Proper Uses of Night Time Potty Training Pants

So you have found success and have potty trained your child during the day.  Now, what can you do about night?  How do you train a child when he is asleep?  A good sign that your child is ready for night time potty training is when he or she is starting to wake up dry some mornings.  To prepare you will need some night time potty training pants, a waterproof mattress pad, and a good dose of patience.

Before you start night time potty training you will want to have good night time potty training pants.  There are several different brands of training pants that make good choices for night time.   The Potty Scotty and Potty Patty Night Time Training Pants have a waterproof exterior and an interior of cotton terry and absorbent fiber sponge padding.  The Mother Ease Bedwetter Pants absorb up to 21 oz.  They also have a waterproof exterior and have an absorbent pad that isn’t fully attached to allow for easier cleaning and quicker drying.  

In addition to training pants designed for nighttime use, there are also pocket training pants that can be used for day and night.  You simply add absorbency into the pocket when you use it for nighttime.  The Kissa’s Pocket TrainingPants have a waterproof exterior and a layer of flannel print inside.  Side snaps allow for easy clean-up.  Another pocket diaper for night is the GroVia My Choice Trainer.  The outer portion is waterproof and the inner material is made from a blend of cotton and hemp.  Stretchy side panels can be unsnapped if you need to clean up a mess.

In the process of night training you will have some accidents and having a mattress pad makes for easy clean-up.  During night training when accidents may be more frequent I like to use a mattress pad that I can lay on top of the child’s fitted sheet.  When an accident happens in the middle of the night you can remove the wet mattress pad, clean up your child, and get the child resettled back in bed.   The 3 layer Baby Kangas Mattress Pad would work well for this purpose.   An absorbent layer of Sherpa is sandwiched between a bottom waterproof layer and a top layer of stay-dry microfleece.  The Dri-Line Crib Pad can also work well for potty training.  It has a top layer of cotton, a middle layer of absorbent polyester/rayon, and a bottom layer of waterproof vinyl. 

While every child’s needs are different I’ve found it helpful to limit drinks for an hour or two before bedtime.   Make sure your child has a potty break just before bed too.  Those two things combined with good night time potty training pants and a mattress pad may be all you need to achieve success and easy clean-up of accidents.  Some children, especially ones that are older, would benefit from being taken to the bathroom a couple times a night for a potty break.  I did that with my 5 year old and after about 6 months he no longer needed wake-ups.  He began waking up on his own to go to the bathroom.  Accidents became more and more rare.  I did continue to use an absorbent waterproof mattress pad because changing a wet bed in the middle of the night wasn’t fun.   It was so much easier to get my child cleaned up and discard the wet mattress pad than it was to change the whole bed in the middle of the night.

Potty training at night can be challenging and require patience.  Arm yourself with some good night time potty training pants, an absorbent mattress pad, and a few strategies that will help your child attain success.  You will find a wide variety of cloth training pants at Thanks Mama to help meet all your potty training needs.