Hello bed wetting.

Emily hasn’t worn a diaper during the day for well over a year now. She will happily go to the toilet all by herself and even wipe and wash her hands without supervision. But we never got around to doing the whole nighttime thing out of pure laziness. Well those days are gone. Whether she’s ready for it or not, I decided that Emily is big enough to sleep without diapers. So I did a little reading to prepare myself and, four days ago, Emily went to bed a few ounces lighter. And let me tell you, she was so excited. Any step that could possibly bring her closer to “big-girl” status is fine with her.

I asked her, she said she was ready. We didn’t let her drink for an hour before bedtime. I woke her up for a nighttime potty break four hours after she went to bed. And in the morning, the bed was soaking wet. That’s OK. It was the first night. So we tried again. On day two, the exact same thing happened. Thank goodness we recently bought a new tumble dryer. But on day three, Emily woke up in the morning bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to a bone-dry bed. What a great feeling! And then she wet the bed again last night.

The trick is for them to sense, in their sleep, when their bladder is filling up so that they can go to the toilet on their own in the middle of the night. Well, not only does Emily sleep through this filling sensation, she easily sleeps through the resulting tsunami. You sometimes can’t wake this girl up if you try. So we’re trying to put her to bed a little earlier each night with the belief that, if she is better rested, she’ll sleep a bit lighter. That’s the theory, as least. Here’s hoping this starts to work sooner than later.