How can I nighttime potty train a 4-year-old?

I need some tips and advice on how to nighttime train a four-year-old. He still wears pull-ups to bed, but I would like for him to be out of those soon. He knows how to use the bathroom, but he won’t get up at night to go pee.

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What I did…was I let my little pee the bed. Yeah it sucks, its alot to clean up… but after a few times of peeing the bed and having to wake up and change clothes and change bed sheets… my little eventually stopped and started waking me up to go. :heart: shes now fully potty trained.

Some kids are just heavy sleepers. My son didn’t start waking himself up at night to use the bathroom till he was 5 1/2.

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Leave him in his underwear, don’t put pull-ups on him. After a few times if peeing in the bed he’ll realize he doesn’t like it and learn to get up to go to the potty… It worked for my two year old

Limit drinks after 6pm, wake him up take him for a pee before you go to sleep

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My 4 year old gets no liquids after 6:30pm. Bedtime is at 7:30 (she may have a sip or two of water if needed but not a full cup). I used to wake her up to go pee before I went to bed at 11pm but now she wakes up anywhere between 2-4 am to pee. Bed wetting still happens every now and then though.

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No liquid after 7pm. I had a training potty and nightlight in my kids room so they didn’t have to walk down the hall at night. Worked wonders! Now they have a portable nightlight that they carry down the hall to the bathroom with them :relaxed:

I think one should let the child pee before bed and wake the child to go pee during the night and early morning

Do your research on night time training…

That way it’s a practice for the child

I wake my son up before I go to bed and make him go potty, then he’s dry until the morning

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Your gonna have lots of advice with this thread. But it comes down to your little one being ready. Does he always wake up with a soaked pull up? Or is it dry most times? If wet everyday then not ready. If dry then time to get some confidence and sleep without a pull up. If accidents happen then oh well. It’s part of learning

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Its developmental he will do it when he is ready. They sometimes cant feel the sensation when asleep and not wake up thats why some 10 year olds still wet at night. If he is nappy free during the day except for sleep times that is awesome :clap:t2:

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I have a mattress cover and a mattress pad on my daughters bed and i put her in regular underwear at night instead of the diaper/pull ups and limit drinks before bedtime

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Have him go potty before bedtime no drinks after 6 pm i did with my kids it seemed to work

I cut drinks off for all my kids at 6:30. My 5 year old still wets the bed at time of be sneaks a drink without me knowing my 4 year old doesnt wet the bed and hasnt in almost a year and she drinks from my cup of water throughout the night. It depends on the child.

You need to wake him up in the middle of the night to pee. It sucks and the kids usually cranky and so are you but it helps

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:wave::wave::wave:
Have u cut liquids after a certain hour?
Make him Potty twice before bedtime

Night lights. Maybe he’s afraid of walking through the house when it’s dark?

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Nightlight to direct the location of portable potty in their room, wake them up before midnight and guide them to pee, use waterproof mattress protector in case of accidents. I am a SAHM and this waking -them-up-to-pee-before-midnight phase was very difficult for me because i was dead tired and asleep as well but worth the sacrifice.

Cut drinks after a certain time, ours is 7, bedtime is usually around 8, have him try to go potty before bed… it took my 4 yr old daughter a little bit. Make a routine, brush teeth, go potty, get in bed… good luck!

Stop drinks at 7 and pee twice before bed

Some kids aren’t ready until much older. I know someone who’s son wore a pull up to bed until 11/12. He just wouldn’t wake up to go to the bathroom, he would wake up after the fact or sometimes not until the next morning. Pushing your child before they are emotionally and physically ready can cause regression in potty training so work closely with his doctor and pay attention to his cues

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Dont give him any drinks an hour before bed…right before lights out go potty…

Diaper till u notice the diapers still being dry when they wake. Play it safe till theyre ready

I don’t know about the potty training part, but I put puppy pads underneath my son’s sheets to keep the mattress clean. I find a lot of the times my son doesn’t pee during the night for some reason even when we lay him down with his cup. If he wakes up during the night he doesn’t wake up the next morning with a dry diaper though.

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Don’t give him anything to drink 1 hour before bedtime, leave off the pull up. He might pee once or twice but after that he should be ok. Take him to pee before you lay him down

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You have to wake him up frequently to take him at first

Cut liquid off by 7 make him pee.before bed

Get him up during the night

Kids need to produce a certain hormone for them to get trained fully. Not everyone gets the hormone. A heavy duty shower liner is the best for acid pee kids. Some kids need a chiropractor to adjust the hips also.

Don’t give him anything to drink after 6, or have him wake up to go use the potty! Put some motion sensored lights for the lil one for night time.

No drinks during the night. Potty before and after bedtime. If he doesn’t drink something get him up in the middle of the night. Put undies on him during the night because if he had a pull up he won’t get up and just use the bathroom in his pull up

Personal experience:
My son was potty trained at 4. We still used night time pullups until he was 5. He cannot wake up at night. I mean that 100%. From the moment he gets up he is all energy and when he finally goes to sleep, he passes out.
I kept pushing and trying to get him out of the nighttime diapers.
One day he told his dad that he felt so bad because he kept making messes in his bed and that he felt like he was a bad kid. How he leapt to that point…I will never know! It was all positive from us.
But from that point on I let him set the pace. We wore them for months (cutting liquids at 8, pee at 11) and when he finally told me he was ready, we did 5 days with no accident and he got to wear underwear.
I still wake him at 11 every night to go pee quick.

I guess what I’m saying is sometimes night time is hard for them. They have stuff happening all day in their little world and it is hard. So don’t feel bad if your kid is daytime potty trained, but not nighttime. I firmly believe it just takes time.

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Make sure he goes to the restroom before bed and wake him up at 12am try this every night and it will work.

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All kids and especially boys kind of like to take their own time to potty train, no worries, just make sure he is fully potty trained by the time he ends kindergarten, a lot of moms struggle with their boys and a lot of children still have accidents or wet their pants up to the age of 5 or 6. All in due time mama, all in due time. Don’t ever make him feel guilty, because he may do it out of spite or for attention. Be helpful, encouraging and patient is all we can do with our little ones :purple_heart:

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Some kids just aren’t ready as quickly as others :woman_shrugging: I wouldn’t push it too hard, it’ll happen when it happens.

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You don’t, being potty trained while sleeping is a developmental thing. You can do things to reduce the likelihood of him peeing at night, but waking to pee is a mind/ body connection thing that happens when he’s ready. You can cut fluids a couple of hours before bedtime and make sure he pees right before bed, as well as reminding him that it’s okay to get up and go potty at night (make sure everything is set up for him to do so, like night lights in the hallway and bathroom and a step stool within reach or whatever or you can tell him to wake you up if he has to pee if you think that will work better)

When he’s waking up dry consistently for a couple of weeks, that’s a good sign that he’s probably capable of staying dry.

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Wake him up once during the night to use bathroom

Night time can take a long time for some kids They sleep deep and just can’t mine 4 ranged from 18 months to 4 almost 5.

I kept my kids in a diaper at night until they woke up dry in the morning. Then used mattress protectors on their mattresses once they were out of the diapers. If they had an accident, then they did. Not all will be prevented. 🤷

Wake them up have them go to get them used to waking up to potty

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You are probably going to have to set an alarm and wake them to go to the bathroom at a set time everynight. If you do their body will adjust to getting up. Also, cut out drinking heavily before bed. My doctor recommended 2-3 hours ahead of time and only allow a couple of ounces of water at a time. No caffeine. Then have them potty right before bed. Then the waking. Ugh. It was a struggle for my son. He is 10 and still has accidents from time to time, but only if he has drank a lot before bed.

We made sure to give no more drinks after 6 and I always asked her after story time if she needed to use the potty. I also second night lights for the path to the bathroom. I personally never woke my daughter up through the night and if she had an accident we never made a big deal about it.

You don’t they learn for themselves

I woke mine up every couple hours for a few nights then she just got up and did it one night

cut the liquids out a few hours prior to bedtime

Personally I don’t let my 4 year old drink anything after 6. His bedtime is 7:30 so I put regular underwear on his and a waterproof pad under his sheet. Have him go potty right before bed. Mine has not had any accidents but it’s hard cause all kids are different. Good luck

It takes time. My grandson was a lot older before he stopped at night. Start by not giving him anything to drink at bed time. Nothing serious. He will get there. Just let him at his own time.

His bladder might be small.
No liquid after six and use the bathroom before bed.
He will get there.

Stop liquids a couple hours before bed, stop using pull ups because they don’t let him feel the discomfort of wetting the bed. Then make sure he goes right before bed, set an alarm and get up to take him to the bathroom in the middle of the night. After a while his body will learn to wake him up when he has to go.

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All liquids stop at 6pm, no exceptions. Potty before bed, set alarm and wake him at the halfway mark to waking up. A few nights of that may do it or maybe I was just lucky with my 3 but this worked for us.

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Definitely cut off liquids at a decent time but you might discuss with your pediatrician. My daughter was potty trained during the day by 2 but for the nighttime we were still having to do pull-ups. It wasn’t about liquid intake and wet bed alarms only embarrassed and scared her awake. After talking to our pediatrician we did a sleep study and figured out my daughter has sleep apnea. She would lose bladder control after she would stop breathing. For her, the right thing to do was remove her tonsils and adenoids. After the swelling from the surgery went down, her airway opened up and the bed wetting stopped!
A friend had a similar situation with her daughter though and the dr figured out that she had a shortage of pituitary output at night so they gave her a nose spray for Lauren. Using it, there were no more episodes of bedwetting. She needed it until she was about 12 and then her pituitary glands had grown enough that it was performing correctly and she doesn’t use the spray anymore.

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This is so bad… my brother is 34 now but back in the day they used to make buzzers to sew into underwear and if they felt a little damp they would buzz and wake the child up to go :rofl::woman_facepalming:

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Is he not waking up to go, or does he just not want to get out of bed (monsters in the hall, etc)? If it’s the latter, could you put a potty chair next to his bed until he gets a little braver? Or, maybe give him a special flashlight that will “zap” any monsters if he sees one on the way to the bathroom?

Cut off any thing to drink several hours before bed. If he won’t go, bribe him with a sip of something good. This worked for my grandson. He’ll be 4 next week.

Night time can be hard. Don’t let him drink about 2 hrs before bed. Make him potty before he lays down. My granddaughter was using pull ups like diapers. Get a matress pad with plastic so in case he goes it won’t ruin the matress. Sometimes they don’t wake up enough or at all to go at night. Just be patient and keep trying, should work in no time

On drink after 6 pm. And if that did not work I would get them up about midnight to 2 am. Put them on the potty turn the water on or pour water from one cup to another , put water on their hand

Wake him up the same time every night… around 1 or 2 am…its hard but it helps train his brain to wake up and go when he needs to.

Wake him up every so often and make him get up and go and he’ll start waking up on his own when he gets use to getting up…

Put a plastic sheet under the cotton sheet, NO pullups. Getting wet a few nights will teach them to get up or be uncomfortable.

Is there plenty of light, already on…?

Mine was 8, he just slept like a log, sometimes it just takes a while.

Leave a trail of lights for him to follow. Houses are dark and scary at night.

He will quit he will get tired of waking up cold and wet

The dr told me would stop when he hit