Nighttime potty training

There’s really not much to say on this as it has gone very well, but I want to keep up my daily #blogmas challenge, so here we go…

Avery potty trained right when she turned 2. We had a lot of success with the Oh Crap! Potty Training Method, but we held off on nighttime training because the book recommended waking your child up through the night to put them on the potty. We were already waking up through the night for our sleep-challenged kiddo, and waking her up on purpose seemed like a terrible idea to us. But last month marked 3 months of daytime potty success, and Avery had started to not want a sleep diaper anymore. Can’t say I blame her… Once you get used to not sitting in your own excrement while you’re awake, it would start to become a gross concept even just while you’re sleeping.

So we had a talk with her (as we did when daytime training commenced) and made sure she understood the expectations. We then set up her little potty in her room, right beside her bed, and stuck her on it every time she woke through the night. Because she wakes on her own for random reasons, we actually didn’t have to wake her ourselves more than a handful of times. And every time we would put her on the potty – even in her half-asleep state – she would either pee or tell us that no pee would come out, and then she’d quickly go back to sleep. My worst fear of fully waking her and having to spend another hour getting her to fall asleep again was not realized.

It went so well.

The only times she has had an accident in bed have been when she’s getting sick. In fact, that has become our consistent predictor that she’s going to wake up sick the next day… otherwise, she has been consistently dry to the point where we’re not even afraid to have sleepovers at someone else’s house who doesn’t have a mattress protector (we just have to make sure to get her out of bed and onto the potty at least once through the night).

Once again, I’m thrilled with how the Oh Crap! method has worked for us. It’s an intense process for which you have to be entirely committed… And I’m also reminded by some very capable parents and potty trainers that some kids are more receptive to this kind of intense training than others… But if a) you can be a patient but strict trainer, b) your kid is interested in the potty, and c) your kid gets internal satisfaction from learning new skills, I highly recommend this method.