’d rush her to the potty to, uh, break the seal, so to speak. Often that would be her only potty success of the day! But it made the process of potty training feel much more complete because once she was done with diapers, she was totally DONE. In the year she’s been trained she’s only wet the bed twice, I believe- and both times because we forgot to take her to the bathroom before bed.
I think that’s pretty rare, though, honestly. I remember my little sister wetting the bed occasionally until she was about nine.