Ds will be 6 in December. First, he was extremely hard to potty train. I won't go into the boring details, but we started at 3.5 - I had the patience of Job, and he's nearly 6 and we still have to remind him all the time. He will frequently have #2 accidents - or he will catch them before they are full blown - but lets just say that he won't be getting anything other than white undies for awhile because I can bleach them!

Anyway, we started to night train him when school started. We would have started earlier, but when we tried, and he ended up wet several times a night, he started to backslide AGAIN (during the day!) and this at age 5. I in no way could go through that again so we put him back in nighttime Pullups.

Now we're trying again an it's been an on and off nightmare. We put out all the extra clothes, cloths, wipes, etc. that he will need if he has an accident. No problem. We're trying to be super no pressure. 1/4 of the time he will realize he is wet and change, put a new pad on the bed and go back to sleep. Once in a great while he will actually get up to go and we'll hear the toilet flush. This has happened two times in a month. The rest of the time, he will wake but not really be awake and create a complete fiasco.

Dh gets him up to go before we go to bed. Last night he was wet, dh tried to get him up and he just wailed and wailed like he was having a nightmare. He refused to get up, so dh just made the bed around him and changed him. He continued to scream, wail, for a half hour. All this time, I was in there trying to reassure him. He wanted nothing to do with me comforting him, he would pull away if I touched him but then begged me to stay when I went to leave the room. I can't go on like this! I felt we had made a tiny bit of progress but most of the time it's been a nightmare! We limit drinks. We get him up. We give him all the tools to succeed, we make light of accidents and praise a dry night. But this is getting insane! Half the time I think he's having a sort of nightmare, and half the time I think he's awake. He keeps wanting me to sleep with him, which I won't do. Last night the only thing that helped was me saying if he calmed down I would come back in 5 minutes and give him another kiss. He did calm down (so he can do it) and I made good on my word, came back gave him a kiss and then he fell asleep again.

Dh gets up at 5:00 am and I get up slightly later. I've been walking around like a zombie for a month, yet most of the time ds does not remember these incidents at all. I have to add that he's an extreme perfectionist, even though we reassure him it will come in time, he's so darn hard on himself.

I don't know what to do anymore! I hate to put him back in nighttime pullups because I can just see this happening again the next time we try! He is a deep sleeper for dh but the minute I walk in the room he's up. All I know is we can't go back to the way we've been doing it. He's exhausted during the day, and so are dh and I. It's affecting my parenting to the max, as I'm going through menopause and Need my sleep.

Sorry so long, just looking for ANY and all advice. Thanks.

What does your ped say? It sounds like he just might be a really deep sleeper...it sounds like you're doing all the right things. One of the first things that happened for our kids, was staying dry at night around the age of 2. But clearly, every kid is different and our ped told us that kids can often have accidents or problems right up until they're 8, 9 or even 10, and that is not unusual. But unusual or not, I can imagine it's incredibly frustrating!

I used and alarm system...it attach to my son's underwear and then to his shirt . the first sign of wettness the alarm would go off, most of the time he would wake up and make it to the bathroom . Other than that...he just might not be ready. I would check with his Dr. to see if there might be other options.

Do check with your son's doctor. I use to do the medical stuff of a teenage boy group home and I had one 17 year old bed wetter. We took him to the doctor and in his case it was a chemical inbalance thing and all he needed was a medication. When he took the medication he didn't wet the bed.

This probably isn't your son's problem (yours is so much younger) but it's always worth asking!

The alarm system worked great for my 2 oldest. My youngest, who is now six, isn't interested in the alarm. I just have him wear pull-ups. A lot of mornings they are dry. I know our doctor said it's usually due to being a deep sleeper and that they usually just out grow it. We tried the waking them up before we go to bed and again in the middle of the night, and that didn't help at all--just made us all exhausted. I wouldn't worry about it at this age. It seems quite normal, I know my friend's son still wears pull-ups and he's six also.

We had the same thing when ds was six, and I did work w/the ped. Bottom line - they will outgrow it. It's not in his control. Just put him in the pullups and let him grow. We would be sure he went pee just before bed and was up by 6:30. If we missed 6:30, it was too late. He's now 7 and out of the blue last spring we realized he'd been completely dry for a few months. The pullups just put less stress (and shame) on everyone. They don't want to be wet, either.

