This has led to a few really good questions. The main one after "How do you know when they need to go?" being "What about Night Time?"
I have two experiences with this as I covered night time a bit differently with both children. My first son I didn't do night time EC. At all. This is a valid choice. I tried to wake him up for pottying but he slept in a separate space to me and so this was very very difficult and after countless wet beds each night for about a week I stopped and put the nappies back on and just offered the potty immediately if he woke- only to find that in the time it had taken me to get up, walk to his room and pick him up and take his nappy off he had already finished. So Edison was a night time nappy case.
When Kicky was born I had wanted to do things differently. Edison was 21 months old at the time of Kicky's birth and was still wetting his nappies overnight. And I changed them as soon as he woke up to tell me, which was immediately. Neither of my children were happy to sleep wet. But when Kicky was an infant he slept with me. And because he slept with me I could feel every wriggle and movement and I would sit up and potty him over a wide basin with a terry flat in it to absorb the wee, and from around 3 weeks old he slept naked against me on a waterproof mat and absorbent blanket. I kept more beside the bed in case we had a miss but this rarely happened. BUT when we moved Kicky to share a room with Edison as a toddler he went straight to wetting the bed almost every time. And I started to put night time nappies on for back up. He wet at least three times a week until I night trained him on purpose.
So I can safely say that night time EC is a bit reliant on co-sleeping for optimal success. But this post isn't about night time EC. This post is about what I did when Edison was still regularly wetting his night time back up. I've been reluctant to write about this for the sake of privacy but really, he's a little boy and bed wetting is common so I don't mind sharing how I stopped it. (I used this method to night train both my sons but Eddie took much longer and was a much harder case than Kicky)
First of all I got prepared. I thought about how Edison slept and where and how I could make the dreaded stripping of the bed easier on everyone. I decided to move him to a cot mattress for the time being so that I could disrupt him as little as possible as he learned to wake up fully (hormones are released during deep sleep so it's when they are partially awake that they wet) before rather than after or during.
MATERIALS:
- Cot mattress
- X6 absorbent cotton receiving blankets/puddle pads
- X6 fitted sheets
- X6 top sheets
- Fleece blanket
- regular covers
- washing basket
- alarm clock (for the parent)
- paper and pen to record times
how the bed was put together is how this season in our lives was made bearable. the cot mattress we used has a waterproof PVC side so that's the side we used. I placed the receiving blanket or puddle pad (I had a mixture of both) on top of the mattress and then put the fitted sheet on top and the top sheet, the fleece blanket next acted as a water resistant barrier and kept the rest of the covers dry. one puddle pad was sufficient but If receiving blankets are being used two was better.
WEEK ONE:
I left the rest of the supplies in easy reach so that when we had a toilet accident we could quickly strip the bed, dump the soiled bed clothes into the washing basket and remake the bed without too much fuss. The time of the accident was recorded on paper and we went back to sleep until the next accident or morning came. In that first week Edison had on average three accidents. There was a lot of washing every single morning.
WEEK TWO:
At the beginning of week two I began setting alarms for myself when the most common accidents took place, 10:00PM, 2:00AM, 4:00AM and I noticed that the pattern was around the 4 hour mark. So it made it easy I just set my alarms for 10 minutes before and made myself get up. Half the time I beat him and I would take him to the toilet, Edison was less than happy about this. But he did resettle quickly and did feel a sense of achievement that he hadn't wet his bed. When I came in and he was already wet or wetting it was the same deal, I would strip the bed and he would go off to the toilet to do the last of his wee. I found this greatly improved our chances of a catch at the next alarm.
WEEK THREE ONWARDS:
this was simple repetition and self discipline to stay up until 10PM to take him to the toilet before I went to bed and to get up every night multiple times to help him rouse. I disciplined MYSELF to get up and take Edison to the toilet. I kept with it no matter what. And after about 4-6 weeks we were accident free and I was sleeping much better. But I wasn't willing to put Edison back in his big boy bed without a net so I started by putting the mattress on the bed, So strip off was still easy. This was a good move because it took the pressure off of Edison and myself and he DID have a couple accidents first off but then he relaxed when he realized they were still easily fixed and hasn't looked back.
IMPORTANT NOTES:
I have to say that one of the reasons this worked is I gave myself and my son a wide time frame. ALL SUMMER was the length of time that I was willing to try to teach him nocturnal dryness. Had three months come and gone without success I would have continued to wake him up but I would have put nappy back up on again so that I had less laundry going into the dryer. As it turned out I didn't need nearly that long and while there was whining from the boy- it was done respectfully and for his personal dignity as he was truly getting old enough that he was embarrassed about wearing a nappy at night.
Hopefully this helps someone else.
