heavy wetter at night

[Yak]

Pretty suddenly, the yaklet is waking up sodden in the night. He's 4 months and has always been a champion wee-er, but til recently he would go in one nappy from 7 til 7 no probs. However, now he has already leaked by the time of his dreamfeed at 11 and for the past couple of nights at 3/4/5 am. Apart from his dreamfeed he's not really having any milk at night (hurrah, that seems to have passed for now) - but I do tank him up in the early evening & he has up to 9 oz /260 ml at 11.

Nappy wise, so far we have used:

Two pampers stay dry one inside the other

Little lamb with boosters & wrap - both microfibre and cotton

Little lambs as above with motherease wrap

But all to no avail - tonight I started thinking the roof over his cot must be leaking, he was so wet!

Tomorrow I'll try the pampers with a motherease wrap and are what happens. Any other suggestions?

He also has loads of nappy free time during the day, so I'm wondering if that's having an effect. But surely that degree of wee control would be pretty unusual, right?

Any bright ideas?

[jollybaby]

How much does he drink during the day? Could you try increasing his daytime milk and gradually reducing the amount he has for his dreamfeed?

Not suggesting that you Should starve the poor yaklet for the sake of a wet nappy though!

[Yak]

He's bf - takes five full feeds (from both breasts) during the day - not sure how much that is but I express first & last thing to get enough for his dreamfeed. he certainly is distractable during the day - even the "chink" of me putting down a glass of water is enough to break the spell & start the gummy grins & giggles. I now mostly feed him in the semi-darkness & that's helped him to get enough not to wake up hungry in the night. He started doing that last week after previously sleeping through the night from about 12 wks

Maybe the dreamfeed is just too easy to glug down.... I suppose I'm loathe to reduce it in case we go back to night feeds again. I do realise how extremely lucky I am not to have to do them regularly as I suspect a lot of babies his age are still regularly feeding in the night!

Oh, and he's teething too, in case that has any effect.

[KattyKit]

Goodness that sounds like a lot of wee! As it is started quite suddenly I'd pop him along to your GP so they can just rule out a urinary track infection and take a look at him.

x

[jollybaby]

Well it sounds like he's having a reasonable balance of daytime/nighttime feeds. I can remember miss jb's nappies being very wet at that time settling down around weaning when her liquid intake reduced. Have you tried going up a nappy size or switching brands. I think I switched to huggies at nighttime for a few weeks

[Otta]

I'm not trying to be dramatic, but please take him to GP, in order to rule out diabetes. Very wet nappies is a symptom, and it's important to catch it early.

Fingers crossed that is not the issue, but I'd get it checked for peace of mind.

Does he feed a lot?

Edit for stupid predictive text mistake.

[snowboarder]

Also - with cloth - I borrowed some Ellas house hemp nappies from the nappy lady - super absorbent (she might have some still? Molly?). Or yes go up a size in 'sposies and see how they do? Oldest small snowboarder had similar and it did tail off once he was drinking less milk/eating...

[Ruth_Baldock]

Seconding Otta; always better to be safe than sorry.

[charlottep]

Have you tried just popping him into a bigger nappy? That worked perfectly for my little girl who used to guzzle a good 8 or 9 oz at bedtime and her dream feed - I popped her into a size up for nights. She was a big weer (sp?) too, until weaning.

[Yak]

Thanks everyone for your replies - just back from gp to rule out infections etc and he's been given a clean bill of health. I didn't know about the diabetes issue so will take him back if I still am worried. I think I'd be more concerned if he was weeing loads in the day too, but it seems ok on that front. In the meantime i'll go up a nappy size and just tie it tightly round his lanky legs. Poor blighter doesn't have a lot of chub on his thighs.....

Once again the collective wisdom of the forum comes up trumps!

[Otta]

You'd have thought your GP would have mentioned diabetes if s/he thought there was a chance it could be an issue, so hopefully it's not.

Glad there are no other health reasons :)

[jennyh]

My 6 month old takes stupidly small amounts of milk during the day but then fills up at bedtime and dreamfeed. i used to have to change her in the night as well because of leaking nappy, and the clothes, and the sleeping bag and the sheet! Talk about disrupting the night. I now put her in larger pampers baby dry nappies and a tots bots or motherease wrap done up pretty tight! usually does the trick. I understand what you say about not wanting to do night feeds again but my girl takes so little in the morning that I have no option but to start reducing the dreamfeed and we'll see what happens! Good luck!

[Selma]

Have you tried a bigger size nappy? The plus sizes are very good (i.e. size 4+)

[njc97]

Baby njc had similar issues. Usually meant it was time to move up a nappy size. Also we found that pampers capacity and fit wasnt the best - nature ones in sainsburys better, or the bamboo ones (I think they had them in healthmatters)

[mrs f]

We have just moved up to size 3 & it's really helped with our containment issues

[apenn]

Nappy lady website sells super-duper boosters, that you can fold over many times, but you may need a bigger wrap to fit them and the little lamb nappy.

Our son also went through a phase like this though I can't recall at what age. There was a lot of laundry until it subsided . . .

-A

[mima08]

Hiya - seconding the one size up suggestions, it really helped. LO is approx 8kg but on 9kg + nappies. Also, found Pampers (and huggies etc) all not good enough - Sainsbury own brand do the trick!

[buggie]

There's always exceptions to prove the rule, but, diabetes in such a young baby is practically unheard of & if it was there would be other worrying symptoms (endless thirst/weight loss/strange smelling breath/noticable dehydration) so don't think it's worrying/neglectful that the GP didn't seem to consider this.

Fingers crossed you find a solution to the nappy leakage soon - could be yaklet's taking more milk over the afternoon/evening (especially if cluster feeding) and so this is causing them to be wetter, often found the Bugglet's leakages were related to nappies needing to up a size or me thinking I was clever and going up a size too early (if only you could get packs of 5 nappies or so to check the sizing/brand works before going all out on a big pack!).

[Yak]

Thanks, everyone. So far we are having success with disposables plus motherease nappy & wrap. Poor little yaklet is basically like a weeble but it stops the 4am laundry. I have bought the next size up in case its that, but call me tightfisted I'm keen to use the supplies we have! Also if baby f is just going up to a size 3 I'd be astounded if his playmate needed a bigger size than him :)

Cannot quite believe that I started a thread about wee. The glamour of parenting, eh?

[Ruth_Baldock]

Horses for courses, I started one about poo about a month ago...classy!

[mrs f]

Oh certainally the yacklett wouldn't need a size 4 then if you are already in size 3... His bum is prob half the size of baby f's!!! Such is the chub we have :-D

[The Nappy Lady]

Glad you've found a solution for now.

Soaking nappies at this age are quite common - baby is at maximum milk intake in run up to starting solids, and so what comes out tends to I crease too!

You can double boost cloth nappies - put 1 booster inside the cloth nappy & 1 outside between nappy & wrap. Otherwise the super boosters mentioned earlier. With boys it can be connected to where the willy is pointing (should be down into the nappy) & or how they lie when asleep.

Once he gets established on solids things may improve, but it's possible he will always be a heavy night wetter. Once they are older you can try to reduce the amount of fluids they have after dinner & up to bedtime but clearly he's much too young to do that yet.

Keep an eye on his weight & wrap size as it's important to go up a size when they hit the weight threshold.

I do still have some hemp nappies if you're interested just give me a shout. They are slim but much more absorbent than other types of cloth nappy.