My Child Is Potty Trained, Why Are They Still Wet At Night?

When I think back to my early days of parenting, I fondly recollect all the things I was excited to share with and teach my daughters. Few things struck me as worrisome or daunting.

At just a few short months, my oldest daughter mastered eating and sleeping. What could be more challenging, right? As we approached my daughter’s second birthday, she was showing signs of readiness so I decided to try potty training. I purchased all the right training pants, undies, wipes, towels, car seat protectors, and incentives a mom could need. Low and behold, potty training with my oldest daughter was – dare I say – a breeze! She took to the new skill quickly and effectively and at the end of the first week, I was surprised to find that my daughter was not only consistently waking up dry after naps, but in the morning as well! Naturally, I chalked this up to my exceptional parenting skills, gave away all the unused potty training supplies, starting soliciting my unwanted advice to other potty training parents, and that was that. Or so I thought!

Fast forward several years to daughter number two. Not much seemed to worry me anymore. I felt like I had this parenting thing down! So, naturally, as potty training approached, I tackled it with a “no problem” attitude- which lasted approximately one week. I diligently (and expertly, I must say), prepared all the supplies, set the potty check timers, created the rewards chart and began. This time around was a little trickier. After a solid 7 days of no success, and feeling a little bewildered and deflated, I decided to take a break and try again in a few months. I realized that my daughters are both so different in many ways, potty training included. They each have their own developmental timeline.

We began again several months later, and with slightly more apprehension. Training pants, character undies, sticker charts…. oh my! This time around, we were getting it!! With a boost to my mothering ego I continued with the process. Within a few days, we were venturing out of the house for a few hours at a time in big girl undies and in a few weeks we were going all day with no more accidents. I told myself we’d be getting though the night in NO time!

To my dismay, in NO-time soon did that occur. In fact, it still has not happened…. not once, and here we are two years later. Which brings me to the question: My child is potty trained, why is she still wet at night?”

Through much online research, including expert articles from from GoodNites.com, discussions with our pediatrician and numerous bits of other mother’s un-wanted advice, I have come to the conclusion: short of a small miracle, there is nothing that we can do for now. And that’s ok! Through my research, I’ve found that nighttime dryness evolves naturally as children grow. It’s part of their physical development and my daughter just isn’t there yet.

So now we wait. How do we manage in the meantime? The answer is simple. We’ve turned to GoodNites Bedtime Pants– disposable pants designed specifically for nighttime. They offer five layers of protection and double leg barriers to help protect all night long, and they offer zoned protection in areas specifically for boys and girls. This was super important because a regular diaper could no longer accommodate the growing, yet still uncontrolled, bladder of my daughter, and because she’s fully potty trained during the day and considers herself a Big Kid, she doesn’t want to wear diapers anymore. GoodNites come in three sizes, the newest of which is their XS size that are 20% more absorbent than training pants designed for young children who are newly potty trained, but need extra protection for nighttime. Just like my little girl!

My sensory sensitive daughter took a little bit of time to adjust to her new GoodNites, but only because they “felt different” from her previous nighttime diaper. However, due to the ingenious and humorous attempts of my husband, we had her wearing GoodNites happily in no time. That is, after we all paraded around the house in a pair. Yes, that includes said husband. I’ll leave the imagery up to you! So on the second night, after and uproar of laughter, our daughter happily drifted off to sleep wearing GoodNites. Now they’re a normal part of her bedtime routine.

And….. as they say, the rest is history. At least, I’m hoping, in due time, there will be more to this story. I’m so thankful for GoodNites especially because I can rest assured that we will be having leak free, well-rested nights. And for now, that is good enough for me!

This post was sponsored by GoodNites.