3 1/2 yr old night time nappy issues

[ILoveAGoodBrusselSprout]

Ooh, so many places to post this - I hope I'm posting in the right one!

I have 5 DCs so I often think that I've seen or heard everything and know how to deal with them, but this one has truly stumped me.

I have 3.5-yr old B/G twins, who are wonderful and are meeting all developmental goals. DBTwin has been dry through the night for around 6 months, with 1 'accident'. DGT, however, has never had a dry night. That doesn't worry me as I know she's still little and will get there in her own time.

Over the last month or two, however, she has been pooing her pull-up pants almost every night. I usually don't know till I go and check on them before DH and I head to bed and the smell hits us!

Sometimes, she does it whilst awake and just goes to sleep anyway, and, at other times, she does it in her sleep (sounds yukky but I can tell how 'fresh' it is when I change her nappy mid-sleep so I know if she has done it in her sleep or not).

She's really clever and can chat to me about it. She's so sweet, "I'm very sorry mummy. I promise I won't do it again," which just melts my heart.

Every night as I tuck her in, I remind her to call on me if she needs to go (she has no problem telling me that she needs to poo during the day). She always understands, nods and says yes. But most of the time, she does it anyway.

I've tried a few things : not mentioning it to her, speaking to her very gently about it and 'giving a row' (NB - I never shout or get angry about it, just speak to her more firmly and that's when I get the heart-melting answer above).

Any other ideas please?

I think a star chart might well help here. It was the nudge that my almost 4yo DS needed to get him out of nighttime nappies which he was regularly flooding, so I had to change the bed anyway. We started a few weeks ago. I just let him have a star on the calendar or to wear on his jumper to nursery if he had managed to keep the bed dry, and it worked so well: we haven't had an accident for about 2 weeks.

Also, if there was an accident, I just ran a bath and changed stuff in a very matter of fact way and reminded him big boys need to remember to go to the loo if they need to, because accidents are soggy. I always told him I wasn't cross and it was fine, we would just clean up!

Not all kids respond to charts but it's easy and worked for us!

All the best.

Well if she's doing it in her sleep she clearly can't help it? Unless you think she wakes up, poos and then goes back to sleep.

If she is really pooing in her sleep then I would look at dietary changes perhaps - eg is she having a lot of fruit, especially late in the day?

Thatorchidmoment - thank you. Today I went out and bought some stickers so this afternoon we are making a sticker chart, with a prize on Saturday morning if she manages to be clean in the morning (wet isn't a problem, we can work on that later).

Minipie - I know what you mean, if she's actually sleeping. I'll never really know, unless I sit in her room and watch her the whole night, but I think she probably wakes up a bit, then decides she can't be bothered to get up and poos anyway, without allowing herself to wake up fully. She can be lazy at times, especially for things that don't really bother her. Re diet, she doesn't get fruit or fruity juice after dinner time. Dinner then usually a yoghurt around 5pm, then supper (toast, waffle, or a biscuit type of thing) around 7.30pm.

Thanks both for your replies