Night Time Potty Training 3.5 Year Old

Potty training is among the most challenging areas of child upbringing. It usually requires a lot of dedication, patience, and understanding if you are serious about making headway with it. Unfortunately, the level of difficulty is as twice as high when it comes to nighttime potty training. Learn more in this post on Night Time Potty Training 3.5 Year Old

This training is often done to help a child overcome subconscious urination when asleep. Essentially, it is the conditioning of your child to wake up and urinate when pressed.

A lot of factors go into consideration for the successful education of different children. One of the most important of those factors is age. In the case of nighttime potty training, it is best advised that you teach your child when they are between the ages of 2 – 4 years old. They are not too young to cope during that time, and they are not too used to wetting their beds.

How Is Nightime Potty Training Any Different From Daytime

When you potty train your child during the day, there are visible markers of expressions, emotions, and time that you can study. All these, coupled with the activeness of the kid, make it easy to potty train them with minimal discipline. However, when it comes to nightime potty training, it takes rigorous scheduled routines to accomplish.

There are no indicators, no time markers, and above all, the child is generally inactive. Apart from that, nighttime potty training is largely dependent on the child’s maturity. The organs of a child have to be ready to hold before you attempt nighttime potty training. Younger kids have bladders and urinary organs that release their contents almost reflexively.

By implication, nighttime potty training would be futile for them. Generally, the age where this happens differs slightly between kids due to some factors. However, the range is often between the ages 2-4 and more frequently 3-3.5 years.

Summarily, nighttime potty training is more rigorous, and it requires that the child is matured enough to handle such expectations. However, it is an important growth metric that brings mental satisfaction to the parent and the child when achieved.

How Long Should Night Time Potty Training For My 3.5 Year Old Kid Take

Several factors determine how long this is supposed to take. Some of these factors include age, pathology, weather or season of the year, etc. What this implies is that there is no specific time frame for potty training a child. However, on average, it is usually a period of three to six months.

Therefore, it is important you are confident about your child’s daytime potty training before you start to train them at night. At the minimum, you should have given your child about 4-6 months of daytime potty training.

Nighttime Potty Training For 3.5 Years Old, How To Go About It

To potty train a 3.5-year-old child, here are some of the few tips you need;

1.  Limit the amount of liquid your kid consumes before night

This is the primary key to controlling urine excretion at night. If you are worried about your child enough water, allow them to take that during the day. It would help if you were particularly careful of carbonated and caffeinated drinks because they trigger bladder movement quite well. Of course, your child should take water before sleeping, but you need to make sure the water is minimal. Additionally, you should watch the kind of fruits you give your 3-year-old at night. Watermelons, oranges and similar fruits should be avoided.

2.  Watch the salt content of your child’s food

Apart from water, the kidney, which is responsible for urine production, regulates salt levels in the body. So you also need to watch the salt content of whatever meal your child consumes. If the salt-water balance of the body is disturbed, the kidney naturally tries to expel it through urine. This may increase the chances of your kid soaking the bed.

3.  Encourage the kid to use a potty before sleeping

You should encourage the child in question to use the potty before going to bed. This reduces the pressure on the bladder and decreases the chances of your child wanting to urinate in the middle of the night.

4.  Use Overnight Alarm Calls

As a parent, you can take it upon yourself to wake at certain times of the night to lead your child to the potty. This can be done repeatedly till your child gets used to the timing. You control the time, so be careful not to disrupt your sleep and that of your child.

5.  Have a potty chair near the bed

You should do this because of access; when your kid wakes up pressed with urine, getting to the bathroom may pose a problem to them – especially those scared of the dark. Getting a potty chair solves this problem and encourages them to wake up more when pressed.

6.  Don’t Be Quick To Scold Your Child

Patience and encouragement are important in proper potty training. It would help if you were patient enough to know how frequent your child urinates. You should also avoid scolding the child when they wet the bed. Instead, tell them it’s okay to be pressed at night, tell them it is okay to want to use the toilet at night, encourage them to try to wake up next time. Anger and harsh words create a certain withdrawal in this situation, so avoid resorting to them when your child makes mistakes. After all, isn’t the child you are dealing with just three and half years old?

7.  You Can Try Lighting Up The Potty Area Or The Path To The Bathroom

Unlike adults, children find it very difficult to navigate places in the dark. Some are just plain scared of the dark. All these may accumulate to a peak resistance to the pressure of their bladder. They could ignore the whole thing and accept to do it right on their beds. To avoid such situations, you need to light up the potty area in your child’s room or light up the path to the bathroom. That way, they overcome the fear of darkness and the problem of navigation.

Also Read:

6 year old still not potty trained

How to potty train for nighttime 

Signs your child is not ready for potty training

How to Teach your child to appreciate what they have

Finally

As much as you can get tired when the results are not forthcoming, it would help if you didn’t give up on your child. It would help if you avoided punishments at all costs. If the issue of bedwetting continues after 7 months, you should take the next step to consult the pediatrician or a child care expert. Of course, you never can tell; the problem could be pathological. With all that, all the best in the nighttime potty training endeavor.