Hank’s Last Pull-Up
I have made no secret that potty training Hank has been a struggle. Every time I go to Costco and put the box of Pull-Ups in the cart I announce to Hank and anyone within earshot that this is absolutely the last box I am going to purchase. We’ve been playing this game for well over a year.
I had no problems with the girls. Night time potty training was almost immediate after initial potty training. They were easy. Apparently so were all 4 of my mother-in-law’s children because she is always at the ready with a *helpful* suggestion.
Every time Hank has spent the night at her house in the past year, she wakes him up every few hours to use the bathroom. I was resistant to trying this because I don’t see how waking Hank up every few hours is going to translate into him waking himself. Also, it was my mother-in-law’s suggestion, so….
On Christmas, my mother-in-law was present when we ran out of Pull-Ups. Again, she told us what she did. It has been over two weeks of waking Hank up several times a night to use the bathroom. It gives me no pleasure to say it wasn’t successful.
- Number of consecutive days Hank hasn’t wet the bed – 0
- The most times Hank has wet the bed in one night – 4
- Average loads of daily laundry generated by just Hank – 3
- Number in pounds at which Hank will have to switch from Pull-Ups to Depends – 70
- Number of times my mother in law has given unsolicited advice reference potty training – 1,000
- Chances Hank will get lucky at his senior prom – 5 out of 10. Even if he’s finally out of Pull-Ups, he still has the helmet to contend with.
Poppy
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Potty training my first kid was so much easier than my second. But if my MIL gave me advice I wouldn’t listen to her either. She prefers my kids get sunburns over wearing sunscreen.
I die.
Poor Hank.
Have you tried bribery with chocolate?
Oh god wait…
With that energy he has?
Well unless he’s wearing the helmet…
I’ve got nothing, Poppy . . . . I’m still dealing with every-other-night diaper blowouts.
Knowing you, you have to have tried bribery, right?
My daughter was so easy to potty train. I honestly I think I can count the number of accidents she had on 1 hand. My son totally made up for that. All I’m saying is, bribery is a beautiful thing. The sugar highs weren’t fun, but I preferred those to extra laundry every stinkin’ day.
Ah mother in laws… Every time she sees Jakah she has to tell me “none of my kids were ever this defiant” or “My kids never acted like this”…. I told my husband she is just crazy and had 5 kids in 8 years and totally forgot what any of them were like
Poor you.
Hank evidently seems to have no issue.
Now I’m concerned about my need for Depends.
Would you like my 2 cents? Too bad you are getting it anyway- Stick with the pull-ups and don’t worry about it yet. I know a lot of 4yo (and older) boys still in diapers at night. I think night time dryness isn’t potty training, it’s a whole other beast. And he’s not ready to tackle it.
Unless you are totally keen for a make work laundry project.
My girls were so easy. I literally don’t recall either of them having accidents, let alone at night. This boy, though? He is an entirely different type of human. But, he’s only 2 so I figure there’s plenty of time. In fact, it wasn’t even our idea to start him training yet. He came home from daycare one day and announced “I pee in the pot.” Um, OK then. We gradually switched to pull-ups and if we stay on him, he will go during the day. Yesterday he came home from daycare and said “You know I’m just playing with y’all because this pull up is so heavy from pee my pants are wet and I’m about to shit so bad you’ll have to wash even my shoes.”
That said, I got nothin’ but I wish you luck and patience.
Not uncommon for boys to do this up to grade school and after several years of doing all most everything, changing diet, habits etcs, for my 9 year old grandson,They did some more testing, it turned out surgery was necessary,hopefully that is not the case.
You know that Michael Landon wet the bed until he was 10…there, that’s another number you can add…Hey, go with the pull ups and eventually he will stop…let’s hope at least…
EMBRACE the PULL-UPS! THANK GOD for them! Kristin said it so well and since she is not your mother-in-law you should have no issues with taking her advice.
