Ask Malia: A Soggy Situation

Hi Malia,

I have a question for you about nighttime diaper leaks. My 10-month-old son wakes up completely soaked almost every morning. I've followed all of the advice on the blogs about a using a larger-size diaper and using a diaper booster, but even with all of that, he's still waking up wet—sometimes as early as 2 a.m. I don't know what to do! And even if he doesn't leak, his diaper is so full when he wakes up at 3am that I think he's waking up because he's uncomfortable. He's usually a 10 hour sleeper without interruption but this week has been horrible with the diaper problem. Do you have any suggestions? He still has a bedtime bottle as part of his routine and is asleep by the time he's done. Do we need to change that routine?

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Ideally, night is when our body slows down and relaxes. But if we're too full (or waterlogged) when we hit the sack, our body is busy digesting (and, in your son's case, wetting). If he's getting that soggy at night, it may be a sign that he's getting overfilled a bit before bed. You can reduce the amount of that bottle without reducing his overall food intake--if he gets an 8-ounce bottle, try reducing that to 6 ounces and putting the extra 2 ounces in another bottle. So you increase his morning bottle by an ounce, and his midday bottle by an ounce. If that works you might continue to reduce the amount of the nighttime bottle by another ounce or two, adding the extra ounces to other bottles during the day.

As long as he's growing appropriately and getting enough food, there isn't a need to stuff him to the gills before bedtime. In fact, there's some evidence that sleeping with a really full tummy isn't conducive to the best-quality sleep. Best for him to get most of his calories during the day and just a bedtime snack at night.

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Update: sometimes I get the pleasure of hearing a follow-up from parents on how my advice worked. Here's the note I just received from this mom:

Malia, Your suggestion completely saved us. He has hardly had a leak since we took him down to 7 ounces at bedtime and has no problem finishing his 9 ounces in the morning. So that, paired with a change to Huggies and the diaper doubler/insert is working great!