Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Nighttime and Nappies


An old schoolfriend recently had a baby boy. At six weeks she was marvelling at how he slept through the night in 6-hour stretches and at three months he is sleeping 11 hours a night.

I was very envious of her non-sleep deprived state. Little A only started sleeping 6 hour stretches just before he turned two, and sometimes that was a single stretch per night, meaning he and I were up incredibly early while he played for a few hours before napping. Slowly though, he learned to sleep longer. Coupled with the end of night-time feedings, he can now sleep the full night through, and if he does wake up, he goes back to sleep without needing to wake me up.

This victory was not yet celebrated when he decided, for the second time, (the first being when he was about 20 months old) that he no longer needed nappies. The first refusal stage lasted a few weeks and was solved by switching to pull-up nappies. This time, we thought he might be ready to start toilet training.

Little A quickly learned that the bed, couches and rugs were no-wee zones, but would go on the floors instead, stubbornly refusing to make it to the bathrooms unless he happened to already be in there for a bath. Night-times, however, he has generally remained dry, allowing him to sleep without nappies most of the time. He only wets the bed at night if he is very tired and has had a long day that is different from his usual schedule.

In the morning and after his nap, Little A pees in the bathroom, but we are still working on regular daytime wee times. I hope that this continues to work as forcing him into nappies now results in two-year old tantrums, and anyone who has raised a child will know how tiresome these can be.

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