The average age for kids to stay dry through the night is 5 ½. I try to do things about a year after my best friend's triplets do in general. She was successful getting her boys through the night in underwear last fall, so I thought I would try this fall or winter. That seems appropriate given our track record of following her by a year, as well as by the averages. My mother knows this is the plan.

Last Christmas, she rode me nonstop about at least taking away the Pullups at naptime. I said no. At Easter, she was bugging me about it again. I said no. We accidentally forgot to put Pullups on the kids in the car driving from my parents to C’s parents at Easter (about a 1½ hour drive during naptime), and they fell asleep, and two peed buckets. In their carseats. My mother knows this.

She has brought it up at least twice since then, and both times I have made it very clear that I am NOT going to try it until either they are waking up dry consistently, or until next fall/winter, whichever comes first.

This weekend, she and my dad kept the kids while Chuck & I went to Asheville. This is the first time we have been away from the kids together in over 1½ years. My mom sees the kids maybe once every 2-3 months, for 2-3 days at a time, but she keeps my sister’s kids all the time so I am comfortable with her handling things for a few days.

It never even occurred to me that she would try to take away the diapers/Pullups specifically against my wishes. But she did! I had barely gotten out of the car today before she was gloating about how they hadn’t used any diapers all weekend and everybody had stayed dry. Well, I am not too proud to admit that I was wrong and thank her, so I did that.

My kids have REALLY been suffering with some self-esteem issues related to being behind their peers in school, so I REALLY pumped them up about it all evening and before bedtime. How big they were, only little kids wear diapers/Pullups and they are so big now they don’t need them, etc. etc. Told them I was getting rid of the changing table since it was for babies & little kids, and would get them a computer just for the kids (they have been asking for ages) since they were big enough now. I was so proud of them. On and on and on about it.

The kids were tickled pink about wearing panties/undies to bed. Went into E & J’s room, and stench about knocked me over. Yep, both beds had been peed in.

Upon questioning, it turns out that they were so worried about disappointing Grandmama that they didn’t tell her they wet the beds, and they had dried by morning so she didn’t know. (She put them all in cheap nylon Tinkerbell nightgowns “that would be easy to go to the bathroom in” instead of the PJs I have for them that they are perfectly fine going to the bathroom in, and the cheap ones dried quickly so she didn't know.)

Not only that, C & M were EXHAUSTED. My mom is known for running kids til they drop, so I didn't think anything about it. As it turns out, they were avoiding going to sleep for fear of peeing in their beds and disappointing Grandmama. So no naps, and both woke up at night and didn’t go back to sleep for fear of peeing.

Bedtime tonight was a nightmare. Each kid got up at least 15 times and peed few drops each time, trying to be sure they got everything out before going to sleep. Being encouraged to get out of bed as needed was huge. Camille detoured to get a toy in the playroom once, thinking I wouldn’t notice that she didn’t go straight back to bed. Elise just went AGAIN.

So, in 48 hours, my mother has single-handedly ruined my naptimes & bedtimes, and now I am faced with either changing beds every single morning, or else putting them back in the Pullups/diapers that I went on and on and on and on about only little kids & babies needing. Great for my kids, whose self-esteem is already so low anyway.

Any thoughts?

BGG born 4/25/05 at 31w1d




New baby girl born 9/19/06

First of all, I am not being critical of them not being night time trained yet. It happends when it happens. However, you said they woke up at Grandma's needing to pee and yet they peed the bed. So it wasn't that they couldn't wake up to know they needed to go? Also that they need permission to get up out of bed at home and that they are anxious about that? At 5 1/2, these kids needs some autonomy to be able to get up and go to the bathroom. I can't imagine lying in bed, needing to go to the bathroom and yet being afraid of getting into trouble if I got up and went.

Our kids have always had blanket permission to get up to go the bathroom and come down to us also if it was very important. Did they try to take advantage at times? Of course, they are kids, but we busted them, they have gotten in trouble, and they usually only do it if they aren't tired anyway. Aren't your kids entering Kindergarten in the fall? You need to loosen up a bit or they aren't going to be nearly indpendent enough.

I am not attacking you, truly, but you might consider that they might be more ready than you think and just aren't allowed enough indpendence to use the bathroom?

Cindy
Paul and Andrew
Kristen, Rachel and Michael

Sorry - I'm so mad I can't articulate! I tried to correct my wording above to be more clear.

They definitely have permission to get up if they need pee. If they are awake at naptime or nighttime, they do get up and go, but more often than not they pee while they are sleeping.

They were staying awake for fear of peeing while asleep.

