No nappies at night time

Written by Heidi McElnea | 28 September 2011

Toilet training is hard yakka. Managing accident-free days as well as dry nights doesn't have to be a two-step process, writes Heidi McElnea.

Just on two years old, my daughter Isabel started taking notice of the potty, which coincidentally coincided with my decision to begin her weaning.

Once she stopped wearing nappies during the day, she insisted that she didn't need them at night either. So we tentatively tried it out... and she impressed us! Most mornings we found a dry bed, which seemed uncommon among members of our playgroup. Other kids were wetting the bed (or their night nappies) at age 4, 5 and beyond.

This got me wondering, why did it work?

Cutting out the bedtime breastfeeding session meant that she was not going to bed with a belly full of milk. This was replaced by a story, a song and a cuddle, but not a cup or bottle of drink. Although it took her a few weeks to settle into the new routine, it meant that she didn't have to deal with all that liquid just before sleep time.

Of course a visit to the potty is still the last thing we do before hopping into bed, with no big drinks given in the last hour.

Now, Isabel regularly sleeps through until morning without incident, although sometimes she wakes up just a little and wriggles around. As her bed is just around the corner from mine, this activity is enough to wake me up. If I hop up and sit her on the potty she will do a wee, if I ignore her signals I'll be changing wet sheets in the morning!

There is a potty in the ensuite of our bedroom. This makes it all much easier, for as any parent knows, the simplest things can seem impossible when you're half asleep in the middle of the night! I try to stifle my grumbles as I hop out of bed to take her there; I don't want her to be discouraged and abandon the project. We endeavour to keep potty time fun and happy, even to the point of having a potty theme song! I'm sure ours is one of many 'quality' ballads penned by parents and their children in bathrooms worldwide. Toilet training, night-time potty runs and ablution songs… what fun!