dd 2.6 waking and crying at night

[ilovetochat]

dd has gone into a bed at xmas and taken to it well, she goes to sleep after milk/stories and never gets out of bed.
but in the night she wakes between 3 and 5 crying for the toilet. she is in a night nappy and has already wet it by then but i take her to the toilet and she does a huge wee. then i put her back to bed and she is wide awake and wants singing to
she settles again but then wakes crying at least once more and i dont know how to stop this. she doesnt get up so i cant just put her back in, she just lies there crying and its really loud and i dont want to disturb the neighbours.
if i go in and say go to sleep goodnight she just cries, she wants me to go in and sing etc.
any advice please?

The first thing I would do is move the milk forward so that she has it before her bath and stories etc so the milk has a bit of time to go through her. Take her to the loo either after the last story or save one last short story for after she has been to the loo. From about 3pm make sure you offer her no drinks other than water so she only drinks what she needs (my girls will gulp down juice etc, but with water they just drink when they are thirsty).

I would also start a sticker chart - ie if she doesn't wake you or if she goes straight back to bed after doing the wee she gets a sticker and if she gets 5 stickers she gets a prize (chocolate buttons / hair clips something like that).

I had this exact same problem with DD1. She potty trained at 2.3 and what you are describing happened about 3 months later when she was 2.6. I cut down the evening drinks as described above and I also ended up taking her out of night nappies and putting a potty in her room. When she woke up crying I'd get her straight on the potty for the wee and back into bed (less disturbance to her), I had the problem that once she's done a wee and got back into bed she'd cry and worry that she still needed to wee and get in and out of bed and on and off the potty and this could go on for half an hour or more, by which time she was wide awake and unable to go back to sleep. The sticker chart was a huge incentive - once she's done a wee it was back to bed immeditely so she'd get her sticker.

It sounds like she is waking needing a wee, doesn't want to go in the nappy but can't help it as she has no other option so wets the nappy but holds onto what she can until she gets to the loo (which was exactly what my DD did). When I stopped the night nappy I made up the bed twice (i.e. matress protector, then sheet, then disposable bed mat then another sheet) and had a spare duvet close by in case of accidents I could just whip off the top sheet and disposable bed mat and another sheet was underneath - the duvet rarely got wet but it was useful to have extra covers available in case.

She had a few accidents but not many, the potty in the room gave her a lot of confidence and moving the bedtime milk further forward so it had a chance to go through her before bed time really helped. The night time waking evaporated after 10 days or so and she very rarely used the potty, although she refused to let me move it out of her room for about another 6 months.

no advice on the weeing thing as we aren;t there yet, but I have (successfully) substituted a 'sleepy music' cd and a nightlight for singing when dd wakes at night. The advantage is it lasts 45min so if she stirs during that time she generally goes back to sleep...

thanks nellytheelephant, thats all really useful.
i have cut down her drinks of milk after dinner tonight and given her a very small drink of milk durinf stories and took her for a wee just before she went to sleep at 8 so hopefully that will help.
if not i may try the potty in the room although im not sure she is ready for no napp at night yet. literally till xmas when she moved to cot her nappy was soaked each night.
fingers crossed.

well dd slept through all last night till 8 this morning although her nappy was wet at least we slept.

am resurrecting this thread in the hope that ilovetochat will update on progress ... how is this working for you?

I'm going to attempt to stop dd's (2.9) bedtime milk (she has about 9oz still ) in the hope that this might help her sleep through, she has been dry in the day for sometime now but still absolutely soaked in the morning and wonder if all that fluid is making matters worse. We seemed to be getting somewhere towards the end of last year but an ear infection followed by christmas followed by a cold and a tummy upset have well and truly scuppered that.

I've been off night duty for the last 4 nights as I've had some sort of stomach flu and this morning I woke up feeling healthy and normal and MY GOD what a difference it makes to life.

fingers crossed

himisswoowoo, still giving dd a tiny amount of milk before bed and take her for a last wee, a few times she has slept through and been dry, mostly she wakes once for a wee at 5am so nearly there and a few times she sleeps through and wets so still in interim stage but getting there
hope it goes well with your dc.

hey ilovetochat thanks for getting back ... horrendous night here . Gave no bedtime milk - she didn't bat an eyelid and nappy only 1/4 full this morning but she was up for 2 hours last night. Arrrgggghhhhh. Nightmare!

Going to try a little bit of full fat milk tonight - she's been getting skimmed as we think this makes her less windy , a later dinner and a later bedtime - the good news is that she did stay in her bed all night, albeit with me on the floor after 2.30pm. So that's something

Really felt like just leaving her to it last night but know that's just the tiredness talking.

Soooo want to get off this lack of sleep treadmill.

Your dd sounds like she's doing well!

dd doesnt actually get out of bed, she shouts in the night if she needs a wee and only gets out in the morning to get up.

if she occasionally wakes up fully in the night i tell her to lie quietly and leave her to it, luckily she lies there and falls asleep.