The other thing, if you haven't done so, is put a night light in his room, the hallway and the bathroom so he can see to go - they get scared at night. I use the nightlights that glows and doesn't give off heat, and we happen to have a socket right above the toilet. We also have a dimmer on the bathroom light so it's not so harsh when he gets up at night, which (yay!), he now does. It just takes time for the bladder and brain to connect at night.

Oh, one more thing. We found that he sleeps much, much better now that he knows he can get up at night to go pee. His night fears are gone, too. I attribute them to anxiety about going in his pants (pullups) while sleeping. We went through nights of sheet changing when the pullups leaked, or when he refused to wear them (we let it be his decision all the way), but we just made sure we had plastic sheets on the bed and fresh plastic and sheets/blankets/pajamas at the ready. We also taught him to thoroughly clean himself with a washcloth and Kandoo wipes.

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If you think he physically can't control it yet, then I'd try some of the ideas from the other posters. I esp like just giving it more time and letting him wear pull ups.

But, if you think it's something he can control and just chooses not to, then I'd put all of the responsibility on him. Just tell him that he needs to choose to use the bathroom at night and if he chooses not to, then he needs to deal with the consequences that causes. Show him how to change himself and the bed and where to put the wet stuff. Then, in the morning, make him do the laundry (or as much of it as he can do). Tell him if he cries and yells and wakes you or your dh up, then he's going to have to go to bed an hour earlier the next night because you and dh need your sleep and he interrupted it so you need an extra hour. I think if you make it the child's responsibility and put it all on them, they might change.

However, I would only do that if I was certain he can control it but for some reason chooses not to.

I wonder if his extreme perfectionism has something to do with it too. Does he delay doing other things until he can do them perfectly? My sister was like that. She wouldn't do anything until she was sure she could do it right and then she'd just take off (like riding a bike or speaking). Maybe he's so concerned about having accidents that he won't do it at all?

I feel for you because once you get out of the up in the middle of night habit, it's horrible to have to do it again. I'm a bear when it happens to me.

Thank you so much ladies for all your support. I took ds to the ped. today for another issue and wish I had met this ped. when we first moved here. She is the head of the pediatric dept. We were offered another Dr. first, but as I have had trouble understanding her and after numerous times of her telling me there was 'nothing' that could be done about different issues (again I'm not talking about the bed-wetting) I decided to 'reject' that doctor and ask for another one.

Bottom line, she is Excellent. She put ds on allergy medicine (that he probably should have been on 3 years ago) and I asked her about the bed wetting. I told her that part of the issue with him being tired/sick was that we'd been getting up at night to take him to the bathroom. Her exact words (or as close to it as I can get) were:

"WHY are you getting him up at night? He is growing, and constantly disturbing his sleep is very interrupting as far as growing and healing. And besides, it doesn't work. It might appear to, but in the long run it just makes things worse. Put a Pullup on him, and when he's ready he will be dry. Nothing is going to make him be ready except when his own body tells him that he is ready".

I felt so much relief, basically because deep down I knew this was right. I was caving from pressure from dh, and a friend that is going through the same thing with her dd. To my knowledge ds has only woken up dry once or twice with a nightime pullup. He also stayed dry maybe two-three times on his own. I don't think it's a lazyness issue. Now a year ago, yes. He would dwadle around in that pullup while he was already up, etc. But after we talked to him and said that when he woke up he needed to be out of a pullup before he came downstairs, he did and was very good about it.

It is frustrating, however, because of so much conflicting information. One of the Dr.'s in our practice (we no longer see him) told me THREE years ago ds should have been night trained already. He was 3 and not even potty trained yet! He tried all these scare tactics with me and I basically just brushed him off. And then I got on the American Associan of Pediatrics website that DOES tell you to wake them up at night. So while she did give me a mild 'slap on the wrist' I feel I was justified in trying it since it was endorsed with the American Association of Pediatrics!

I guess it just boils down to you have to know your child and take medical advise - not with a grain of salt - but be open to other things too. After all, it is an art not a science and if you asked 100 Dr.'s their opinions you'd get 100 different ones. I guess we just have to pick and choose and hope we choose correctly!

Yay!! I agree about not waking them. My son had enough sleep issues without us causing even more!! Except for the 6:30 a.m. one, even on weekends - that's where his clock was, anyway with school, so that was fine. And waking him at 10pm and 2am just gets his body use to going at 10pm and 2am. My dh was also trying to teach my son to simply hold it when he woke up needing to go. Huh? He said men can do that. Well, maybe men, but no little boys! That was a surefire way to have an accident and uncomfortable sleep!

Mommy instinct strikes again!

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