Is Your Child Ready for Night-time Toilet Training?

A child usually achieves daytime toilet use before they can keep their bed dry at night.

Don’t worry if your toddler wets the bed because most children under the age of five years still urinate in their sleep, and one in 10 younger primary school children do too.

Don’t assume that your child can keep their bed dry just because they can manage their bladder when they are awake. It might help to think of night habits as completely separate to daytime toilet habits.

So, when can you tell if your child is ready?

1. Leave your child in nappies until they are ready.

If your child wakes up every morning with a wet nappy, it means they’re not ready. So, if you take them out of night-time nappies, they will still wet the bed.

2. Keep your child in night-time nappies.

Do this until most nappies are dry in the morning or until they are wet just before your child wakes. The nappy will be soaked and the urine warm.

3. Your child may attempt to go to the toilet during the night or call out.

Encourage this, as short term, it will disturb you, but long term, it is worth it.

Next Page: Preparing your child for night-time toilet training

Clare Whitfield Chief Editor

Clare Whitfield is the Editor of Stay at Home Mum and a recognised voice in practical home management for Australian families. Based in the northern suburbs of Sydney, she balances editorial leadership with life as a stay at home mum to two school age children. Her background in home economics and more than a decade of experience in recipe development, family budgeting, and household systems inform her work.

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