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One of the most common questions Allison hears from parents is whether they should get rid of the pull-up or diaper at night when they begin daytime potty training. Many potty training methods encourage families to go “all in” with underwear day and night, but Allison explains why she recommends a very different approach.

In this episode, Allison breaks down the important difference between daytime potty training and nighttime dryness, and why they are actually two completely separate developmental milestones. She explains the fascinating neurological and hormonal processes involved in nighttime bladder control, including the role of the brain-bladder connection and the hormone ADH (anti-diuretic hormone).

She also shares why pushing nighttime potty training too early can disrupt sleep, increase anxiety around bedtime, and unintentionally create new nighttime habits that are difficult to reverse.

Throughout the episode, Allison offers practical, realistic guidance for protecting sleep while potty training, including:
— Why nighttime dryness cannot be rushed
— How keeping the pull-up on can prevent unnecessary sleep disruptions
— Why some children begin using nighttime potty trips as a bedtime delay tactic
— What bedtime and overnight potty routines should actually look like
— Signs that your child may truly be ready for nighttime dryness
— Simple ways to reduce overnight accidents without creating stress or power struggles

Allison also shares personal stories about potty training her own daughters and explains how keeping sleep calm, predictable, and low-pressure helped avoid bedtime battles and nighttime regressions altogether.

If you are hoping to potty train without derailing your child’s sleep, this episode will help you approach nighttime potty training with far more confidence and far less stress.

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From baby sleep to toddler sleep, daycare naps to sleep training—How Long ’Til Bedtime? is the podcast for parents who want practical, guilt-free sleep tips they can actually use.Hosted by pediatric sleep coach Allison Egidi, each episode delivers real solutions for every stage—from navigating newborn sleep struggles and weaning night feedings to helping your 3-year-old fall asleep independently (and stay asleep!). Whether you’re trying to make sense of daycare sleep patterns, craving your evenings back, or simply need a working mom podcast to keep you grounded, you’re in the right place.

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Scroll down for a full transcript of this episode.

241. The Truth About Nighttime Potty Training and Pull-Ups
Before we dive in today, I want to ask you guys to consider giving me a birthday present. Today, the day this episode is being released, is my actual birthday. If you have found this podcast helpful, would you please, pretty please, take a moment to stop right now and rate and review the podcast on whatever platform you’re listening.

It would mean the world to me because it truly helps us reach more listeners. And for us to be able to continue to write and produce this show and provide it to parents as a valuable free resource, we need it to continue to grow. So please as a birthday present to me, take a second here to rate and review the podcast and thank you for being a part of my community. Your time is valuable and I know it and I’m honored that you’re choosing to share a little bit of that time with me.

Okay, on to today’s episode. If you haven’t yet potty trained your little one, this episode is for you.

Hey there, Allison here. Welcome back to How Long ‘Til Bedtime. If you’re in the thick of potty training right now, or you’re just getting ready to start, or you have a date on the calendar, but you’re terrified about starting, first of all, solidarity. Potty training is one of those parenting milestones that is exciting and exhausting and maybe a little bit scary, all in equal measure.

And one of the questions I get asked most often when parents are getting ready to start potty training, or if they’re in the middle of it is, do I need to ditch the pull-up at night too? Maybe you’ve read a potty training book that says you should go cold turkey, underwear only, day and night. Maybe you have a friend who did it that way and swears by it. Maybe you’re just not sure what the right call is.

Today, I want to answer that question clearly and explain exactly why I recommend keeping the pull-up or diaper on at sleep time, even after your child is fully trained during the day. And I also want to share some really interesting research about what’s actually happening in your child’s brain and body at night that I think will make this recommendation make a lot more sense.

So here’s where I want to start because I think this is the most important thing for parents to understand. Daytime potty training and nighttime dryness are not the same milestone. They are driven by completely different developmental processes and they do not need to happen at the same time. When your child learns to use the potty during the day, they are learning to recognize the sensation of a full bladder and respond to it while they are awake and alert. That is a skill that can be taught and practiced.

Nighttime dryness is something different entirely. It requires your child’s brain to do something kind of remarkable. If you think about it, it requires it to suppress the automatic bladder emptying reflex while they are deeply asleep. Think about that for a minute. While your child is basically unconscious, their brain needs to register that the bladder is getting full, decide to hold it and either keep sleeping or if it gets too full, wake them up so that they can go to the bathroom. That is a sophisticated neurological process. And here’s the thing, it develops on its own time, in its own time, and at a unique time for each individual child.

