Night time potty training

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For those of you who have boys on the spectrum, how long did it take before they were potty trained at night? My boys both flood their diapers at night and DS5 is nowhere near ready to get out of diapers. He is potty trained during the day (since age 3). When he floods his diaper at night, everything gets all wet he doesn't wake up at all. So... I am exhausted from getting up in the middle of the night to change 2 kids' diapers so I don't have to do a load of laundry every morning and deal with rashes. Doubling up diapers doesn't help. How long is this going to go on for? I NEED MY SLEEP!! !! !

My son on the spectrum potty trained amazingly easy at age 2... but my daughter had some issues and was on medication that caused her to wet the bed each night. I stopped worrying about it - she was years out of diapers at the time (she was 6, potty trained at 2) so I couldn't double diaper her and didn't want to start diapers again and make her feel bad - all I did was to make her bed with a bottom sheet, then a shower curtain liner, then a bottom sheet, then a shower curtain liner, then a blanket, then a bottom sheet, then a shower curtain liner, then a flat sheet, then a blanket, then another flat sheet, and if she happened to wake up in the night, I'd peel off a layer and she'd have something dry to sleep on. I stopped worrying about her clothes - she didn't care that they were wet. If she didn't wake up, I'd just peel a layer in the morning. The blanket layer absorbed the urine and the shower curtain liner layer kept the next layer down dry.

Then before getting dressed we'd at least wipe her down with a wet towel and baby wipes for the smell, or a full shower or bath if we had time and if she felt like it. Since yours is still in diapers, you might try double diapering, or a pull up over a diaper if that fits better. If he gets a rash from that then maybe that's a good time to have him sleep with just underwear - he's going to flood the bed anyway so at least the underwear won't hold the wetness next to him and give him a rash.

Nowadays there is some mention on shower curtain liners about ones that do or do not contain some chemical. My daughter is almost 23 and back then there was nothing about it... so maybe look into that before using one on the bed, if you decide to try it. Good luck!

Lots of kids - AS and NT alike - take forever to night-train: the average age is actually 6 or 7, and many kids aren't able to stop bedwetting until they are tweens. http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/bed-wetting/DS00611

We put a waterproof cover on the mattress, and then underneath the sheet we used an absorbent pad - you can even buy disposable ones if that's easier for you but we found those would bunch up, we liked the washable ones with a heavy lining on the bottom and padding on top that can just stay on the bed overnight. Some of it is about finding a way to keep everything dry enough so it gets dealt with in the morning. (If you can't find these locally at a kid's store, check out stores that deal with senior care. Lots of elderly adults have this problem.)

There are entire stores that deal with bedwetting online with all kinds of ways to support your child and make your life easier. Most of the problem is that there is a developmental aspect to being able to wake up when you need to go to the bathroom, and some kids just take longer than others; you can try "training" but the reality is it's a waiting game. The key is finding a trick that allows everybody to sleep, because sleep deprivation makes everything harder for everybody.

My oldest has low muscle tone. He potty trained for peeing at about 26-27 months--before he could talk. He'd go tap on the bathroom door when he needed to go. He had sensory issues so that he hated the way being in a wet diaper felt. Poop took most of a year later. Night time--he wore pull ups to bed until he was 7. The OT's just said that due to the low muscle tone, he just wasn't able to control it. He eventually grew into it with only a few accidents.

My middle child was a late potty trainer at about 3 years 8 months. He wore pull ups to bed until he was almost 5, though. He is ADHD, but no physical problems like the oldest. The youngest potty trained all of it at once over about a two week period around his 2nd birthday. He almost did it at 18 months, but he got scared by some part of the process, maybe the flushing sound, and refused to go near the toilet for 6 months. We used cloth diapers with him, and I think that was a big contributor to his early training. The store diapers make it hard for them to feel when they are wet.

We did all of that stuff people recommend. Not letting them have too much to drink in the last couple of hours before bed, making them go twice before bed. They were good sleepers, so sometimes we'd carry them to the bathroom before we went to bed for the night and put them on the toilet, wake them up just enough to go and then carry them back to bed. (Wouldn't work with the youngest. He'd be up the rest of the night!) Plastic mattress cover. Eventually it was just him getting older.

Have you tried figuring out about what time he goes, setting an alarm for yourself and taking him potty in the middle of the night. I think it would be worth the effort even if it is not full proof. If he's anything like my son, you could take him and return him to bed without him even waking fully up.

