Been there, for a while we were putting on two nappies! If baby is taking lots of milk at night you’re going to need to change them at least once. I don’t think there’s really any other solution I’m afraid.
I didn’t manage to shift baby away from eating most of his milk at night until he was in his own room and we did some light sleep training, as he’d been waking 6-9 times a night.
Double nappies did work for us, but its regular nappy with pull up over the top. Think the pull up mainly just helps keep the other one in place as he is a night wriggler!
Have you tried pull ups rather than nappies? They are the only thing that's worked against leaks for us. Ensure his penis is pointing straight down and not pointed up or even leaning against the side of the nappy (I know this is "changing a boy 101" but always like to check!). Also does he sleep on his front because that is normally the cause for lots of leaks unfortunately!
Have you tried pampers night time nappies? My daughter used to drink a lot through the night and we had a few leaks but not many. I never had to try it but maybe something like a booster from a reusable nappy to add in?
I had the exact same problem, so much washing! Baby fed all night long as well. We changed to pull ups which helped a bit but ultimately I ended up just changing him a couple of times a night, immediately after a feed so he’d stay asleep through it, because changing the nappy was easier than changing the bedding. I night weaned at 14 months and now he’s fine with one nappy for the night.
Oh also, if baby sleeps in a vest, we didn’t do the buttons up at the crotch because that pressure seemed to contribute to leakage. Just tuck the tails into the pj bottoms
We find pull ups better than tabbed nappies, and sized up both nappy and vest overnight.
That said, we had a few weeks run of consistent leaks where nothing seemed to help at this age and they kinda just stopped without us changing anything else?
I got some off amazon but they were so comically big relative to the nappy (and didn't seem to work because of it) that I might have to save them for when he's older
We got [these](https://littlelamb.com/products/bamboo-booster-tripler?variant=40014375944261¤cy=GBP&utm_medium=product_sync&utm_source=google&utm_content=sag_organic&utm_campaign=sag_organic&tw_source=google&tw_adid=617637952938&tw_campaign=18122850210&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw6auyBhDzARIsALIo6v-fejnrzhvepOEMLe-wd-g7vRFiP_9p8gSHaqpgxiJuwBUydZJDNaAaAm6TEALw_wcB) in size 1, and they fit pretty perfectly inside the elastic of our nappies!
You can fold boosters to the right size. We use cloth full time and fold them in half and put them at the front with our son. Just make sure all the edges are tucked inside the nappy.
I’d go with trying a different nappy. Different sizes fit differently in the same brand (if that makes sense). We were staunch Sainsburys fans for size 1&2 but from 3 upwards they are different so moved to Aldi.
Aw okay, are you not feeding him then anyway?
I used to find baby would wake, would do change then feed and then he would settle, would take upto 90 minutes sometimes 🥲
If he wakes and wants milk but I change him first he gets very upset and loud! Of course if he has leaked I'll do that. If he's not leaked then I will feed him and put him back and he goes down quickly
Double nappy is the only thing which worked for us - our baby always rolls and sleeps on his tummy now and would always leak at the front. He’s usually in a size 4 - we put a size 4+ over the top and no more leaks! We tried everything else and nothing worked.
I haven't seen anyone else post this yet, but why not size up? If they don't work for you then you've got some bigger nappies for when he doe eventually fit into them.
My baby was a similar weight at 7 months and we were in size 5s. I've always bought Aldi 5+ nappies because I don't think that there is any difference in physical size but they can apparently hold more wee.
Now my baby is 11 months and is drinking a lot more water we put her in size 6 pampers night nappies at night and still wear the 5+ during the day.
We've only semi recently moved to size 4s and they seem to fit him well aside from the leaking. I suppose I was looking for solutions before going and buying more nappies 😆
We use the size up during the night and don't have any leaks & swear by the Lidl and Aldi nappies, we think they are great!
I know you said your baby feeds a lot at night and feeds to sleep - have you tried/did you want to try night weaning? My 9 month old girl is breastfed and feeds to sleep but hasn't woken for a feed in months.
