Yes, I know that some of you have been doing this for years. Your kids, I mean. I’m talking about the night time potty dance. However, my daughter is a rather late bloomer in the area of dry night times, and since she’s been an epic bedwetter I had no qualms about keeping her in training pants in perpetuity. No qualms except environmental ones, of course, since night time was the only time we didn’t use cloth diapers. My kid can pee through anything, I tell you.
However, for the last two or more weeks she has been dry at night. This week I’m been gently querying her about losing the training pants. After all, they’re expensive and it’s been a while. We’ve tried this before, but she wasn’t ready. She wasn’t yet dry at night on her own when I took to bringing her to the washroom in the middle of the night. She would writhe on the toilet for a while, growl at me sleepily, and return to the bed, not peeing at all in the toilet. I gave up on that quickly, since it took her a while to fall asleep again.
When she was a baby, I even tried night time elimination communication. However, since I was severely sleep-deprived from a non-sleeping child for two and a half years, I wasn’t sold on the idea of getting up more times than necessary. Besides, I could never time it properly. I was asleep too.
I need to do a sales pitch about ditching the training pants, though. She’s rather reluctant and afraid she’ll pee in the bed. I have a nice wool pad for under the covers and we may head out to get some special bed time underpants just for a while, as she transitions to bed times without diapers.
Do you have any tips for night time toilet training?
(Image courtesy of dafalias at stock exchange)