My daughter is turning 7 in 2019. She is a happy little person who does well at school. both education and socially and well adjusted.
However, she still wears Night Naps. I didnt mind before, however, I see kids younger than her being fully toilet trained.
I've tried waking her every few hours which resulted in bad attitudes (from us both) She didnt wake at all. I picked her up, put her on the toilet and put her back to bed and she didnt even budge.
Tried no water for awhile before bed.
encouragement,
telling her to try every few nights without a night nap.
I refuse to make her feel bad about wearing night naps... But I feel like a horridly lazy parent with her still wearing them.
does anyone have any advice at all?
please be kind. I have no one else to really talk to about this and she is a SUPER heavy sleeper.
we had renovations being done in her room (mostly cabinet doors being screwed in with a power drill) and she didnt budge at all with that also.....
7 Replies
Stop feeling guilty. It’s incredibly common for some kids to not be dry at night at this age. Doctors won’t even begin to assess a child about night dryness/wetness until they turn 8.
Being dry over night is dependent on a number of factors, including the child naturally developing the hormone in the brain that controls night wetting/dryness. Some children develop this much earlier than others. Most develop it by 8 years old.
A small portion never develop the hormone and so will need medical intervention.
I tried all that too, but its a waste of time, you can't teach it, they just get it. You'll know when she's waking dry. Try to sneak in before she wakes and see if she's dry but choosing to go in it in the morning instead of getting up.
If you're concerned see a doctor. I would probably give her this year if there's no other issues. I've read on mums pages that some kids take up until 8 or older to night train.
Thank you both so much. It does help to hear it from other parents that im not a completely horrid mother.
My daughter is about to turn 16 and still has nights when she wets the bed. It is far less frequent than it was, and I expect it will just keep decreasing with time. She also is a very heavy sleeper. Over the years I tried everything, waking her, restricting water, the pad with the alarm, medication etc, etc. Nothing worked for any length of time. She’s had blood tests, a CAT scan, and ultra sound on her bladder, everything came back normal. She was always like this, I never made a big deal of it and let our dealings of it be guided by her. What works for her best now is her phone. She sets an alarm for about 1am and gets up to the toilet and those nights she is mostly dry. She is a heavy sleeper so sometimes she will sleep through the alarm and those nights are usually still wet. She doesn’t love her situation, she worries about having a boyfriend in the future and what may happen sleeping in a bed together, but from everything I’ve been told by doctors it should eventually right itself. So take heart, these things happen and it has nothing to do with your parenting, just be guided by her discomfort, my daughter wore pull ups until she was 11 or 12 and then used bed pads. I have done my fair share of washing sheets though! Good luck mama.
A few possible causes
Stress at school, I hid my stress at her age but it came out in bed wetting. The day the stress stopped I stopped bed wetting.
Constipation? Can cause pressure on bladder.
Food intolerances? Even too much sugar in form of high fructose corn syrup.
Magnesium is low. I try mag anyway but is so many types so if the 1st doesn’t work try a different form.
And will eventually just grow out of it.
My son is 8 and still not fully toilet trained at night 100% and we’ve been to a specialist and he’s absolutely fine. The nurse explained that it’s not that uncommon for kids to toilet train at night up to the age of 10.
I waited until both of my children asked to wear undies as they felt ready. We then used DriNites bed mats on the sheet so it was easy to change if needed.
If you’re worried, you can see a urology nurse through community health or privately and they run tests to rule out any issues. Or they suggest using a buzzer mat that sets off an alarm as soon as a drop of liquid forms and it wakes the child. Apparently takes up to 2 months to train.
I wasn’t going to put my kids through that when they were only just sleeping through the night! Plus, I think there’s so much push for kids to meet these standards rather than listening to when they are actually ready.
We tried all of that too. The only thing that worked for us was letting our son wet the bed.
So we had a waterproof mattress protector as well as a dry-nite sheet on his bed, and two clean spare sets of sheets in the linen cupboard.
I would say it took about 4-6 weeks of wet beds. Maybe like 2-3 a week before he got it. I think letting him wet the bed was what helped his brain catch up with his bladder. We had him out of night nappies at 5yrs old.
Very occasionally he might still have an accident, but more often then not it’s a bit of wee on his PJ pants as he wakes up quickly enough to stop himself wetting the bed.
I think you should just take off the night nappy and be prepared to be up in the middle of the night for a few weeks. The feeling of being wet helps train their brain to talk to their bladder.