Potty training question?

Question

My cousin has a 3 year old, she is 100% potty trained during the day but she can't get her to stop peeing the bed at night. She puts pull ups on her as she still pees through the night. Last night she had no pull ups and she peed twice in the night, she even reminded her to not pee the bed when she put her down but she did. Any advice on how to break this. She was going to wake her up during the night but I was told thats not good, doesn't teach them to hold their pee all night long, and was proven true when 2 of my relatives kids were waking up twice a night to go pee and they are now 10 and 12 and still pee the bed once in a while. So any advice on how to get her to stop peeing at night? All opinions are appreciated.

Answer 1

All children are ready physically and mentally to be night-time trained at different ages. 3 years old is a little on the young side for night time dryness. You can not "remind" a 3 year old not to pee at night. Generally, at that age, they are still too sound of sleepers at night to feel the urge to urinate while sleeping. The 2 children you know who are 10 and 12 and still occasionally wet the bed do not do so because they were woken up at night to pee. What they experience is simply night time enuresis, which affects a significant percentage of children. It is not related to potty training techniques, but has a lot to do with maturity and heredity. There would have been nothing wrong with your cousin waking up her daughter during the night to urinate if she ran out of pull-ups one night. She could also have put down a mattress protector under the sheet (even a garbage bag works in a pinch). I suggest that your cousin not fret about night time potty training quite yet. Continue to put her in pull-ups until she begins to wake up in the morning dry. It will happen when she is ready. Even if it takes until she is 4-5 or even older there is nothing to worry about. It is normal for night time dryness to take considerably longer than day-time dryness.