S/O nighttime pottying

[mckennasmomma]

Having just read the thread about babies who wake frequently at night and how they may need to pee...
Just a couple weeks ago I started trying some pottytunities with my almost 14 month old. I'd say we are somewhere in between EC and PL. I have had mixed success...she loved it at first and would go in the potty no problem. Now she seems to get pretty upset when I offer pottytunities. But that is probably another thread!
My question here is: how exactly do nighttime potty trips work? I've been using a sposie at night, cloth during the day. When she wakes, do I just take her to the potty, undo the diaper, and give her a chance to go? Then do I put a fresh dipe on if the other one is wet? I know those sound like silly questions, but it really had never occurred to me to try and take her to the potty when she wakes up. She is a super frequent waker...as frequent as they come. Should I be taking her every time she wakes?

[Carlyle]

I kept a plastic (i.e. not cold like metal) bowl next to the bed and would pee my daughter in it without turning the light on. It helped keep her as drowsy as possible (she screamed if I even turned the light on, much less tried to take her out of bed)...and I only spilled it in the bed a couple of times...

[Sheryl1678]

With my first daughter I kept a BBLP on the nightstand and we did it right in bed until she was over 2 yo.

I kept my second daughter diaper free on some prefolds and a wool pad for the first 6 mo or so after she was born and used the lap potty from Continuum Concept.

She decided she hated nighttime pottying for awhile and I started diapering (because she wouldnt stay on the prefolds) and we took a break. Then we got back into it and she would go ballistic on the BBLP.....

So starting at around 8 mo, I had to start taking her to the toilet at night which really stinks for me because I loathe getting up. I also have to nurse her while she is on the toilet and it makes her go in about a second. She stays pretty much asleep and we all go back to bed.

[mckennasmomma]

Carlyle, do you use a diaper at night?

Like I said, she wakes frequently. Would I need to try to potty her every time she wakes? Or just try to read her signals and potty sometimes, nurse other times?

[hrsmom]

It's so hard to know! You can find out pretty quick if she wants you to take her each time. She will either be ok with it or all hell will break loose. I'm pretty sure those are the only two options. We were in the second category, after being OK with night time pottying at first. She refused bedside pottying from the start, and wasn't interested in nursing while pottying. (I didn't try very hard on that one.) There were times when I would nurse her first, and she'd be ok going potty. Other times, not, and I would change her diaper. We went through 4 "night night diapers" pretty regularly for quite some time. I remember being a little nervous if I didn't have enough clean ones, and would set them up carefully by the bed before going to bed. Thankfully those days are gone! My LO is a frequent waker as well. I think being able to pee at night has helped her wake up slightly less frequently. (She rarely pees at night anymore, though, which makes things easy, although I wonder if she peed if she would wake up less, but she won't pee, so at least I'm thankful for the dry pants! We don't even use diapers at night anymore.)