4 month old night time pee/poop

[bean-e]

We have been doing a very modified version of EC with our 4 month old. We take her to the potty whenever she wakes up from a sleep or a nap. In the evenings, she usually goes to bed around 7pm. We usually change her diaper once before we go to bed around 10pm. There are times that her diaper is completely dry and we wonder if we should wake her up to pee. Tonight is an example, she last pooped around 10am (bf baby) and her diaper was dry after sleeping for 3 hours. So we worry that if we don't potty her, then she would poop in the middle of the night and end up with a very heavy diaper. However, waking her up to potty her really wakes her up and I wonder how much it affects her sleep. What do you mamas do with your little ones? And having a dry diaper for 3 hours...is that her being able to control her peeing to a certain extent or is that a normal developmental thing?

[emmaegbert]

well, I don't know if its a "normal" thing, but my little girl stopped peeing while asleep or nursing by 4m (she's almost 7m now). Also, she definitely frequently is dry at 10/11P when I nurse her, check her, after going to sleep around 7PM. She'll pee when slightly roused. If she sleeps deeply for a long stretch, and if I rouse enough to potty her when she stirs, she'll have a dry dipe still in the morning (two big ifs!). We usually have her in a coverless fitted diaper. Can pull it down easily to potty but I can also feel immediately if its wet. Sometimes she even sleeps diaperless.

I potty my girl if she's woken up enough to nurse. Sometimes she goes, sometimes not. I just do it right up on the bed so its not too disruptive. She falls right back asleep so I don't think its bad for her sleep pattern.

Actually we have fewer misses at night (7p-7a) than daytime. I seem to recall reading that is pretty normal.

[hrsmom]

It sounds normal. I remember reading that there is a lot of variation in poop frequency. Dry diapers at night are normal, too, there's a hormone that causes people to produce less urine at night. I definitely wouldn't wake her to potty. Like the pp said, if she wakes to nurse, you could offer the potty if she's giving signs that she wants to (popping off and on the breast or squirming are good ones.) It is highly unlikely that she will poop in her diaper in her sleep. It can happen, but is not likely. Does she sleep in your bed or near you? I don't think you'd miss it in that case. If she's in another room, I still wouldn't worry about it! If you do ever find that she poops in her diaper in the middle of the night, you can do something about it then. (Does that make sense?) I think you'd know by now if she poops in her sleep. (Does she?)