Waking up from nap with messy diaper?

[malayasmommy]

My DD will be turning 2 this Sunday, and sleep has ALWAYS been a challenge for us...for many reasons. She's been doing well lately, but in the last month or so our biggest challenge has occurred at naptime. She is waking herself up with a poopy diaper about an hour (or less) into her nap. By the time we've cleaned her up, she's wide awake, only to be tired a few hours later (but not tired enough to take another nap--we've tried!). She will then be ready for bed at 5:30pm and if we put her down to sleep--she's awake at 4am. Since I work until 11pm at night, it doesn't work for me to be getting up at 4am! Any suggestions? We're working on potty learning, and try to get her to go before naps, but she never does.

[pinksprklybarefoot]

This probably won't be much help, but I have found that if DS is working on a poop, he won't even go to sleep. He'll hang out in his bed, then bust out of his room once the deed is done. If he hasn't pooped earlier in the day, sometimes I'll wait it out.

[gbailey]

Would you consider not putting her down for a nap until after she's pooped and letting her go down for the night maybe two hours later?

[Llyra]

Does she eat a meal before her nap? Because I noticed that when I fed DS lunch and then had him take a nap soon after, he'd poop like a half hour into the nap and not be able to get back to sleep. So I made lunch a half hour earlier, and nap a half hour later, and now he can usually poop before naptime. Having a full stomach often starts the "poop process" going.

[JudiAU]

DS NEEDS at least a 2 hour nap during the day. We found it helpful to make sure he oatmeal or such for breakfast and then moved lunch up by an hour. We then sat on the bjorn potty for awhile before nap routine reading stories. Helps wind him down and if there was a poop in him, it comes out. He won't nap if is working on a poop.

[malayasmommy]

Yesterday I tried to wait until she pooped before I gave her a nap--after 2.5 hours she STILL hadn't pooped (despite the fact she usually goes around 11:30am in the middle of nap!), and then only slept for 40 min--I think because her naptime was so late. Today I tried giving her a small glass of Kefir at 11am to fill her up a *little* (so she doesn't wake up from hunger) and then having a late lunch. Knock on wood, we're at almost 2 hours of nap! She's only been sleeping 40 min for the last week, so we're going to keep this one up! Thanks for the advice...and keep it comin', who knows how long this trick will last! :-)