I want to share some research here because I think it’s genuinely fascinating and it reframes the whole conversation around nighttime dryness. In babies and toddlers, the connections between the brain and the bladder haven’t fully formed yet. The bladder essentially just releases urine whenever it feels full. There’s no signal, no override, no conscious control initially. It just happens. As children get older, those brain bladder connections develop. And eventually, when the neurological wiring is mature enough, the brain can suppress that automatic reflex during sleep.

But here’s where it gets interesting. There’s also a hormone involved. It’s called the anti-diuretic hormone or ADH. ADH is a natural substance that signals the kidneys to produce less urine at night. In adults, ADH levels naturally rise during sleep, which is why most of us can sleep for seven to eight hours without needing the bathroom. But in young children, the body’s production of ADH is still maturing.
If a child isn’t producing enough ADH yet, their kidneys may keep making urine at a daytime rate throughout the night, which means their bladder fills up faster than their brain can handle it during sleep. So when your child wets the bed, it is often not a behavior issue. It is literally a hormone and neurological development issue. Their body is not ready yet.

And research tells us that most children don’t achieve reliable nighttime bladder control until somewhere between the age of four and six, with boys typically getting there later than girls, because the areas of the brain involved in bladder control develop more slowly in boys on average. Some children achieve this quite a bit earlier, but some will also achieve it later. So the range is wide. And I should say what is considered the normal range is very wide.

So with all of that in mind, here are the reasons I consistently recommend keeping the pull-up on during sleep while you potty train. For one, your child may not be developmentally ready. And that is completely normal. As I just explained, nighttime dryness is a neurological milestone, not a behavior that we need to train. Putting your child in underwear at night before their brain and body are ready doesn’t speed up that development. It just means more often than not, more wet beds. And wet beds in the middle of the night mean disrupted sleep for both your child and for you.

And it often means more anxiety around sleep. Wetting their bed or even the idea of knowing it’s a possibility can create a lot of sleep anxiety that wasn’t previously there, that doesn’t need to be there, and that can lead to sleep resistance and or middle of the night or early morning disruptions.

Reason two, kids are smart and they will use the bathroom as a tool. Here’s something I have seen play out so many times with families I work with. I think it’s safe to say I get calls that involve this situation every single week. The moment you tell a child that they should call for you, if they need to go to the bathroom at night, you have handed them a very powerful card. And some kids especially are curious, super smart, limit testing kids who may not feel like going to sleep are going to play this card and they’re going to play it often. Suddenly you have a child who maybe was even dry leading up to potty training. They may have been dry for weeks or even months before you took on potty training and they were sleeping all night. And suddenly they need to go to the bathroom right after you tuck them in or 20 or 30 minutes later. And then again, whenever they wake up during the night, it might be multiple times.

And in many cases they didn’t actually need to go. They might actually go a little bit, but they didn’t need to go. But because they figured out that you will come if they tell you they have to go to the bathroom and you will get them out of bed and you will interact with them, my goodness, it is a great excuse to hang out. Keeping the pull-up on allows you to not even put that card in their deck. You never have to say, hey buddy, let me know if you need to go to the bathroom during the night. If they do, yes, fine, you can let them go. But if you never say it, you don’t ever give them the card to put in their deck, they may not ever think about it. And then if they do have an accident, you have an insurance policy because you have the diaper on.

I want to share how this played out with my own girls because I always think it’s helpful to hear real life examples. I potty trained my oldest when she was about two years and four months old. I used a three day method underwear from the moment she woke up all the way until she went to bed. And in that time I basically stuck to her like glue. I followed her around the house at all times for three straight days, making sure that I was right there. If she wanted to let me know she had to go to the potty and if she didn’t let me know and it started, I was able to get her to the potty immediately. It wasn’t exhausting three days. I actually think she loved it because she had my undivided attention for three days, but it was exhausting for me, but it worked.

And at nap time and bedtime, I put a pull up on. There was no discussion. It was not a big deal. I didn’t say you can call for me if you have to go potty. Even though all throughout the day I was saying, let me know if you have to go potty, let me know if you have to go potty. I just said nothing when it came to sleep. And I put that pull up on like it was the most normal thing in the world because it was, she had always slept with a diaper on and we never had an issue.

