How to Conquer Nighttime Training

12/1/1989 | by Jennifer Shu

When it comes to potty training your child, it may be helpful to know that nighttime bladder control often comes months to years after daytime training. Also, boys typically achieve nighttime training later than girls. Take the pressure of off yourself (and your child) and it is likely to happen naturally.

Many children who are slower to toilet train at night are very deep sleepers and simply don’t recognize the fact that their bladders are full. Some children have small bladders for their age and find themselves “overflowing” at night. Finally, some kids make more urine in the nighttime (especially those who drink greater amounts of fluid in the evening than earlier in the day). While limiting fluids after dinnertime may help, in most instances children simply have to grow and develop the sensations that “tell” them to go to the bathroom at night, and this will happen in time.

Following are a few options to try to help your child’s nighttime training along.

·       Remind your child before bedtime that he should get up and use the bathroom in the middle of the night if needed.

·       Clear a path from your child’s bed to the toilet, and use a night light so he can see the way. Put a portable potty chair in his room if the bathroom is far away.

·       Try to help your child “stretch” his bladder by encouraging him to hold his urine just a little longer than usual during the day.

·       If you’re still awake while your child is sleeping, you may want to lead him on a trip to the bathroom to avoid a wetting episode later that night.

·       Finally, you can just sit back and be patient. As children get older, nighttime dryness will happen on its own whether you intervene or not, so it may be just as well to give your child some time to mature in this arena.