Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Night time potty issues

Okay parents.  I need your help.  A little background info:  both Lilly and Ryley potty trained very early.  We just let them tell us they were interested and made it a no pressure, laid back learning process.  It worked very well for day time potty training and they were both close to 100% day time trained by age two.  It took much longer for Lilly to be able to go all night without being wet, and I had a few conversations with our pediatrician about it.  He assured me it was something you could not "train" a child to do, that you simply have to wait for their body to be ready.  Right around her fourth birthday, Lilly was able to be free of diapers or pull ups completely.  Fast forward to Ryley's impending fourth birthday.  About a year ago, when the baby came along, we expected some regression.  However, the opposite happened.  She decided diapers were for babies and she wanted to wear panties at night.  So we let her and for a few months only two accidents.  Then we had a big bed switch up and she went from her toddler bed into the bottom bunk with Lilly on the top bunk.  And que the night time accidents.  We decided not to worry too much about it, maybe she just wasn't physically ready and we went back to (cloth) diapers for night time.  Some mornings she was wet, sometimes dry.  However, about two weeks ago Ryley decided again she wanted to wear panties at night.  Since we've been letting her steering this potty training train, we agreed.  At my mom's suggestion, we tried making her potty when she goes to bed, then waking her when we go to bed and letting her potty and then see if she can make it through the night.  My daughter is, for lack of a better word, a grump when she first wakes up.  She needs a minute (or ten) to really wake up to her sweet spunky self.  So, in the middle of the night, waking her up to pee has been interesting to say the least.  Kicking and screaming sometimes, refusing to pee, and all of this because I am convinced she is still, for the most part, asleep.  If she actually empties her bladder, she is totally dry in the morning.  If she fights and refuses, sometimes wet.  She doesn't seem to want to go back to diapers but she doesn't seem to be able to be dry for 12 hours consistently, without us waking her in the night.  We had these awesome cloth trainers we used for a long time and it was the best of both worlds!  She has to have cloth and these are like a pull up and she loved her trainer panties!  She is way too big for them now though, and I don't want to invest in more because I don't think she will need them much longer.  We will most likely use cloth trainers for Avery but I am not convinced she will ever need the size I would have to buy for Ryley.  So where does this leave us?  Does anyone have any advice?  What else could we try?  Thanks for reading and helping if you can!