Getting Dry is a Tiring Business!

Katie is now 4 and a half.  We took her out of nappies when she was just over 2 and a half. If I'm honest I think she'd still be wearing them now if we hadn't.  She's simply not overly bothered about it all.  She took to being dry during the day really well though and now, apart from the odd accident, she's doing well.  She's not dry at night though.  It's not something I'm really concerned about as I know it's common but we would like to get her sleeping without nappies if possible though.

I think there are various reasons why Katie still wets in her sleep.  She is a fairly deep sleeper so might not feel the trigger in her bladder.  Katie is also quite happy wearing her nappies.  She is in the habit of being able to wee in her sleep and it's been hard to tell whether that wee is appearing during the night or first thing in the morning.  It may just be that Katie isn't ready to go it alone at bedtime yet.  To try and work it out we have decided do an experiment; take the nappies off for a week and see what happens.

The first night we tried going without nappies Katie was dry until very close to the time she wakes up (I woke up around 4am to check up on her *yawn*).  Last night it was suggested that I lift her when I went to bed to see if having an additional wee might help.  I successfully did that around 11pm but she woke up at 4am to say that she'd wet the bed.  That's not a problem.  I wasn't expecting it to be plain sailing if I'm honest.  But it's good that she woke up I think.  That's progress.

The trouble with Katie waking up at 4am though is that she is wide awake.  The sort of awake the means she doesn't have any plan to go back to sleep within the next 12 hours.  I put her in our bed whilst I stripped the wet sheet off her bed and then had a bit of a quandry.  When Katie is awake in the early hours she generally gets full of mischief.  She will annoy the cats; take all the clothes out of her drawers and wardrobe and generally find ways of getting herself into trouble.  So I decided that she could stay in our bed for the rest of the night in the hope that she might go back to sleep.  This isn't something that we do generally.  I am very strict about whose bed belongs to whom.  

Did this plan work? ...........

Of course it didn't! ........

I probably didn't need to even contemplate answering that question...did I?

Katie set out to be as annoying and naughty as she possibly could. Kicking the duvet off the bed and being very mouthy and rude to Daddy. This mouthy, diva-like attitude is one we are starting to get familiar with.  I'm hoping it's just that "I need to start big school now" attitude I've heard from my friends about (I'm hoping that's all that it is as she is pushing every boundary imaginable at the moment).  She's behaving quite rudely at times and  thinks it's funny to keep screaming as loudly as she can or shout/sing on time-out.  It's an ear-piercing scream that she can keep going for ages!  She'll put her fingers in her ears when we're trying to speak to her.  All negative attention-seeking behaviour I know so I'm getting very good at letting it run its course and reminding her she stays on time-out until she sits quietly.

As a result we are all pretty bleary-eyed today.  Katie is doing everything she can to look for naughty things to do so far this morning.  She's been on time-out about 5 times already!  (She's sat playing game on the other laptop now so I hope she will calm down for a while).

I aim to try and find my thinking brain (that's hiding underneath the brain that would prefer to go back to bed) and see what I can think of for us to do today.  Katie has a swimming lesson around lunchtime so I'm hoping she might feel tired enough for a nap afterwards. She's asked to do some baking today so hopefully that might keep her focussed on something positive.  Personally, if it wasn't going to be so wet today, I'd like to get out of the house for a long walk.  We may well do that if we get a break in the weather. I might see if her swimming school has a spare place in the lesson beforehand so we can do one of the catch-up lessons we are due.

I've been advised to give Katie at least 5 big drinks each day to try and get her bladder used to being fuller and holding more fluid.  So we have started doing that.  Being extra hydrated can only be a good thing in my opinion.  I'll give this a week.  If we've not made progress within that time then I think it will be time to stop and try again in a few months time.



Edit: On the advice of a friend, have just ordered the Wet-Stop3 Bedwetting Alarm which gets excellent reviews on Amazon. Will use this and see how we get on!