Waking for the potty

[choc]

For the first month after being potty trained ds2 was sleeping all night and waking mostly with a dry pull up. For the last 2 weeks he is waking once or twice every night saying wee wee. We put him on the potty in his dark room and he always does a wee. Then straight back to bed and he goes back to sleep. Today though he woke at 4am then 6. 30am. Surely he can't wake needing a wee 2 and half hours after the last wee? Then we obviously had problems with him going back to sleep. He has a Gro clock which comes on at 7 which usually he is brilliant at following. So I am wondering if this is more of a nap issue than an actual wee issue?! His day usually looks like this
Wu 7
S 1.15 to 2.45
Bt 7.30 asleep by 7 45

Any thoughts?

[ginger428]

Hi Gemma, Definitely worth considering that the nap is interfering with night sleep. Unless, any major changes recently? I know a "regression" of sorts can occur as kids adapt to a new routine.

How old is he? Maybe you can try cutting back nap by 15 mins for a couple days to see if that helps? Is he going down ok for naps?

[choc]

He turns 2 on Wednesday. I just feel it's strange that he stayed dry all through the night without waking for around 4 weeks after day training. Then started waking for a wee. He goes down for his nap fine and I usually have to wake him. This morning he woke at 5.15am for a wee then didn't go back to sleep. He called out for another wee at 5. 45. I knew he didn't need one but to save him screaming the house down I put him on the potty anyway. And then he did it again at 6.15. I know he didn't need a wee but don't know how else to handle it so put him on the potty again.
I will wake him 15 mins earlier from nap today and see what happens.

[creations]

I just feel it's strange that he stayed dry all through the night without waking for around 4 weeks after day training. Then started waking for a wee.

I think a lot of LOs do this, enough to make it well within the range of "normal".
If something else is waking him (such as changes in sleep needs or developmental stuff) he is likely to need to wee because he has woken, his body just kicks in the "awake" mode and the hormone to not wee turns off and he then needs a wee.  It's not necessarily the need to wee that is waking him but something else.
If he goes back to sleep but isn't going into a good deep sleep he could wake again and it's the same, because he's awake he could need to wee even if it hasn't been that long.
Some of it could also be:
- he knows he can get your attention by calling out need to wee (especially if he's relatively recently PT, you've been responding rapidly to him saying he needs to wee so he knows he gets attention) you can't really change this. I would accept it as a phase.  Unless you can organise things so that he can use the potty in his room without calling out?  It depends if he is able to manage getting out of bed, getting his pjs off etc.  It's quite a big step to do it alone but he might be happy to have a go.
- he is becoming or already aware of being dry at night and wants to stay that way. He might have initially not been thinking about it therefore the 4 weeks of night dryness without issue, but then once he thinks about it it can hover in his mind, niggling at him that he wants to be dry and that can lead to too many calls for wee. He just wants to be successful.  I had a couple of years of DS not waking in the night to wee and then when he was older he started doing it, he was getting annoyed with the wee and said it was disturbing his sleep, he was often tired due to getting up in the night to go to the toilet. I didn't tell him he couldn't go but I did tell him that when he wakes in the night if he just turns over and goes back to sleep his body knows how to keep the wee in, kind of reassuring him that his body will manage and his head doesn't have to take charge by getting up to wee.  Not sure if that makes sense and I don't think it's something you can force LO to understand but it worked for my DS and he got more sleep again.
I also found with my DS that he understood things I didn't think he could possibly understand, I'd mention things thinking 'no way will he get this' and then he'd surprise me by totally getting it.

There is lots of developmental sleep disturbance around birthdays so it could just be that.

[choc]

Thanks for the advice. It makes a lot of sense. He is still in a cot and not really able to pull his own clothes down that successfully at the moment. So do you think I am doing the right thing by sitting him on the potty even though he only went 30 mins earlier? He doesnt actually do a wee the second and third time. Having read your reply creations I am obviously happy to get up and put him on the potty when he genuinely needs to go. Just not sure how to handle the every 30 minute early morning requests!

[creations]

Just not sure how to handle the every 30 minute early morning requests!

I know some people choose to tell them that they have a nappy on and can use that but me personally I'd rather put up with the hassle of getting up a few extra times to let him use the potty whilst you see if you can sort out the routine (or get past the phase) because I think once the routine/developmental phase has passed those additional requests would stop anyway.  And if not, well, all the while this goes on you are learning lots more about when he really does need to go, but also he is learning too, so you can maybe get to a point where you ask him if he is sure he needs because he only went x mins before or you might decide to just tell him to he's already done a wee so go back to sleep.  It's really your choice, I don't think there is one single answer but rather what you feel is right for you.

[choc]

We definitely don't want to tell him to wee in his pull up so will continue as we are for a bit. I'm pretty sure some 2 year molars are cutting too so that could be half the problem.