Please tell me about 'night lifting' - do you do it, does it work, does it have drawbacks, how long do you do it for, what happens when you stop?

[FrannyandZooey]

Please?

Ds is one week into nappy free night times and it has gone very well EXCEPT the fact he can't get back to sleep at 4 am when he gets up to have a wee. Which is fairly disastrous as we all get woken up etc

last night I accidentally woke him up as I was going to bed, at which point I said he might as well get up and do a wee

he then slept through until 7 am

am tempted to do it again

but have sneaking feeling this is not really going to allow him to get the hang of the whole business, in the long run

LOL yes last night dp had the following conversation with ds:

ds: where is my pillow daddy?
dp: erm, under your head where it usually is
ds: oh it has come back!

When |I did it for those 3 nights franny, I woke DS up. No way could I just ahve lifted him out of bed and plonked him on the loo. He walked into the bathroom himslef. Granted he was pretty woozy. On teh fourth night I couldn;t wake him up so I just though God what am I doing this for and left him.

But I think you have more reason to try it for a few days and see what happens.

Or we get a 5 minute question: 'After I've gone to bed and I've eaten my dinner, but not the carrots, and I went to bed cos it was dark and you tucked me in, and I slept in my bed all night, can I have porridge tomorrow for breakfast after Daddy's gone to work? (the abridged version)

LOL at 5 minute question
my life feels like a 5 hour question atm

erm I think we have decided to try 3 more nights without lifting and then consider it again if nothing has improved

Heated, if you didn't get him up, I wouldn't have had a laugh at just how sweet they can be without even knowing it.

This is all going on for such a short time in the whole big scheme of things (must repeat 100x).

Can I add another scenario and question please? My ds is 3.8 and we've been waking him for a wee at our bedtime for ages - because his one wee in the night was leaking out of the nappy. I'm pretty sure it was only one, and we've been doing lots of praise for dry nappies and sympathy/let's try again tomorrow for wet ones.

After just about two weeks of dry nappies (and a prize) he asked not to wear a nappy at night. We've stuck with the lifting routine. So far: 1 dry night, 1 wet at 5am, two wet by 10.30pm!

I really don't think it's a bladder issue, because it can happen so early, and he can have dry nappies.

I don't really think it's an awareness/control issue either, also because of the dry nappies.

Thanks to the wisdom of Mumsnet, changing the bed at night has been easy-peasy because I used layers of sheets & mattress protectors... but I'm wondering if I'm just pushing it too early. Something doesn't hang together here though.

Any thoughts very gratefully received, meanwhile the washing machine is extra-busy (tonight the duvet itself is sodden too - why do they always wee with it stuck between their legs?!)

• sorry meant bladder CONTROL issue.... of course it's a bladder issue!

I would just leave him in nappies, tbh - maybe try a different sort of nappy to prevent the leaking? Or keep with the nappies but do the lifting?

There's no advantage to early training, and it really is down to bladder size and how deeply they sleep. He sounds like his bladder isn't that big, and he isn't woken by the need to pee.

Message withdrawn

Hi
I tried to night lift ds when he first went out of night nappies and he hated it he screamed, refused to weee etc and ended up distressed. Didnt even try with dd1 and she just gets up uses loo but think she is a rare case as she is only 2.2yrs

I did this with DD last year and it worked a treat.

I left a potty in her room so she wasn't disturned too much. She always opens her eyes but is really sleepy and goes straight back to sleep afterwards.

The one piece of advice I would give is not to do it at the same time everynight.

I found that I was lifting around 10.30 every night and the nights that I didn't go until 10.45/11.00 she had already wet the bed.

So I changed the pattern and never had that problem again.

In fact often if I went in after 11.00 she had already been herself.

Once that happened I weaner her off lifting and she hasn't wet the bed for ages.

I even had to start lifting again recently as she had started to wake up in the night (early morning) and I wanted to get her back into her good sleeping pattern.

Again she started using the potty before we went to bed and then got back into sleeping through the night again (mostly)..

I did have the same reservations as you do Franny, but it has worked twice for DD now and she is not addicted to lifting!..

OK this is very interesting. Does anyone know anything about how long liquid takes to get through their system? My dh always insists it's quick (men seem to be like that LOL!) and that we should cut down the bedtime milk. That would explain the full bladder by 10pm. So perhaps the early lifting is the answer.

For those of you who leave a potty in the room or whose dcs get up and go to the toilet alone... how dark is their bedroom? Mine sleeps in a completely dark room, and I really like this - he's never fussed so I've never had hassle about night lights etc. But when he wakes he's still quite likely to yell for me and say it's too dark to get up (same if he loses the duvet...) rather than get himself up. So do you use night light/landing light or what? Ds has a torch but can't find it & turn it on in the dark!!

yes we have a light on in the spare room, which gives him enough light to get up and go to the loo

he alept last night until 5.50 without lifting and got up to do a wee then
one of his best yet I think, let's just hope it keeps improving

I'm not sure you have to lift him tbh because he has already "got" it - ie when he needs a wee he wakes up. with one of mine, we tried lifting because she didn't wake up to wee in the night so we had lots of wet beds.

I think he will gradually get later on his own.

Catilla in my house there is a definite link between bedtime drink and bedwetting.

I've done it with both dds, dd1 was toilet trained in the daytime at 18months but still wearing pull ups to bed at 4.5. She didn't want to wear them anymore but couldn't get through the night. Lifted her for about 8months, occasionally leaving her to see what happened. One night I left her and she just went through, since then she has either gone all night without a wee or woken to go.

DD2 same, early daytime trained but still lifting now at 5.5.

Neither of them woke up when I took them, and never remember the next day.

Really agree with NQC about them being ready, not really a 'trainable' thing, IMO

Lol Pruners, dd2 would fall off the loo if I didn't stand right in front of her, she usually rests her head on me, I turn on the tap or do a 'sssssss' noise if she doesn't go at once. It always works.

Pollyanna HOW gradually?

i am up the duff
time is of the essence

last night he got up for a wee by himself and did not wake us up, then had no problems going back to sleep hurrah!
I thought he had perhaps imagined it / got confused with another night, but he said "it was REALLY rainy and blowy and things in the garden were banging about!" So I guess he really did manage it

we lift dd1 about two hours after she's gone to bed, as most urine is produced at the start of the night. Her nappies weren't coping with so much wee, and she didn't want nappies any more. We wake her up totally to put her on the potty, and she always goes back to sleep again immediately afterwards.

It works fine for us.

very useful thread from my point of view, thank you all

he waited till the morning again this time to get up for a wee

all gone much better than I expected

I wake ds1 at 11pm every night, or he wets the bed. Guaranteed. If I wake him and tell him to go to the toilet, he won't wet the bed, and will sleep until 7am. I think he is about the same age as yours Franny. I am happy to wake him to help him feel like a big boy.

yes it obviously seems to work well for people

It felt odd to me as ds has never been a great sleeper but has settled down a lot lately - so to wake him up seemed amathema!