My son wet the bed almost nightly (and sometimes more than once per night) until January of grade 6 (age 10-11?) If your son is wetting the bed that often, it may be due to a food sensitivity. When I put my son on the GAPS diet, within the first week, the bedwetting stopped. In fact, he started waking up on his own to use the washroom. We were shocked! He no longer wets the bed and I thought that day would never come.

What is the GAPS diet? My son, age 9, still wets every night. Sometimes he does #2 as well. We've been following the Mayo Clinic protocol for encopresis, but haven't tackled the wetting problem yet.

Have you tried limiting fluids at night? It won't stop him from wetting, but it could make it less volume so it'll fit in a pull-up.

My son is almost 8, and his pediatrician says it is neurological and may take up to age 10. He was recently off pull-ups for about a month, but then had 3 wet nights in a row so we went ack to them.

Have you tried the diapers marketed specifically for night time? I found they hold a LOT more than regular ones. I also second the use of the washable pad underneath the sheets.

You'll have to google because its a lot of info to explain. I don't think most doctors give diet enough credit so I'm not surprised s/he mentioned it s neurological.

Thanks for all the responses everyone! To answer some of the questions:

1) My son does use a night-time diaper at night but he still overflows it by midnight

2) I have tried to limit his fluid intake before bedtime but inevitably he kicks a fit if he doesn't have water right before bedtime. Once he gets riled up about not getting water, he wakes his little brother up with his tantrum and makes it hard for him to get to sleep.

3) I tried waking him up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night but it doesn't lessen his need for a diaper change, as he still urinates quite voluminously in his diaper before and after. It also doesn't help my sleep!

4) My husband will never let me put him on a non-doctor approved restricted diet. Plus, it would be hard as hell to implement given my husband and all other family members would bring the taboo food into the house anyway, and make life a living hell for me trying to prevent my son from eating what everyone else in the house is.

I doubled up his diaper tonight. I folder over the top of his regular night-time diaper and put a larger night-time diaper over it. I guess I will see how it works come morning time--I am crossing my fingers! I did the same for my younger son as well. I also bought a waterproof mattress cover for the larger queen size bed in their room, which he will eventually sleep in anyway.

I've tried all the tricks you've used and without ANY success.. and for years. Your husband will be happy to know that the GAPS diet is created by a doctor who also has a degree in human nutrition. It's not very often you hear about a doctor who has a nutritional background. I agree with your husband to a point. You never want to try anything without doing the research first. This doctor has websites, blogs, interviews, books you can read about. She also references other diets and doctors who practice with this same philosophy. If anything, try doing a little research on the subject? It's really not about putting a child on a "diet". It's more about learning about the origins of food.. WHY some are healthy and WHY some are not. After gathering all of her info and cross-referencing, can you then base your own opinions.

Like I've said, my son wet the bed almost DAILY until we tried the GAPS program. He was half way into grade 6 at the time. It's the one concrete evidence we noticed that allowed us to feel confident about this particular program. Just saying.

EDIT: I'm not sure if it's worth mentioning, but this doctor created this program because she, too, had a child with Autism.

Here is the bed pad we use - http://www.amazon.com/Saddle-Style-Soak ... bedwetting

We also sometimes put a towel over my son (between him and the top sheet and blanket) He was able to wake up and move all the wet things off the bed himself (important to have a place for them to go, or you might wind up having to clean the floor,) although the bed pad is absorbent enough that you can sleep on it and stay relatively dry. You might want to get a couple so you don't have to worry about laundry the minute you wake up.

I didn't catch his age, but maybe adult diapers would hold more. Meanwhile...

I highly, highly, highly recommend this book: Seven Steps To Nighttime Dryness: A Practical Guide For Parents Of Children With Bedwetting, written by a nurse, Renee Mercer. Before my son was dxd, he had this problem, and this book worked EXACTLY as it promised. He was six and (if I remember correctly) it took 3 months. It is not easy peasy, but it was absolutely worth it because of the success. At the end she even has you "challenge" the child by giving him lots of liquid before bed. If he wets, you know what step to go back to, if he doesn't, you are totally assured you can catch up on your sleep.

The method uses a monitor which wakes you up the minute he wets. You have to make sure he's up and takes care of changes. Eventually he will wake up himself. The important component of the method is the spreadsheet. You record the time, size of puddle etc. (You have to get the book). What happens is that you and the child notice small positive changes in the data. That is encouraging enough for continuing, until he is fully trained.