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Night dryness and bedwetting

Staying dry overnight is a separate step from daytime potty training and usually comes later. This is about how you handle nights: pull-ups until it happens by itself, training day and night together, lifting the child to pee, alarms, or medication.

When should a child be dry at night, and what do we do about bedwetting?

In short: Parents choose between 5 main approaches: Wait for dry nights with pull-ups; Train day and night together; Scheduled lifting; from about 6-7, reassurance; Alarm; Medication. Evidence: well established. Guidance and evidence agree. The real question is whether you'll follow it. Best settled: preschool.

Evidence
Well established
Best settled
Preschool
Part of
Raising the child

Night dryness and bedwetting: what are the options?

Parents usually land on one of these 5 approaches.

  1. 1. Wait for dry nights with pull-ups

    You use pull-ups at night until the child is dry without effort.

  2. 2. Train day and night together

    You train for day and night at once.

  3. 3. Scheduled lifting; from about 6-7, reassurance

    You wake the child to use the toilet; and from about six or seven you mainly reassure.

  4. 4. Alarm

    You use an alarm that wakes the child when they start to wet.

  5. 5. Medication

    You use medication prescribed by a doctor.

Night dryness and bedwetting: what does the evidence say?

Well established. Guidance and evidence agree. The real question is whether you'll follow it.

Night control is developmental and not expected until 5-7; the alarm is the most effective first treatment. Staying dry at night can take months or years longer than daytime training

Sources

What else is worth knowing?

Night dryness depends on the body maturing, so it cannot be trained in the way daytime use can. Many children who are reliably dry in the day still wet at night for years, and bedwetting runs in families. Limiting drinks or waking a child may reduce wet beds but does not speed up the underlying change. Doctors generally do not treat bedwetting before about five to seven, and an alarm that wakes the child is the usual first treatment after that.

Questions to ask each other

  • What would we do if our child is still wetting the bed at six?
  • How would we avoid shame?
  • Who would we talk to if it keeps going?

For the full picture, read the potty training guide: signs of readiness, the methods compared, setbacks and nights.

More in Health, body and toileting

First published 2026-10-03. Last updated 2026-10-05. General information, not medical advice.