nighttime - I need some sleep

[JMJ]

I have a 3 yr-old EC grad and now an 8 week old baby.  Baby has been EC'ed since birth and HATES being wet.  He screams immediately as soon as he pees his diaper.  He's not so big on peeing in the potty much yet, but we catch a few every day, and we catch almost all the poops.  We're changing every diaper immediately, though, and going through over 20 diapers a day.  I keep telling myself that this is good news that he hates being wet, that soon he'll be putting more pees in the potty, and at least he'll be peeing less frequently soon.

My problem is nighttime.  I'm hoping it will fix itself soon enough, but it's really tough right now.  DD started going 10 hours at night dry at just over 2 months old, and DS seems to be moving in that direction, but for now, he's waking up sometime between 4 and 6, needing to pee.  Now, if it was just that one pee, I'd be fine, but he's basically peeing continuously from then on for the next hour or 2.  He's stirring in his sleep every few minutes, either because he's wet and uncomfortable or to pee again.  I can get him up to change diapers/pee, but it just continues, and I'm done sleeping for the night.  I eventually just give up, get up, and hope that he doesn't pee so much that his diaper leaks.

I need more sleep.  6-7 nonconsecutive hours of sleep while nursing all night plus a 30 minute nap with a newborn is killing me.

Any ideas?

[seraf]

My 6 month old was all about the 4 am to 6 am pees for a few months.  4 am is his only consistent wakeup now.  There is hope! My guy did all those pees leading up to a 6 am poop, so you might find that offering the potty at 4 really goes a long way (I still had half hourly wake ups for a long time, tho)

The thing that kept me sane was going to bed earlier.  I am now a rather early riser (because 6:30 is morning for the baby) but we sleep through most of the night so it works.

Good luck!

[riboflavin]

I feel for you. My DS was up every 45 minutes to 2 hours until he was, like, 3 years old! But we did have some phases where I did get sleep. When he was really young and it was warm out, I had him sleep naked on a waterproof backed blanket with stay dry fleece on top. That way if he peed, he would not feel wet because the blanket would just suck the pee up in a middle layer and the top layer would stay relatively dry. Because of not having to jostle him for a change, he did not wake up and need to nurse. Therefore, the cycle of nursing, peeing, nursing, peeing was broken. It was great. This didn't work when it was cold out or he started moving around too much in his sleep though.

We experimented with different methods at different times. Sometimes ECing him at night was great, because he would go right back to sleep after a nursing session instead of squirming around forever and then nursing. We EC'd him in bed in a bowl with a gown and drop flap trainer or with split pants or babylegwarmers and trainer depending on the weather. It was the quickest way for us.

At other phases I did not want to nighttime EC and he didn't either, so I used stay dry diapers hoping the fleece inners would help to keep him comfortable and wake less. Worked sometimes. Keep trying all different things and you will prbably have times of rest. And know that this won't last forever!

[nstewart]

We tried to do night time EC (we didn't start EC until about 2.5 months though) but DS didn't like it, and neither did I.  He was disturbed by having to be stripped of his diaper, etc to potty (even though I didn't even get up from the bed to do it) and it woke both of us up.  Eventually, we decided to just forgo night time EC in favor of disposibles at night and do EC during the day.  This approach worked for us, and I'm happy we did it.  It made EC do-able (enjoyable, actually), everyone got more sleep, DS was still in trainers by 6.5 months and a grad at 19 months.

Try different things, every babe is different.  But just do what works for you and your babe and not try to hit some ideal version of EC if that isn't going to make you or your babe happy (saying this knowing you know already, but sometimes it helps to hear it from someone else!)

[JMJ]

Thanks for the encouragement, ladies!  We'll have to keep experimenting... or waiting to see how things change.  With DD, she just hated night time EC.  We gave up very quickly and just changed a soaking diaper in the morning... and then we started finding it dry when she was about 2 months old!  I couldn't believe it!  She'd go 9-11 hours without peeing.

DS is 2 months now and going dry until about 5 AM most nights now.  We go to bed at the same time as our kids at around 9:30 and really couldn't make that much earlier, but that's the only way we survive.  DS wakes up more when he nurses at night, which could be part of the problem.  He seems to really want the nighttime EC, as he sleeps fitfully until I get him up to pee (and/or change) and then goes back to sleep very peacefully... until the next time he has to pee.  I'm debating adding a stay-dry liner to try to make him more comfortable being wet since he'd like to get up more often than I am willing, but at night, he is telling me before he goes too, so I'm not sure preventing him from feeling wet would help, and I'm wary of disassociating him from the feeling of being wet, especially if we'll soon have a manageable number of nighttime pees to deal with.

[Ma Cactus]

Have you tried nursing and pottying at the same time?  maybe he isn't emptying his bladder all the way, and the added relaxation of nursing could help.  We did it using a quart size yogurt container with a headlamp.  Best of luck!