9mo dd soaking through nappy at night. Help!

[FelixFelix]

My dd is 9mo and over the past couple of weeks, she has woken up soaking wet every morning without fail as her nappy hasn't managed to hold enough. She goes to bed with a fresh nappy on at 7pm and generally wakes up at around 7.30am, but now keeps waking up at 4 or 5am because of the wetness. As I have to change her at this time, she's then wide awake thinking its time to get up. She will soak through her vest, babygrow, sleeping bag and sheets and I have to change and wash them every morning which is a massive pain!

She still wakes through the night for milk, and has around 7oz at bedtime, then another two 7oz bottles through the night (sometimes she only has one). She has always had this amount or even more through the night and we haven't had this problem before. It's just started all of a sudden! I have tried offering water through the night to see if it makes a difference but she won't take it.

She's usually in size 4 nappies, but I've tried 4+ and size 5 which haven't made a difference.

Does anyone have a solution for this? I feel so bad for her waking up all uncomfortable every morning

Could you change her nappy during one of the feeds?

I don't know anything about them so don't know how viable it is but could you use a reusable nappy just for night time? My theory is that you could put extra passing our something in (did say I know nothing about them,so don't know if you can or not, just an idea).

Hopefully someone more helpful will be along soon though, sorry.

Can you change her nappy before her night bottle and use that feed to get her back to sleep?

And / or try changing the brand of nappy you use at night, we use pampers in the next size up for this reason.

Thanks for the replies. I have thought about reusables but not sure if they are more absorbent? I've tried a few different brands - pampers, Aldi, asda, sainsburys but no difference

The only problem with me changing her earlier in the night is she thinks it's then time to wake up and it's very hard to get her back to sleep. Not good when I'm knackered! I will try it tonight though and see how hard it is to get her back down.

Err, just change her in the night - so you have to get up - she's a baby!

Oh ffs that is not helpful. She woke up every hour for 4 months solid and has only very recently started sleeping more and waking up 2-3 times through the night, so I want to disturb her as little as possible.

Hi - could you try weaning her off some of the night bottles? Maybe offer her a little water at one of the feeds then she may drop it when she realises it's not milk that might stop her from having such a wet nappy?

Griffomais I know the night feeds are an issue when she wakes up she seems genuinely hungry even though I know she should have the ability to sleep through without getting hungry at this age. I've tried offering water and coaxing her back to sleep this way, but she just wakes up crying again 2 minutes later. She has a dummy and sometimes I can pop that back in and she will fall back to sleep for 20-30 minutes but then she will wake up crying again. I have made a conscious effort over the past couple of months to make sure she eats/drinks enough through the day as suggested by my HV but it hasn't made a difference.

Could you use a wrap for cloth nappies as well as the disposable then change her during one of the feeds? DD1 was very wet at night so we hat to do that for a month or two till she dropped her last night feed.

Thanks grouchy it's worth trying

How about offering some porridge as supper before bed - we had a bit of sleep regression at 8 months and my HV suggested supper with porridge or cereal. Do you do Babyled weaning or do you spoon feed?

She's spoon fed as she has trouble with finger foods (a whole other thread entirely!) so she's getting a decent amount of food. She usually has her tea quite late (6ish) but sometimes earlier then bath at 6.30 and bed at 7. Do you think she would still eat some porridge even if she's not long since had her tea? I could give her some after her bath. That's a good idea!

Yes, I second the cereal before bed idea to stop her from being hungry.

She's drinking a lot through the night for a 9mo, so any way of cutting that will help.

Ds2 had similar problems when he was a bit older - I ended up inserting a Kotex sanitary pad (with the plastic backing removed) inside his nappy to offer extra absorbency. It was a faff but it worked.

When I had problems with DD I moved her tea time to 4.30pm - I sat her in the highchair and gave her a selection of both finger foods and I also spoon fed - I used to spend about an hour letting her eat as much as she wanted most veg & fruit then I used to give her a few spoons of porridge whilst in the bath lol. I also increased her bed bottle to 9oz.

Is she changing sleeping position so the nappy isn't holding the wee? Are you stretching the elastic properly? What about changing her when she is in a deep sleep before you go to bed? Put her in PJs instead of a sleep suit so easier to get to the nappy and do it using minimal light.

Test if she is a deep sleep by doing the floppy arm test - lift her arm and if it flops down when you let go then deeply asleep.

Organised another good idea

Right tomorrow I will try and feed her dinner before DP finishes work at 5, then bath at 6.30 and I'll make up some porridge for DP to feed her before he puts her down to sleep (he does bath/bed every night). Can't believe I didn't think of that! Thank you, I hope it works

Iggly she's not much of a deep sleeper. She tosses and turns most of the night and is woken up very easily

PJs is a good idea btw. I almost bought some at the weekend too!

Could she be too hot hence the tossing and turning and needing a lot of milk at night? A vest, sleep suit and grobag sounds a lot to me. I know that there are recommended clothing layers vs room temp but I threw those out the window with my dd who did better with fewer layers (when she got old enough to "tell" me, she took off her sleep bag). So I would try no vest and open her window a crack if possible.

(As in she's thirsty because too hot)

Ds2 was like this we used to put a nappy on and then a pull up over the top and that stopped him leaking through everything.

Tonight she's just in a babygrow with no vest. She's a hot baby generally, but a couple of nights last week it was very cold at night so was in vest/babygrow/sleeping bag. It's weird when she tosses and turns, it's like she can't relax properly and go to sleep. No idea why!

whatitis thank you, I'll add it to the list of things to try

Same here with ds 9m. I was worried it could be an indicator of a health problem?

It sounds like it's quite common, thank god. Still a pain though!

I know you said you tried different nappies but have you tried natty. Nature ones ? These were the only ones that held ds wee overnight.

I haven't tried them, I've never seen them before! I've used their wipes but didn't know they did nappies too. Thank you