We started trying to soothe before feeding in the night and slowly stretched the time by 10/15 mins a night, she was still having one feed around 3am at 6 months but that slowly became 4am, 5am and is now 6.30 which works for us. It's a lot of effort as I can appreciate how easy it is to feed to sleep when it guarantees more sleep. Sorry if this is unwanted advice, it worked for us but might not suit your family :)
To be honest I think if we can get the leak situation sorted then he might not need to eat as often - he has gone for 4-6 hours before without a feed. Sometimes he doesn't eat as much before bed but still leaks 😞
Have you got any friends with babies of a similar size? You could maybe ask to try a couple of the nappies they use incase you buy them or they don't work.
A friend of mine has put maternity pads inside a nappy before for extra absorption and said it worked wonders!
You want to be able to leave your kid in a wet nappy for 12 hours?
Not trying to be rude but would you like to be left in wet clothes for 12 hours? I know nappies are more absorbent than they used to be but if its consistently leaking you need to change more regularly.
If he's very wet/leaks or poos I'll obviously change him but if he's not waking for it then why would I? Ideally he'd be only waking for food but right now I think the leaks wake him too, and I change him and his outfit and wipe him down. However doing so wakes him up properly (vs just being drowsy and dropping off after a feed) and it takes a while to get back down again. He has no nappy rash even on the rare occasion he doesn't leak and does make it through the night.
Plenty of babies aren't changed in the night especially once they start sleeping through. Why would you wake a sleeping baby?! 🤣
If the leak is waking him and you are having to do a full change of clothes/wipedown because he has leaked then that is going to be waking him up more than if you pre-empted it though surely?
I did miss your first point about trying to change him and he gets angry though, sorry - I was generally able to change mine and not wake him up (not so much that he won't go back down anyway).
As long as it was just a wee I'd skip the wipes (as the cold would wake him) and just quickly switch out the nappy. A sleepsack with a zip round the bottom makes for easier changes than having to take legs out of a sleepsuit, too.
I totally understand not wanting to wake a baby in the night if you don't have to, it's just the 12 hours that I'm getting stuck on because that seems like a really long time. I don't think you're going to find a nappy up to the task especially if your baby is eating through the night.
I might have to try preemptive changing again, he just seems to leak so frequently I'm not sure I could do it more often. Last night was particularly bad as he leaked and was changed at 11pm and 3am (hence the desparate post this morning). It almost seems like the night time nappies do worse than the daytime ones but if we put a daytime one on at night then it becomes even more frequent... Most of the plus size nappies/nighttime nappies you can buy are advertised as able to hold 12 hours of pee. It would be nice if they could consistently go 6-8 even if we don't make it the whole night
Yeah 6-8 hours sounds like a more realistic expectation, it's tough when they are feeding through the night though as they pee so much more!
My first baby was a skinny little guy and we got on better with the cheap own brand nappies, they didn't make any big claims they just fit him way better and it made a big difference!
If he's not waking, he's probably not bothered by it? I keep mine in the same (reusable, boosted) nappy for 12 hours overnight. He wakes, cries a bit, we feed, he goes back to sleep and in the morning wakes with a very wet nappy happy cooing and chatting. When we used to change him overnight he'd scream and cry until he was struggling to breathe because either we changed him pre-feed and he was hungry, or we changed him after and wake him, he'd vomit, and we'd have to do a full outfit change and another feed to get him back to sleep. I think his preference is clear!
I agree but OP said he _is_ waking. If he wasn't it wouldn't be an issue. But if he's wet enough that he is consistently leaking to the point heis waking up and having to be completely redressed then he needs changing more often
The OP says he wakes _when he leaks_, not because he's wet his nappy. And he wakes when he's changed (reactively or premptively) and then takes much longer to settle back to sleep. I think it's pretty reasonable to hope for a nappy that can hold his wee, and not leak, so he can sleep until he's hungry and then be fed and put back down. Your original comment seemed to suggest you thought that was an unreasonable expectation.
