4 almost 5 year old and potty training...?

Question

My daughter will be 5 in December. She will go all day with no accidents in her pants. She wears 'big girl' underwear during the day and uses the bathroom as needed. But at night I make her wear a pull up and every morning she has urinated in it. When I ask her why she didn't get up to go to the bathroom, which is right across the hall from her bedroom, her answer is always the same..."because" or "I don't know". Somebody PLEASE help!! I don't get it. My son was completely potty trained by the age of 3. I have been working with her on the whole thing since she was 2. Like I said she does just fine all day...but at night and every night she has 'accidents'. How can I break her of this before she starts school and kids find out and make fun of her? And I know it will happen...kids now a days are extremely disrespectful and don't care who's feelings they hurt or how and I don't want my little girl to have to go thru that. Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Hmmm....I would say to cut her drinking off a few hours before bed (minimal so as not to dehydrate her).  Also, maybe you could wake her up once or twice a night to make her go pee so that she gets used to getting up in the middle of the night if she needs to.  You can also put a baby monitor in her room and tell her that if she needs to go to the bathroom in the night, but is too scared, all she has to do is talk into the spacial walkie talkie and you will come walk her there.  Make it fun, and really praise her when she makes it through the night.

Answer 2

First off it could be bc she sleeps to hard...try waking her to have her go right b4 you go to bed that could help. Also if anyone in your family has had a wetting problem that could be it too.....NO drinks 1 and half hours before bed and dont put pull ups on I hear it makes it worse bc they know they can pee in them!!

EDIT---

Good luck and remember some kids really cant help it...if you try all the things you can and still doesnt work talk to her dr. My cousins took a medicine that helped!!

Answer 3

Maybe it's because she knows she has a "Diaper" on.  One night, let her wear big girl underwear to bed and explain that she has the big girl underwear on and she has to go potty like a big girl at night too.  It's worth a try.  The worst that is going to happen is she will wet the bed.  

Hey, if I slept with a diaper on.....maybe I wouldn't get up either in the night!!  LOL

Also, no juice or water before bed.

Answer 4

You might ought to talk to her doctor. There could be a medical condition, or she could be in such a deep sleep that she doesn't wake up when she needs to go. There are more kids than you think out there with this problem, and that are much older than your daughter. I had a friend who's little sister had to stay in pull ups until she was around 10.

You are right though, in that this could make "sleepovers" and stuff hard on her. I would avoid those situations until this is resolved. I don't see any reason kids would need to know about this. If your daughter wants to spend the night with someone, you might want to suggest that they do it at your house, so that she can go into your room and discreetly change into her pull up.

Answer 5

Best thing you can do for her is to stop putting her in a pull up, her peeing in her pants nightly at 5 and then admitting she is doing it because she can is pretty rediculous.  Stop putting her in them asap you are just enabling it.  After she realizes how sucky it is to pee herself (and clean up her bed herself, which you should make her do)  she will consider no longer doing that.  It works!

Answer 6

My son wet the bed until he was 10, by grandsons until they were older. Some kids just wet the bed at night. Do not get mad at her, she probably can't help it. So your son didn't wet the bed, she isn't your son, first thing is to get her a physical to rule out a medical condition. She isn't being lazy. Forget about panties until she can stay dry. Why humiliate her with wet panties and a wet bed. The reason she says she doesn't know, is because she doesn't know. You can try to limit liquids. You can try getting her up in the night and see if that helps.  While it's true that kids can be cruel, making a big deal out of her wetting the bed is cruel too. Never get mad, stay with the pull ups at night. I speak from experience and it was far harder for my son, as he is now 30 and we had to deal with a wet bed every night since pull ups were not invented. Kids will only find out if your family tells, she might not be able to spend the night at a friends house until she is older.

Answer 7

I realize that the Pull-ups at night make the cleanup in the morning easier, but you're also giving her a safety net.  She's going to have to go a couple nights w/out the pullups, so that she can feel the consequences.  Right now, she's probably peeing in her sleep, but once she wakes up with everything wet, she'll be more conscious of having to pee at night.

Good Luck!!

Answer 8

Honestly some kids go into early elementary school still wearing night time protection so this is totally normal. It doesn't seem like it should be but it's more common than you think. As someone else suggested she could just be a 'hard sleeper' or alternativey it could be a behavioural thing.

In either case, there are sleep systems that you can invest in (search on-line for 'bed wetting alarm systems') that assist in the process of stopping night time bed wetting. My neighbor just used this with her son this spring and he's 8 years old- so know that your daughter isn't the oldest on out there with this issue and there aer resources to help you. Also talk to your pediatrician and see if there might be a medical reason that this could be occuring.

Best of luck to you!

Answer 9

First of all, chances are that there is nothing seriously wrong, so relax. Its absolutely normal for kids to have night time accidents.

Lots of reasons, no one sure fire answer. Just like any other type of parenting issue that comes up, you just have to keep trying different things untiil you find out what works best for you!

Since you have been working on this for awhile, I would definately say a trip to the pediatrician is a good idea. You just want to be sure that there is no medical reason for her nightime accidents. This serves two purposes, first being sure she is healthy and is actually able to control her bladder at night, and 2), your pediatrician deals with these things daily. They are a wealth of information! Besides having a medical degree, they specialize in childrens health issues and there is some psychology in there as well. They know what works!

You said that you have tried putting her to bed w/out pull ups and she does well for a few nights, then accidents happen. You might try buying a waterproof mattress cover. The kind that are plastic to protect, but also on top of that is an absorbent material so she doesn't feel uncomfortable and everytime she moves she's not making Crinkling noise.

I would think that if she's able to stay dry some nights, as frustrating as it is for you, everything is probably ok, and she just needs a little more time.

Don't forget, that she is probably frustrated too. Kids, especially at that age, Gosh, they just want to please their parents. As hard as it may be to sometimes not get angry, remember that she's still young and most of the time, these things resolve themselves, literally overnight.

And lastly, all kids are different, even when they have the same parents and are raised in the same house. Consider yourself lucky the other child had it all down pat by the time he was 3, and you were blessed enough to have some experience parenting by the time you had to deal with something like this. When you choose to look at it that way, it sure doesn't seem so bad does it?

I have 4 children, and there was always one out of the 4 that always struggled with something that the other 3 had no trouble at all with. It was never the same child, they all took turns, LOL.

3 walked before their first birthday, one did not.

3 potty trained before the age of 2 1/2, even dry all night, 1 did not.

3 were talking in full, understandable sentences by the age of 2, 1 didn't make a l**k of sense at all until she was over 3 years old. Oh, she talked, in her own garbled way, all day long. But she had her very own language that was absolute jibberish!

3 were reading in kindergarten, 1 struggled for years. Now that child is a sophmore in HS, and although can read and write, still is not as strong a reader as the other siblings.

LOL, 3 have grown out of their fear of the dark by the age of 8, the other one? You could be in the same room with this person, an arms length away, turn off the lights and it absolutely freaks this one out, still, to this day. Did I mention this is a 14 yr old? Imagine being that kid in a family with 3 siblings who think its funny to turn off the lights and run!

Anyway, my point is, all kids are going to hit certain milestones at different times. And trust me, its much easier on you both when you change your perception about it all.

When one moves a little faster or accomplishes something quicker, well then just think of how lucky you are to not have the same problem with both! When you are in doubt and aren't sure what falls under "normal", then call your pediatrician.

Good Luck!