From: RABINOWITZ@bear.com (Ari Rabinowitz)
Newsgroups: misc.kids
Subject: Re: Nighttime Potty Training
Date: 26 Aug 92 15:29:51 GMT
Organization: Bear Stearns & Co.
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.20

In <1992Aug25.150027.21411@random.ccs.northeastern.edu> sgauch@ccs.northeastern.edu writes:

> Laura is 3.6 and pretty reliable during the day.  However, she is
> a very heavy sleeper and I still put her in a diaper at night.  I've
> told her that if she wakens and wants to use the potty, she can
> remove her diaper herself or come get me.  She has a small potty and
> toilet paper in her room.  This has only happened once, for a bowel

Jake is 4-3/4 (as he puts it) and still wets his bed at night
occasionally.  It was really bad last week when we were on vacation at
my M-I-L's apartment at the Jersey shore and he wet the bed every night,
except Saturday night when my M-I-L was there.

At home he only wets about once every two weeks now, though it used to
be much more often.

> Sometimes, she asks to go without a diaper.  The first time she asked,
> she stayed dry all night and peed abour 2 cups (literally!) in the
> morning.  She wet the bed the next 3 nights in a row.  So, we put her
> back in diapers and said "When your diaper is dry in the morning, then
> we'll know you're ready to sleep without."  She occasionally asks to
> go without a diaper, so I remind her to keep her diaper dry at night
> and that as soon as she does that, she can go without.  The diaper is
> always soaking in the mornings.
 
> Am I discouraging her from trying unnecessarily?  

I don't think so, this of course will vary from person to person.  We
told Jake that if he kept his diaper (or eventually his pull-up) dry for
three nights in a row we would try him without it.  For a while that
meant three nights with a pull-up on, then one or maybe two nights
without until he wet again.

> If she wet the bed a few (dozen) times would she learn to use the potty 
> at night?

Maybe, what we finally did was to stop changing the sheets in the night
when he wet.  We just put a large towel over the wet part of the sheet,
took him to the toilet to pee anything out that was left, and then put
him back to bed on the towel.
 
> Anyone else have older children in diapers at night?

As I said, Jake was wearing pull-ups until well past 4.

> When do you stop using diapers and resign yourself to changing
> sheets on a regular basis instead?

Don't change the sheet in the middle of the night.  Just put down a
towel and let her sleep on it.  Make it her job to take off the wet
sheets in the morning, it might give her more incentive to stay dry :-).
 
> Are there larger Pampers? :-)

Try the Huggies Pull-ups, they are like disposable training pants.  Or
just use training panties.

> -- 
> Susan Gauch
> sgauch@flora.ccs.northeastern.edu

Ari (Father of Jake 4-3/4 and Anna 2-1/4)

P.S. Anna started training even earlier that Jake, so there were nights
last spring when Jake woke up in a wet bed, and Anna woke up in a dry
diaper.
--

Ari Rabinowitz                  rabinowitz@bear.com for VMS and personal mail
WorkStation Administrator	ari@bear.com for sun/HP Un*x mail
Bear Stearns
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