Sam is a HARD sleeper, guys. You may have to dance naked around a campfire and sacrifice the blood of a virgin to get him to go to sleep, but man, once he is asleep, it takes an act of Congress and the promise of world peace to wake the kid up.
And this story is long but the end is worth it so hang in there.
He is four years old and still sleeps in a diaper.
Before you get all judgy, see explanation above. The kid sleeps HARD. And I have a pretty solid philosophy of not pushing potty training before he is ready.
I wasn't even going to start him potty training until he started showing signs that he wanted to. Then the little shit turned 18 months old and decided he was 18 years old and ready to register for the draft. I wasn't ready but he was so we did it. The night time bed-wetting was the only thing left to do so I left it up to him. My thought process was that when he had a few nights of not wetting the diaper at night we would transition to underwear and all would be well.
I was wrong. Here we are at 4 years old and he still isn't there.
The other night, he had been in bed for a while and we were going through the process of getting him to stay in his MOTHER PUPPY BED (so much frustration). I went upstairs to talk to him and I smelled pee.
Awww hell to the nawww....
Me: "Sam... did you pee in your diaper?"
Sam: queue the wailing hysterical sobs
Me: "Take your diaper off! If you are old enough to just choose to pee in your diaper because you are too lazy to get out of the bed then you can hold it or walk your grown self to the toilet."
Sam: more wailing "OKKKAAAAAYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEE"
The next morning there was a river o' urine in his bed.
Oh joy.
The next night I went ahead and put him in undies again and made him pee about every 30 minutes before bed. He woke up at 12:30 am screaming bloody murder and I just knew it was because he woke up wet and scared.
When I got upstairs, he was certainly scared but not wet. So like any good mother would do when waking up to a screaming child, I made him go potty.
And when he woke up the next morning, he was dry!
SUCCESS!!
So the next night I knew the answer was to wake him up in the middle of the night to go pee.
How I wish I would have had this experience on film.
Me: (shaking Sam lovingly) Sam baby. Wake up. It is time to potty.
Sam: (doesn't move)
Me: (shaking Sam lovingly) Sam baby. Its mommy. Wake up.
Sam: (doesn't move)
(repeat this about 8 more times)
Me: (pulls covers back and nudges a little less lovingly) Sam baby. Wake up and go potty.
Sam: (yanks covers over his head and ignores me)
Me: (pulls them back down and speaks sternly) Sam, honey. Get up and go potty. You can get right back in the bed.
Sam: (buries head in pillow)
Me: Get. Up. Sam.
Sam: WHO AM I?!?!?!
Me: (stifling laughter) You are Sam and you need to go potty so you don't pee the bed.
Sam: WHERE IS IT?!?!?!
Me: The toilet. In the bathroom.
Sam: (doesn't move)
Me: (picks all 42lbs of dead weight Sam out of the bed and try to set him on the floor so he will walk. misjudged and dropped the four year old onto the floor instead)
Sam: (curls up in fetal position and proceeds to sleep on the floor)
Me: (picks him back up) Baby. Use your legs and walk to the bathroom.
Sam: (walks to the bathroom and sees that the light is on and it is too bright. turns light off. cries because it is too dark.)
Me: (turns light back on)
Sam: (stares at the toilet and then turns around and walks back to the bed and goes back to sleep... does. not. potty.)
Me: Samuel Deyonne Turner... go back to the bathroom and pee pee so you can go back to bed.
Sam: UGHGHGHGHGHGHHGH (goes back to bathroom and pees)
Then he turns to me with his puffy, sleep-deprived eyes and made full eye-contact with me and said, very plainly, "There."
Then he got back in bed and went back to sleep.
Lawdy, lawdy my work is cut out for me! He did wake up dry and we are on three nights in a row of waking up dry. I'm waking up cranky and tired but at least he makes it entertaining!
Any tips on how to get his new habit to stick?
My child has wet THROUGH his diaper/pull-up since the day I brought him home from the hospital. And that is with me getting up & changing it in the middle of the night. He is now 7 & still sleeps in a pullup and still wets through it and soaks the bed. It doesn't matter if we make him go before bed (he does) or even get up and go in the middle of the night. It's totally ridiculous. So kuddos to you that you found something that works!
ReplyDeleteMy child in almost 8 and still wets to bed. Not every night but maybe 3 times a month. It was bad for a long time. I started doing what you are doing now and waking him at 2 or 3 in the morning to make him pee. I thought by doing that his internal clock would set and he would wake... ya right. His alarm clock sits right by his ear and he doesn't even hear that in the morning you think he is going to wake because he has to pee. I had to chuckle at the struggle you go through to wake him to pee because I go through that every.single.night.
ReplyDeleteLOL You aren't giving me much hope, Christi! His dad is the same way so I guess he inherited it. Me? I hear a cricket fart three miles away.
DeleteI. AM. DYING. (also, I just figured out the whole "puppy" word...because I'm retarded) This sounds like me trying to wake up my husband from a nightmare. Ugh....men.
ReplyDelete