The difference between tonight & normal was that I really encouraged them to get up and go if they need to and not just to lie there. I guess I overdid it, because they got up a LOT LOT LOT more than normal.

BGG born 4/25/05 at 31w1d




New baby girl born 9/19/06

>Aren't your kids entering Kindergarten in the fall?
>You need to loosen up a bit or they aren't going to be nearly
>indpendent enough.
>

No, we finally decided to hold them out for another year. Developmentally, they just aren't ready yet. They have always been behind their peers. They make progress at a normal rate, but that means that they have just always stayed the same amount behind everybody else (especially gross & fine motor skills). They fit in a lot better with the kids a year younger, so we are putting them back in for another year of 4 year old preschool. Which is another reason I'm so upset with my mom. They were the very last to get potty-trained during the day, and so to expect them to be a little early potty training at night is absurd. Why pressure them, you know? They'll do it when they are ready - they can't control what happens while they are sleeping!

BGG born 4/25/05 at 31w1d




New baby girl born 9/19/06

What I did for naptime, when we took naps that is, is to put on underpants and then put on pull-ups over them. They never wet. A few months ago I tried to switch them overnight to just underpants and my non-night peeing kids, peed themselved consistently. I'm not rushing this phase. I still have a wetter so it's no big deal to me to put the pull-ups on, and I make no big deal about it.

Your poor kids. My mom and my MIL are always on me about transitioning the kids to this or that, and I don't like it. The last time it happened, the girls were like "We're growing up, mom, blah blah blah" And I just made light of it with the, "not until I say so, punkin."

Anyway, I think you could get away with the underpants under the pull-up with one of my kids favorite sayings, "Well, accidents do happen to everyone." I would just say this will catch any spills and help them feel better about the transistion. You could say that they can rest easy but it would be really great if they did wake to pee, but if they missed once, that is okay too.

It's learning a new thing and learning new things take time. Everyone has to practice. I think you could praise them to the high heavens for trying and leave it at we'll keep practicing. Let's just put this step in there for now.

I hope this helps. It is such a pain when people overstep their bounds. I don't care who they are, but they raised their kids, now it's your turn, so you get to make the choices.



Jamye

Oh, I see better now. Well, when you are ready just as an FYI, one thing we did was to have them go to the bathroom at their bedtime and then when we were going to bed later (our kids went to bed a few hours before us.), we would take them to the bathroom once more. They were so tired, they were barely awake, so they fell back asleep never even really knowing they were up. My kids almost never had an accident this way. Plus, when we stopped doing it, they seemed to know how to get up groggily and go do their business. At least I guess so as I haven't been woken up for bathroom in years. I also purchased those wonderful covers from One Step Ahead or Leaps and Bounds. If they did have an accident, it was easy to slide that thing off and the sheets were usually just fine.

Cindy
Paul and Andrew
Kristen, Rachel and Michael

Megan
I can fully understand your frustration over your mom underminding the decisions you have made for your kids. You shouldn't have to justify and explain your parenting decisions to anyone. I think some grandparents have this idea that because they are involved in the kids lives, they have the right to point out what they think we are doing wrong. Of course, they are not the ones that are there to deal with ALL the implications of their interference. I totally empathize with you in having to do all the "clean up" (literal clean up and emotional clean-up with the kids being over tired, stressed......)from your mom's actions.
As far as the bed wetting, I had one who wet at night up to age 7. We tried everything. She went potty at bedtime at 8, I got her up at 11 to go again and DH would get her up at 4:30. She would often be wet when we would go to get her up and the next day she wouldn't even remember that we got her up to go. I finally got a bed alarm. It started off with me getting up when it went off because she was too tired and couldn't function at all. After a couple weeks, she would wake up and take care of things on her own. Once she started waking up with the alarm to the point she could clean herself up, it didn't take long before she would wake as soon as she started to pee so she could stop and run to the bathroom.
My SIL borrowed it for her DD who was almost 6 at the time, but it didn't work for her. She just said her DD still wouldn't wake up enough to make any progress. I don't know if she just gave up too soon or if maybe her DD just need to mature physically a bit more before she was really ready.
I am sorry you are having to deal with the added stress of your mom's interference.
Take care~

Shell~
B/B/G 1/7/2000

The email I just sent to my mother:


Well, Chuck & I stayed up 1½ hours past our normal bedtime to potty everybody at 1130pm. Unfortunately, Meredith woke up at 3am screaming because she was soaked. We quietly changed her clothing & bed, but she and Camille are both still rustling up there. Hope they aren’t too tired to enjoy their field trip tomorrow – they have been so excited about it! Chuck is still tossing and turning too.