My youngest, I potty trained when she was three, so a little bit older, and she had been dry forever at night. I was just dragging my feet, getting around to my three days. So I took the same approach, same diaper slash pull-up situation when it came to sleep. And sure enough, in three days we had her potty trained as well. And neither of my girls had any confusion about using the potty during the day or wearing a diaper or pull-up at night. It was just part of the sleep routine. And I’ll note that one still woke wet from the night as we went into potty training. So before, during, and after potty training. And the other had been waking dry for months prior to potty training and she continued to wake dry throughout potty training and beyond.

But for both of the girls, we kept the pull up on until they turned four years old. There was just never any needing to ask them to go potty. During the night, I never gave them that card to put in their deck. We never had an issue and there was no bedwetting drama. There was no extra potty break drama, it was really simple. So we never had a sleep regression related to potty training or that just involved potty breaks. And that is exactly the experience I want for you and your family.

So here’s how I recommend approaching sleep and potty training. Don’t say anything about the potty at sleep time. This is really important. When it’s time for a nap or bedtime, just put the pull-up or diaper on. Don’t make a big speech about it. Don’t explain that they might still go to the bathroom in the pull-up. Don’t say, call me if you need to go potty. Just put it on and move through the rest of the routine as you typically would. Because I’m assuming you are not tackling potty training while you have a sleep issue. So we want sleep in a good place.

Most kids, if you don’t draw attention to it, won’t think much of it. If they do ask why they have a pull-up on or a diaper on for sleep,
you can simply say, your pull-up is just for sleep. During the day you wear underwear and use the potty and at night your pull-up keeps you dry while your body is resting. Let them try the potty as part of the bedtime routine. That is absolutely fine. It can actually be helpful to have your child try to go to the bathroom as one of the steps in their bedtime routine. But don’t make a production over it. Don’t worry if they don’t go. Just include it naturally. If they go, great. If they don’t go, no problem because they have a pull-up on as their insurance policy.

If your child does call out to use the bathroom at night, handle it calmly. If they wake up and ask to use the bathroom, you can take them, but keep it low energy, lights dim, no praise, no excitement, back to bed quickly. You don’t want nighttime bathroom trips to become entertaining or fun or rewarding. If they start asking for multiple potty breaks, just start to tell them that they only get one extra and then they can wait to go again in the morning.

Watch for signs of nighttime readiness and let the transition happen naturally. When your child starts waking up with a dry diaper or pull-up consistently, and I’m talking for weeks in a row, that would be your signal that their body may be ready to try sleeping without a diaper or pull-up. You can make that transition at that point or, like me, you can just wait until they’ve been dry for months, but let their body tell you when that is. You do not need to force it.

A note here on setting our kids up for success. And I think this is practical and I think it can make a real difference. Once your child is in preschool mode or in these potty training times, if they are consistently wet in the morning or they are asking you to go to the bathroom during the night and legitimately going, it is worth looking at their liquid intake in the evening. When my girls were in preschool, they had water available to them all day long. But at dinner, I would give them a small cup of water that had about four ounces of liquid in it. And that was it. That’s all they got until the morning. No sippy cup of water in the crib or next to the bed.

When they got a bit older, they did want to have some water at night. And still to this day, I give them the Munchkins No Leak Sippy Cup with about four ounces of water in it that’s next to their bed each night. So if you are going to provide water, I don’t recommend offering more than a few ounces. And if it’s your plan to do that, I recommend that you do it every night. So it’s just part of the routine and the process. And it’s not an extra request that can start to be like pulling the thread on more and more extra requests. If they ask you why they can’t have more water, I would just be honest. I would say, you only get a little bit of water because if you drink a lot of water before bed or during the night when it’s time to sleep, your body is going to need to wake you up to go to the bathroom. And we don’t want that to happen. And we want you to get lots of great sleep all night. Kids understand more than we give them credit for. And sometimes a simple, honest explanation can go a really long way.

So to wrap up. Keep the pull-up or diaper on at sleep time when you potty train. You can use whatever method you want and just ignore the nighttime piece if it differs from this. Daytime training and nighttime dryness are just two completely different developmental milestones. And nighttime dryness happens on its own timeline, driven by neurological and hormonal development that we cannot rush.

Your job is to protect your child’s Limit liquids before sleep. Keep the nighttime environment calm and simple and let their body mature at its own pace. When they’re ready to ditch the pull-up, you’ll know because the pull-up will start coming off dry every day, day after day. Until then, don’t make things more complicated than they need to be. Keep the pull up on so that everyone can stay in their good sleep groove.

If this episode was helpful, share it with a parent who is preparing to dive into potty training. And as always, thanks for listening. I hope you’ll come back again next week. Bye for now.