- Hi, I'm Dana, welcome to this week's video.
Today, I wanna talk about nighttime potty training.
Now, if your child is daytime potty trained
then consider that a victory.
That is by far one of the hardest things that some people do
is training their children how to use the bathroom
during the day.
So take a break, right?
Take a breather from it.
Nighttime potty training comes later
and for some kids, a lot later
and it has more to do with their biology than anything else.
So here's some tips to look for
if you think your child is ready to nighttime potty train
and a few dos and don'ts around it.
One good rule of thumb
is that they start having a dry diaper
or pull-up in the morning.
That's a great sign.
He's able to control his bladder through the night
without waking up and that's important.
If that happens even a night or two
then I would say go ahead and try just underwear
and see what happens.
Now, be ready.
Have sheets on standby,
clean jammies right there so that if there is an accident,
it's not the end of the world.
You just clean it up quickly and move on with the night.
You might even consider putting down a plastic pad
over the mattress just in case an accident or two happens.
One thing I don't want you to do
is wake up a child in the middle of the night
to go to the bathroom
neither do I want a child waking up
in the middle of the night to go to a bathroom.
If they have to do that,
if they can't make it through the night without that
then they're not ready, okay?
Go back to pull-ups
because what you're doing in an attempt
to be successful in one area, potty training,
you're becoming very unsuccessful in another area
which is sleep and if I had to pick between sleep
and nighttime potty training, sleep is winning by a mile
because I don't wanna fragment their night, right?
Any little fragment in your night
where you have to actually get up out of bed
and go do something,
it ruins the quality of your nighttime sleep
and our goal for every child
is that they just beautifully transition
from one sleep cycle to another
having little, tiny brief wake-ups
but nothing that's of consequence
and just a beautiful night sleep.
So you getting her up in the middle of the night
or her getting up in the middle of the night, not okay.
Go back, she is not ready.
Success in the night means being able to hold it
all the way through the night until morning
and if your child's not ready for that
then it's no big deal.
Honestly, it's just signals and biology and deep sleep
and all these things have to kind of come together
in this perfect storm for a child to be ready.
Now, one last little tip though.
For some kids, they are never gonna have a dry pull-up.
It feels that way, right?
I can remember one of my children.
He just kept having a wet pull-up.
He was getting to the four, he was in the fours
and I finally had to say, I'm pretty sure he's just lazy.
I think he can do it, he just doesn't want to.
So then I would try.
I would say, you know what, for the next week,
we're going diaper free.
No pull-up, right into underwear.
Again, being ready with standby sheets
and jammies just in case to see if in a week's time,
he could start making it through the night
without a wet jammy.
I would put a little reward incentive in place too
just really casual, no extra pressure around it,
just if he can have a dry jammy in the morning
then there'll be a little reward
at the beginning of your day
and by the end of the week he was doing it.
He just needed a little push.
He was kinda lazy about it
and he didn't mind having a wet pull-up
so we had to nudge him a little bit
but if in that week's time, by the end of the week,
he wasn't able, he was still having wet jammies
and accidents then that tells me he's not ready
and I just take my foot off and let it lie.
Okay, so it's really okay
if your child's not ready to nighttime potty train.
Thanks so much for watching today.
Sleep well.