You have brought up overnight potty-training to me at least a dozen times, most recently less than a month ago at the triplets’ bday. On each and every occasion, I have patiently but clearly explained that I did NOT want to do this yet. You can do it young and it is hard and painful and a long-drawn out process, or you can wait and do it later (after age 5 ½, which is the average age kids are dry through the night, or after they consistently wake up dry in the mornings), and it is easy-breezy. I keep telling you that we had chosen the later route, especially as they are not yet showing the readiness signs to consistently make it through. So it is really frustrating that you explicitly went against our parenting decision to wait, and started this. Especially right before the last week of school – absolutely the last time I would have chosen.

I realize that you think you know best because you raised two children, but it has been 35 years since the last time you went through this. You don’t remember all the details, I promise! And watching Cousin Natalie does not count as being intimately involved. Natalie is light-years ahead of our kids – there is just no comparison between the two despite their closeness in age. I wish that you would trust us to do what is best for our kids, and respect the fact that we are their parents, and that we have made an informed decision that we feel is best for our family. You clearly knew about this decision as we have discussed it a dozen times recently, and intentionally refused to respect it because you disagree.

What really stinks is that at this point it is not easy to just reverse and put them back in diapers/Pullups. They now think those are for babies and don’t want to wear them. I pumped them up about it before bedtime, before I discovered that there had been some accidents over the weekend while we were gone.

I do really appreciate the weekend off, and all the work that you do when you are here. It is wonderful to have family who is willing to give us a break every now and then. But, wow, this situation is frustrating…

BGG born 4/25/05 at 31w1d




New baby girl born 9/19/06

It gets worse. Camille is currently wearing a patch over one eye 2-3 hours a day. The alternative to a patch is losing the vision in that eye permanently, so clearly this is very important.

It is one of the very few childcare instructions that I gave my mother this weekend.

Today, for the first time in the 5 months she has been wearing the patch, she REALLY didn't want it. Turns out Grandmama (who C idolizes and will do anything to please) kept postponing putting it on when Camille asked her to, and she didn't wear it all weekend. Which in itself wouldn't be a total disaster since she hasn't missed very many days at all, but C got the idea Grandmama didn't like the patch and so now she doesn't like it either.

BGG born 4/25/05 at 31w1d




New baby girl born 9/19/06

Your mom way way way overstepped her boundaries. Wow.

But you really set them up for failure by saying only babies wear pull-ups, which is totally untrue.

You can't push nighttraining. They will reach this milestone when they are developmentally ready and not one moment before.

You should set them down and say, "You know what? I was totally wrong that only babies wear Pull-ups. I talked to the doctor and he said that you will be dry at night when your brain can tell your bladder to stop making pee during the night. So he said it is totally okay to wear a Pull-up until your body is ready. It's not a big deal AT ALL. How about we just wait until that happens and stop worrying about it? Wouldn't that be better?"

I wet the bed until I started kindergarten. My sister wet the bed until she started her period. My father wet the bed well into his teenage years. Bedwetting is genetic and totally hereditary. I would ask you mother if SHE wet the bed. If they are still wetting when they are seven, get a bed alarm.

Michele
Sarah, Gregory, Amanda
born 1/22/04 at 35w1d

Our surprise baby Austin born 06/15/2005

www.fourtimesthefun.blogspot.com

Very frustrating for you. We were lucky in that my kids just trained themselves between the ages of 3 and 4. I didn't do anything to encourage it and I think it just happens when it happens and every kid is different.

Now, at nearly 6 my kids ARE still falling out of bed!

Have you tried the "Good Nights" products? They look more like underpants and not like Pull-Ups. Probably more expensive, though. But this could really help their self-esteem as they approach school age as they aren't wearing "Pull-Ups" they are wearing something that looks more grown up. Something to keep in your back pocket if they are still wetting the bed when they enter school.

I feel so bad for them....afraid to sleep, sounds like they are not quite sure if they really have to go, and yet not wanting to be a "baby" anymore. Frustrating for them as well as you and your husband that is for sure!

I will tell you, I would not even ATTEMPT overnight in underwear until they can consistently take a 1.5 - 2 hour nap and remain dry. They don't sleep as deeply at naptime, so if they don't have control during the naptime, there is NO WAY they are ready at night.

I agree with other posters. I think night potty training happens when it happens. I really don't know that there is much you can do about it.

You could try checking throughout the night to see if they are making it LONG periods of time (say to 5 am) before they pee. I had one who for months would make it until 6 am or so and then pee in his PullUp while still sleeping. At least that was an encouraging sign for me as I knew he could hold it for 8 hours and I just had to wait him out a bit longer than his brothers for that maturity to develop.

BBB born 7/26/04 at 35 weeks