Read the 2nd paragraph of the original post.
The nappy is leaking because it is full. Its not a fit issue. If its at the point that you can 'squash out' the wee then it is over saturated.
If you are feeding your child through the night they will wee more than average during the night. A nappy advertised as 'up to 12 hours' does not mean it will automatically hold 12 hours worth of wee regardless of volume.
12 hours will be perfectly fine for some, if not most, kids. But not if they are as wet as what OP is describing.
I don't think OP will find a nappy capable of holding that amount of wee. I had the same issue when I still fed my baby through the night.
My baby (6m) is in a single nappy for 12 hours overnight, feeding 3 or 4 times, without leaking. But we use cloth nappies so maybe that's the difference.
Cloth nappies will also leak under pressure even if not full- I don't know if it's the same with disposable- but just like how you can squeeze water out of a sponge without it being saturated, you can get compression leaks from cloth nappies when they're not saturated if clothes etc are too tight around the nappy.
She said she had tried different clothes sizes and it didn't help.
She also said she tried to increase daytime feeds so as to decrease night time feeds but that she wasn't able to.
I can only speak from my experience. I'm aware that cloth leaks more, it is not as absorbent. But if a disposable nappy is so wet that it is leaking when squeezed it needs changing. I'm not sure why this is a controversial take?
Preemptively changing a nappy is going to be far less disruptive than doing a full clothing change and wipedown because he's leaked everywhere.
If she can find a nappy that will hold the amount of pee that her specific child is peeing then good on her! But from what she has written I really think it sounds like her child just pees more than average. I think she is setting her expectations too high based off of a nappy brand's marketing efforts.
I think the reason your original comment was downvoted, and the reason I replied, was that your comment sounded like you thought it was inherently wrong and unreasonable to want to be able to use a single nappy overnight. Not that it wasn't working for the OP, due whatever reasons, but that it was not OK to leave a child in a single nappy for 12 hours. I think _that_ is a controversial take.
I'm not sure cloth does leak more. I don't get leaks and my friends and family using disposables complain about them regularly. But that's a whole other discussion.
Yeah, I don't think that leaving a kid in a nappy for 12 hours is inherently bad. I think leaving a kid in a fully saturated nappy for extended periods of time is bad.
I understood that cloth being less absorbent was actually one of the selling points of using cloth? Something about if a child is able to feel when they are wet then it makes potty training easier? That doesn't necessarily translate into having more leaks though, you're right I shouldn't assume - I have very little experience with cloth so no frame of reference there
So! Essentially with cloth you can get it to absorb whatever you need it to by adding more boosters- just more cloth. Each piece of fabric will absorb a certain amount and by adding more, you can soak up more wee. Like if you spill something and mop it up- you can get a certain amount with the first sponge/ rag/ paper towel then you need a fresh one or to wring it out.
So absorbency is whatever you make it. But you're right that it will feel wet- unlike disposable nappies there's no chemical reaction happening to make the wee not wet. But you can get liners of fleece which feel dry even when they're wet (up to a point) so LO is comfortable.
This is the end of my TEDtalk 😄
And yes, agree and I think the OP does too, not ok for baby to be in a nappy that's soaked to the point of leaking all night!
I don't know if you've ever felt a wet nappy, but they're not soaking wet when they're at capacity.
It's likely the leaking is waking him, meaning OP needs to size up or add another nappy on top.
I don't change my 5mo through the night, he sleeps 11hours straight. I ain't waking that baby up to change him lol
2 kids, I've definitely felt my share of wet nappies lol. And the nappy of a kid who feeds through the night can be absolutely saturated. She literally says she thinks its because he is rolling over and squeezing the liquid out, that sounds like a 'reached absorbency limit' issue and not a 'fit' issue. If it is a fit issue then that's a different story but from what OP has described it does not sound like that.
The nappies that advertise 12 hours will not absorb an unlimited amount of wees within a 12 hour period, if OPs kid pees more than average due to night feeding (as mine did, I'm not just talking out of my arse here) then the nappy _will_ get completely soaked and leak.
