Congratulations! You've conquered daytime potty training with your toddler, but potty training at night can be a whole new adventure. For many children, nighttime dryness doesn't happen until later and that's okay. Below are some of my favorite tips for conquering nighttime potty training:
Conquer These 5 Tips for Potty Training at Night
- Encourage the use of training pants: Training pants are a fantastic way to ease into the night potty training process and the best next step after diapers in order to get children used to the feeling of underwear. I like Pampers Easy Ups for boys and girls as they have the fit and feel of underwear while still giving children amazing leak protection for day and night. Training pants also help reinforce the concept of pulling underwear on and off, which will make nighttime underwear training that much easier. You can even introduce training pants as “nighttime underwear” to get your child excited about wearing them.
- Practice, practice, practice: I encourage parents to walk children through the process in case they need to get up in the middle of the night and try to use the potty. Make sure they can easily pull their pajamas up and down too. You can remind your toddler that she will have her “nighttime underwear” on, just in case, but you may be surprised when she has some victories in the middle of the night.
- Nightlight the path to the potty: Take your little one to the store and let her pick out a couple of nightlights that can help guide her to the potty at night. This way she will get excited to use her nightlights as the guide to getting to the potty. Also, make sure the toilet lid is up so the process is seamless for your little one when potty training at night.
- Play pretend: I like to use pretend play to make it fun for toddlers. Say, "Let's pretend we're sleeping" and have your child lie down in his bed and close his eyes. Then say, "Now you wake up and feel like you have to use the potty" and walk to the bathroom, walk through having your toddler pull down his pajamas and “nighttime underwear,” and try to go. Then start your regular bedtime routine and put him to bed for the night.
- Make it fun and rewarding: Praise the wins and reward your little one, especially once he starts waking up dry in the morning. Don't punish or scold for being wet in the morning. Just say, “Let's change your sheets and try again tonight.”
When to make the switch?
Once children are dry more than half the nights you can start changing to real underwear, as kids are more likely to wake up and use the potty if they feel themselves get a little wet. Or you can just wait until they are dry most nights or every night to switch your toddler to regular underwear.
