Pottying baby at night [without losing sleep]: how to do (and decide whether to do) nighttime EC
Pottying your baby in the night hours can be very hard, especially with sudden resistance after months of doing it without a hitch.
Today's episode covers Nighttime EC in-depth, along with how to do it, what you'll need to do if things go poorly, and what I've done with my own babies.
Download the MP3 here or play this episode by clicking the play button, above.
Please leave your comments below!
xx Andrea
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Thank you for that VERY helpful podcast full of great practical advice and real senecios. We will sleep better tonight!
Oops… scenarios
You are so welcome Nicole!!!! I’m glad that it will help you all sleep better tonight. <3 Andrea
Thank you so much! I swaddle my baby (she’s 15 weeks old now)– actually double swaddle because she can’t go back to sleep otherwise and is too strong for just the basic swaddle. how is it possible to help her pee without completely waking her up? Should I just wait until she is older and doesn’t need the swaddle? I also am unsure of how to tell if she’s waking because she is wet. She usually doesn’t poo at night, but lately she has early morning wakings- if it’s before 6 she usually can go back to sleep on her own. After that- not usually and she’s not always hungry.
Hi I’m having a nighttime EC conundrum! Baby is 5 months, been doing part time EC since birth and have lots of catches every day. Didn’t do nighttime EC until a couple weeks ago when my baby started squirming like crazy for a long time at night and then sometimes accompanied by crying which she had never done at night before. I potties her and she peed and calmed down. But now she has been waking with crying and squirming every 1.5 to 2 hours and after I nurse her she wants to pee, or sometimes I just potty her and she cries and pees and then usually goes back to sleep, sometimes wants to nurse.
She had been sleeping mostly 2 hours at a time but it was growing to 3 or 4, now back to 1.5 or 2. It’s complicated by the fact she also teething. Could she be eating more than normal Cuz of teething and thats why peeing so much? Has she just become super sensitive to the feeling of needing to pee? She won’t really pee in diaper anymore at night except after lots of squirming and crying.
I wonder if this is like how you had 2 years of sleeping only 2 hours at a time? What was the pause u talked about? Do I need to adjust nighttime ec?? Erg
Loved hearing your story about how you did things differently with baby 1 and baby 2, so very similar to my story! Helpful to hear that I’m not alone and that the choices I’m making in my own round 2 have worked out well for someone else and will probably continue working well for me too.
Thanks for sharing these tips!
Thanks for this episode! I love the podcast and wish there was more, but I know you’ve been busy with the baby potty and mom-ing, etc. I am really enjoying EC with my daughter, who is almost three months old. I plan to start doing some gentle sleep teaching when I stop swaddling her, which will be soon. In this episode you mention linking to some resources you used, but I can’t find them. Would you mind sharing those links?
Thank you Andrea! We have been doing EC with our 4 mobth old daughter and its great! She now wants us to help her through the night. So we will be trying that.
Thanks for even briefly mentioning your struggle with your first child – night nursing every 2 hrs and ppd! Been going through it with my now 12 month old. Prayer keeps me. Just discovered EC and started trying it this week. Thank you for all of this helpful info!
My 9 mo old wakes 2-3x in the night and has a dry diaper every time so I have been pottying her assuming/hoping it would help her to not wake any more often than she already does. I nurse her too and then put her back down. Would you recommend not taking her to the potty? Am I missing something?
Hi Bethany! If she is going during those times, keep at it. It’s wonderful that she is dry at night. xx Andrea
Hi! I have a 14 mo old who has been ec-ing since 8 mo. Love the book! Glad I found it but I have reached a snag!!
We were doing wonderfully. She was waking up with dry diapers (panties all day, disp at night) but began sleeping restlessly so I started nighttime pottying and that seemed to solve it until she started resisting the pot at night so I let her nurse and go back to sleep 😪 she began peeing in her diapers and now peeing in panties during the day… what did I do!? I am at a loss. Do I take the plunge to all panties and maybe change the nighttime receptacle?