Caroline was potty trained at 18 months of age. It is now exactly 1 year later and she’s been begging for MONTHS to do night and nap potty training. She no longer wants to wear her pull up, and wants to sleep in her big girl underwear.
Usually the begging, turns into me attempting the process with her. We put her to sleep with a training pad under her sheet, a stack of towels in the hallway for easy clean up, and just her underwear on.
She goes potty right before bed, and we remind her to call us if she wakes up and has to go potty. We’ve tried a few different times, and every time we’ve stopped for one reason-
I am not willing to sacrifice Caroline’s sleep to potty train her for night and naps at this young age. It is simply not the priority. Sleep is.
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Every time we’ve tried, we give it several days to make sure we put the effort in and give Caroline a good chance. Every time, she wakes up after she’s had an accident in her bed.
It’s upsetting to her and fully wakes her up. I try and get her back to bed as quickly as possible. We change the sheets in the morning, and simply put towels down on top of the mess for the remainder of the night.
Once waking like this, however, she’s up for awhile, and her sleep is drastically impacted. The loss of sleep impacts her behavior during the day.
At that point, we stop the training. I remind her that it’s ok to still wear a pull up. I tell her I’m proud of her for trying, and I tell her that we are going to go back to wearing them so she can get good sleep again. She never fights me at this point, and just goes back to pull ups and sleeping well.
Well, it’s been months of this. Her begging to try, we try, and we stop.
It was very clear to me that while she had the desire to achieve this milestone, she just wasn’t physically ready.
Fast forward to 2.5 years old…
She’s exactly 30 months old, and she’s night and nap training HERSELF! This amazing girl decided she was ready. No begging to try. She just did it.
About a week ago, Caroline started waking up around 11:30 pm and asking to go potty. Her pull up was completely dry.
I’d take her potty, she’d go right back to sleep and wake up at her usual 7 am. At 7 am she was still completely dry.
She is also completely dry for naps. This has been going on for about a week, and she’s been very consistent in waking herself for the process.
It’s been so impressive. It’s impacting her sleep, but much less than before, and there’s nothing I can do about it, since she’s got her mind set on waking and going potty.
And she’s succeeding– so this is the moment to let the process happen!
It’s been a week of dry pull ups, so last night, per her request, we removed the pull up. Again, she was successful in waking up and asking to go potty, and staying dry through the morning.
I’m pretty amazed that she’s been so consistent on her own and that she’s seeing such success! Since she’s doing so well, we are running with it this time and going full speed ahead! Go Caroline!
Download this potty reward chart, here:
