ECing at night (while also trying to help her sleep longer stretches)

[artpen]

Hello,
DD is 9.5 months and is a horrible sleeper. For the past two weeks her longest stretch at night has been 2 hours, but she usually wakes up every hour. During these wake-ups I usually make a judgement call about whether she needs to use the potty and put her on (most of the time she'll pee but sometimes I misjudge and she ends up peeing in her diaper instead).

I've decided to try NCSS to help her sleep longer stretches. I just started phase 1 last night, but I have a question about peeing. Do I just ignore the peeing for right now while I'm doing NCSS? Or should I still do it? It is tremendous effort to do the NCSS (mostly because I cannot fall asleep while she's nursing; instead I put her down while she's just about to fall asleep), so I just don't know if I have the energy to put her on the potty especially since sometimes it wakes her up a tiny bit more than if I just nurse/rock her immediately. On the other hand, I hate to ignore her need to pee, and then have her lose awareness of it at night down the road.

I feel like some of her awakenings have to do with needing to pee. But I really need some sleep!

Anybody BTDT? I'd love suggestions! Thank you in advance.

[sosurreal09]

idk what NCSS is or BTDT....

we dont EC at night right now b/c it disturbs DD. she is hysterical if i even try so i just diaper her...since you already do it though idk if it would be more disturbing not to.

if you are doing some kind of sleep training i would say shes a bit young...

[heatherr30]

can you potty first, nurse second?
otherwise I would proceed with the NCSS and leave the pottying out if it's too much work to do both together, because if you could get her nursing less at night, she might not even need to pee at night.

[hrsmom]

I would go with a diaper that is "feel dry" and go for the longer stretches of sleep. See if that works! If she doesn't like it, she'll let you know, but that's what I would try. I wouldn't really worry about night time awareness. Sleep is much more important, IMHO! My dd just spontaneously stopped going at night at some point. (Still woke up, to a point, but held it all night.)

[globe-trotter]

NCSS- no cry sleep solution
BTDT-been there done that

I would go with a feel dry diaper and skip the EC at night. As a previous poster pointed out--there should be much less peeing at night once the nursing at night is slowed down.
Good luck!

[SunshineM]

similar problem - but not quite the same

My son is 7 mos. He has never been a good sleeper, for naps or at night. We have been part-time ECing since 7 wks, full-time during day since 5.5 mos.

The longest he has ever slept since birth is 6 hours (twice) and 4 hours (three or four times). He rarely sleeps 3 hours at a stretch, and even 2 hours only happens in the very middle of the night. He's up a lot (first 20 min, then 45, then stretches out to 90 min) at the beginning of the evening, and up a lot (every 30-60 min) early in the mornings.

I am wondering if ECing/not-ECing is interfering with his sleep. Since he is diaper-free in the day, maybe he wakes up a lot at night because he has to pee and doesn't like going in his diaper. But I've tried to EC him at night, and he won't go. So we use diapers, and I just nurse him back to sleep. But then he wakes up again and again.

I read the suggestion about a stack of cloth diapers on the nightstand and a bowl to toss them in, but I haven't figured out the logistics of it. The one time I tried to nurse him and let him pee, the cloth diaper got wet, I got wet, he got wet. I know this photo is a joke, but I wondered if it would actually work...