I had one child (a girl) who was in night time pullups through the 4th grade. we DID have to switch to depends. I took her to the doctor and he checked her for diabetes – none – he then told me that most likely her bladder hasn’t grown as fast as she has and because she is a heavy sleeper, sometimes the signs of needing to go just aren’t strong enough to wake her.
it was embarrassing for her and frustrating for me, but we finally just decided that we were going to use the pull ups/depends until her body naturally started waking itself up … and it did! but in its own time.
(sigh) Boys…Noah is 12. He still has an occasional accident. We are only NOW weaning him off of meds to help control that.
Um, yeah. I got nothin.
Maddy still insists on wearing her “puhyups” even though she hasn’t had an accident in over 2 months. She’s worn the current pair for about 4 nights now and I’m seriously getting grossed out. Thanks MommaKiss for that suggestion.
Wish I could help.
*Note to Maddy…if you ever meet Hank, you might want to read this post FIRST!
Love your note to Maddy! 4 nights is a long time, sister love.
It’s a dilemma isn’t it.
What I did was to go to ensure bedtime as late as possible for a few weeks and no fluids or foods after 6pm.
It worked!
I haven’t had an accident for months.
My wife is ever so pleased!
Good luck with Hank!
Have you talked to his pediatrician about it yet? I know several moms who struggled with this, then found out their kid’s bladders were immature. Yeah. Like it’s not enough for most boys to be mentally immature, but their bladders can be too. Good luck.
Oh, and I hear you on the MIL. Been trying to find a mute button for mine for years.
If he’s only wetting at night, I would consider him potty trained and stop worrying about it. His brain is obviously not ready to wake him up at night. I really doubt it is just laziness on his part. He cannot possibly enjoy wetting the bed OR being awaken several times at night. So, why continue to fight it? I’d stick with the pullups for now and stop making you both miserable.
PS You are right. Mother in laws have no memory of what it’s like to raise actual small people.
I agree with Diane. I myself wet the bed until I was 12. Believe me, it wasn’t because I didn’t go to bed every night with good intentions! I would wake up in mid stream, so upset that it had happened again. My poor Mom. There were no pull ups then. He will grow out of it, I’m sure. Stop torturing yourself (& Hank) & buy another box of pull ups.
I’m so glad I’m not the only one thinks potty training is next to water boarding (that is, I’m the one being water boarded)…sigh!
Agree with many, just at night is a totally different animal. Big Kiss wasn’t out of night time stuff til after 5. Lil Kiss just did everything better for his momma. Hank won’t be wearing them to sleepovers at 14 like A’s nephew, trust me.
Is advice from my mother-in-law too much? She LOVES to brag about all the genius ideas she had to raising her perfect son and one of her most inspired stories that I’ve heard multiple times was teaching him to not pee in the bed. She got a huge calendar and explained that each night he didn’t pee in the bed, he got a big sticker or circle or whatever on that day. If he did pee, it got an “x” on it. If he went 5 days in a row with stickers, he got a new toy. If he did it 3 weeks in a row he got a big prize. She said it took 7 days.
We’re not there yet so I don’t know what else to say. We just started with real undies during the day. Not ready to tackle the night time training…
Potty training is just dreadful. Enough said.
Oh, and let’s hear for mother-in-laws. Ugh!
Your mother-in-law sounds a lot like my MIL. *My boys were trained at 9 and 11 months* Yeah yeah whatever. When your little guy is ready he’ll be ready.
My sister was a bedwetter until she was way too old to be one. My mother’s chiropractor was convinced that if she had regular adjustments and put one little blog mineral ice under her belly button every night, she would no longer wet the bed. And she stopped. I think it was all in her head, but that mineral ice was the key. If she forgot to put it on, she wet the bed. Eventually she was cured. It was expensive back in those days, but nowhere near as much as pullups are today!
Potty training is the worst! At least Hank lets you put him to bed without at diaper. Amelia just screams “I want a diaper” until we put one on her. I don’t think we’ll ever get her on to a potty!
I die.
Poor you.
Also? Poor Hank when his future love reads that last one!
It’s so hard – MIL’s I mean. I’ve had lots of friends who have had their boys in pull-ups at night until they were 5/6 years old.
#1 rule in life. Don’t ever, and I mean ever, follow your mother-in-laws advice. He won’t be in pull ups at the prom…depends maybe, but not pull ups.
