Night Time Potty Training for 3.5 Year Old- Ideas Needed!

She's not developmentally ready to stay dry at night. All kids are different and you will get some responses about kids who stayed dry at night at age 3 or 4, but it's normal to wet at night for months or even years after day time training and dryness. It's a physiological thing and you can't change that with "training." Doctors don't even consider it a problem until about age 7 or 8. My boys were both in pull-ups at night until age 6. Just keep her in the pull-ups, don't worry about it and enjoy the new baby. Eventually the pull-ups will be dry in the morning and you will know she is ready.

"Bed-wetting up to the age of 6 is not unusual, even though it may be frustrating to parents. Treating a child for bed-wetting before the age of 6 is not usually necessary." From: http://familydoctor.org/online/famdocen/home/children/par...

Please just keep using Pull-ups and your daughter will eventually grow out of this. Taking away the Pull-ups will only lead to more laundry for you to do and eventually feelings of shame in your daughter. This is a purely physical development stage and there is no "training" to be done for nighttime. My daughter was trained for daytime by age 2 and then gradually wet less often at night until she was 6 and then never again.

My oldest was 27 months when he potty-trained. He did really well during the day but soaked through his Pull-Up more than half of the time at night. After a few months, I finally told him out of frustration that he HAD to wake up to go potty. He could stay in bed and yell for me, but he HAD to wake up. I didn't really expect anything to change, but that very night he woke up and yelled for me to take him potty! We've had very few accidents ever since.
My second is 33 months and has been potty trained for a few weeks. It took him a little longer to get motivated enough to use the potty all the time, but once he was dry all day he wanted to wear underwear to bed. We made sure he had a waterproof pad on his bed and then let him. He's only had one accident.
My point is, when they are ready, they will do it. You can't force it. You can give them the tools and instructions but then you have to step back and wait for it to happen. My boys potty-trained a lot earlier than most kids, but that has very little to do with me. I just gave lots of encouragement and had to wait until they were ready to do it themselves.
Good luck!

P.S. I use 2 yards of rubber sheeting as a mattress pad for a twin size bed. You can get it at JoAnn Fabrics on the big rolls. It costs $12.99/yard, but you can use their 40% off coupons. It's waterproof, durable (my mom still has some that she used as a changing pad when I was a baby almost 30 years ago) and machine washable. It has a soft, cottony feel so it doesn't rustle like other waterproof pads, and you can cut it to fit your mattress.

Not sure what to tell you about whether this is the right time for your daughter, or not (with a new baby coming and all) but I can tell you I trained my two daughters at the same time last Thanksgiving weekend - went cold turkey for both day and nightime diapers and never used Pull-ups. My youngest was 3.5 months shy of her third birthday at the time (older one was almost 4, but she has Down syndrome, so I'd always planned on training them together when the younger one was ready).

We did have some accidents at night, but not many and they have stopped for the most part (my younger one might have had one two months ago, but that was VERY isolated and again a long time since the previous incident). Here's my biggest tip for you: plan to buy the cheapest mattress cover you can find and purchase several of them. I think I paid around $5 for a cheap, fitted cover at Target. Layer the cover and then a fitted sheet, then another cover and another fitted sheet and if you want to do more layers than that - go right ahead. At night if (when) she has an accident.... it is very easy to just strip off the top sheet and cover and you are all set to put her right back to bed!

Of course you should do as the other moms have said and limit her liquid intake after supper at night. Also, having her go before bed, and before you go to bed is how I did it, and that helps a lot. I also read to wake the child about 30 minutes before she normally gets up and have her go then as well. She'll get the hang of it!! By the way, my girls also didn't really get out of bed, and certainly didn't leave their room at night, so we had a little potty chair in their room they could go in if they woke up and we weren't around.

Good luck with this! I'm sure it'll go fine! :-)

Have you tried the pull-ups that get cold when wet? My SIL used that on her little girl and they seemed to work really well. Thought I will say I'm not sure she used them at night?

Coming from someone who had both my boys out of diapers by 18mos (day and night), you cannot night train a child. The child has to mature enough before they can be dry at night. Some kids are dry from the start, some take years before they can wake up dry. It has to do with a part of hte brain that has to mature enough for the child to wake up to bodily functions at night.

Keep limiting drinks before bed and have her use the toilet right before she crawls into bed. You can wake her when you go to bed to use the toilet (assuming she goes to bed at 8pm and you go to bed at 11pm or something similar) or get up with her right away in the AM. If she's staying dry some nights, chances are she is waking up and peeing before she's fully awake, at the end of her sleep cycle.

But don't rush her. If she can't stay dry at night, then its best to keep her into diapers until she can. Think of using cloth diapers for her until she can stay dry. It might make it wet enought for her to wake up. Otherwise don't force her or rush it, it does take maturing to stay dry at night ,unlike day training that can be mastered before 2.

My older son was 3 1/2 when when baby #3 arrived (also right around Thanksgiving last year). What worked for us, was to go cold turkey with the pullups, but then when I was up with baby at night, I'd go in and get him up around 2-3 in the morning and take him to the potty. Soon, he was waking on his own to go.

On occasion he has an accident still, especially if he is really tired, so don't expect that accidents won't still happen.

Good luck with the new baby!
Jessica

Do you have to do this now? Doesn't seem like there is time to master it before the baby arrives, plus there is always some backtracking in some areas when you add the baby. We had similar situation last Thanksgiving and the older kidlet refused to wear anything but underpants. There were definitely some rough nights with the older one waking the baby when she'd wake up wet. Then we'd have 2 crying at once -- one needing new sheets and cleaned up. If it was me, I'd wait until things mellow out in the nights with the baby.

Kids love encouragement and celebration. We used stickers on a calendar for every night that he stayed dry and we would make a list of small (inexpensive) things that he would get at the end of a full week of staying dry. Every morning was a celebration and lead to an even bitter reward at the end of the week. My kids are very visual and want to SEE their progress. We did this for 3 weeks and have not had an accident since.