Oh, I feel your pain. We’ve had some struggles here, too. Daytime was fast & the diapers were gone with one weekend. But nighttime? I can’t talk about it, because I have to go wash a load of sheets…
If you discover the secret, let me know.
Please tell me you have a list of things he will do in his teenage years to pay you back for this.
I feel your pain! My younger boy had a hard time making through the – wake-up-to-go-to-the-bathroom – stage. At the risk of giving unsolicited advice (but, I am not you mil, right?) I finally took off the depends, put a special mat under him to keep it from soaking into the mattress and let him “wet himself”. That helped to wake him up at night and pretty soon he was waking up before wetting the bed to go in the bathroom. I will say, although it worked, it was a messy solution for me. Either way, he will get there! They all do. And I am guessing, before prom night!!!
I’ve said it before; I’ll say it again:
I will be Hank’s prom date.
That oughta scare him into not peeing.
But if it doesn’t, by then we can maybe go in on some kind of group rate for Depends.
We’ll figure out a way to turn this into a Win.
I promise.
The MIL thing…I totally get it. My MIL displays the Christmas Tree skirt I hand quilted for her UPSIDE DOWN, on purpose. I die.
Listen, been there with the bed wetting. I finally had success using a MALEM alarm. It was hard work for about 4 weeks, but we were desperate…he was 10 years old! (Heartbreaking for him.) Trust me, don’t wait that long. Get one NOW. $100 on Amazon. Best money I ever spent. And don’t restrict fluids; makes it worse. Email me if you want more info. Hugs to you all!
Sadie took 3 days of nakedness and was done at 2 1/2. Easy peasy. Tyler almost 3, I tried 1 day in undies…he pissed 4 times then spilled a yogurt smoothie totaling 5 outfits that day. I went to Costco the next day and bought a big ass box of Huggies.
You crack me UP! So do many of the replies. Waking a child several times a night seems…uhhh counter-intuitive to me! One of my friends once said waking a sleeping baby/child for ANY reason is a “stupid parent trick…” I have stuck by that philosophy so far and it’s working for me. I agree w/other posters that since it’s only an issue at night…I would rather pay for the pullies for night use than keep waking him AND still have massive bedding laundry every day to contend with anyway.
Yeah, I got nothin here either, because the ONE are I was overly blessed with in my life is 2 children that completely potty trained themselves in like, a day, and don’t have night time accidents. Seriously, it’s my ONE blessing. That being said….I had a cousin who had to wear pampers (as we know, pullups weren’t around 30 years ago) until he was 7 because he had a sleep issue that he slept SO deeply, it didn’t matter what they tried he simply couldn’t wake up to go. Maybe Hank is just a masterfully deep sleeper? I don’t know. But, at least he’s trained during the day right? There is something to hold on to. I’d stick with the pull ups too, cause heaven knows I would NOT be ok with all the pee pee sheets. Anywho…good luck my friend.
Oh, girl. I hear ya. My middle kiddo wasn’t physically able to hold his pee for-ever-er. He’s seven now and we still have nights that are a fail. The doc said it’s just immature muscle control. So I’m billing him for the boxes of pull-ups.
One of my girlfriends had amazing success with a bet wetting alarm. I haven’t gone there yet, but you might check it out if you’re at the end of your rope.
XO
As angry as this article makes me, I’m going to cut you some slack because you’re obviously a very young and inexperienced mother.
Some advice…..
1- It’s not cool to berate your child in public by loudly announcing this will be the last box of Pull-Ups you buy.
2- He’s four years old. FOUR! Nighttime “potty training” is a myth. There’s no such thing. It’s a bladder maturity issue and that will sort itself out with time. He can’t help it. I’ll repeat that: HE CAN’T HELP IT! Keep using the Pull-Ups until then. You’re only punishing yourself (and him) by waking him up several times a night. And in case you haven’t noticed by now, the problem is still there. Making the same mistake over and over but expecting a different result = insanity.
3- Putting a picture of your four-year-old child in bedwetting diapers on the internet for the world to see doesn’t seem like the soundest thing a mother could do.