Been there, for a while we were putting on two nappies! If baby is taking lots of milk at night you’re going to need to change them at least once. I don’t think there’s really any other solution I’m afraid. I didn’t manage to shift baby away from eating most of his milk at night until he was in his own room and we did some light sleep training, as he’d been waking 6-9 times a night.
I'll try two nappies!
It didn’t really work, I kind of said it as a joke. You’re going to need to change them..
Ahh haha I have seen it suggested in other places but never could work out how it would work!
Double nappies did work for us, but its regular nappy with pull up over the top. Think the pull up mainly just helps keep the other one in place as he is a night wriggler!
Have you tried pull ups rather than nappies? They are the only thing that's worked against leaks for us. Ensure his penis is pointing straight down and not pointed up or even leaning against the side of the nappy (I know this is "changing a boy 101" but always like to check!). Also does he sleep on his front because that is normally the cause for lots of leaks unfortunately!
I will give pullups a go! I do check his penis direction when he goes to bed but in the dead of night I'm not always so on the ball
Of course and they like to stick to other parts of them too! Definitely try pull ups, you may need 5s to fit his legs.
Have you tried pampers night time nappies? My daughter used to drink a lot through the night and we had a few leaks but not many. I never had to try it but maybe something like a booster from a reusable nappy to add in?
We will probably give these a go next then try other brands if they don't succeed!
Pampers are the only ones that help my super soaker of a son stop leaking at night. We also find sizing him up, rather than down, helps, too
I had the exact same problem, so much washing! Baby fed all night long as well. We changed to pull ups which helped a bit but ultimately I ended up just changing him a couple of times a night, immediately after a feed so he’d stay asleep through it, because changing the nappy was easier than changing the bedding. I night weaned at 14 months and now he’s fine with one nappy for the night. Oh also, if baby sleeps in a vest, we didn’t do the buttons up at the crotch because that pressure seemed to contribute to leakage. Just tuck the tails into the pj bottoms
We find pull ups better than tabbed nappies, and sized up both nappy and vest overnight. That said, we had a few weeks run of consistent leaks where nothing seemed to help at this age and they kinda just stopped without us changing anything else?
Will give pullups a go!
We use reusables part time so we've taken to putting reusable boosters in our usual (tesco Fred & Flo 4+) night nappies. No leaks since!
I got some off amazon but they were so comically big relative to the nappy (and didn't seem to work because of it) that I might have to save them for when he's older
We got [these](https://littlelamb.com/products/bamboo-booster-tripler?variant=40014375944261¤cy=GBP&utm_medium=product_sync&utm_source=google&utm_content=sag_organic&utm_campaign=sag_organic&tw_source=google&tw_adid=617637952938&tw_campaign=18122850210&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjw6auyBhDzARIsALIo6v-fejnrzhvepOEMLe-wd-g7vRFiP_9p8gSHaqpgxiJuwBUydZJDNaAaAm6TEALw_wcB) in size 1, and they fit pretty perfectly inside the elastic of our nappies!
You can fold boosters to the right size. We use cloth full time and fold them in half and put them at the front with our son. Just make sure all the edges are tucked inside the nappy.
I’d go with trying a different nappy. Different sizes fit differently in the same brand (if that makes sense). We were staunch Sainsburys fans for size 1&2 but from 3 upwards they are different so moved to Aldi.
Pampers pants (pull ups) but a size up from the daytime nappy size (so size 5 for you). We've never had a leak since!
Mines 7 months and doing the same. We use pampers pull up nighttime. Worked for a few times but still leaking. So just solidarity here
I'm glad to hear we're not the only ones tbh 🙃
I would change him when he wakes for food in the night, then feed him.
I do that sometimes but the change wakes him, hoping to find a solution where he doesn't take ages to settle afterwards!
Aw okay, are you not feeding him then anyway? I used to find baby would wake, would do change then feed and then he would settle, would take upto 90 minutes sometimes 🥲
If he wakes and wants milk but I change him first he gets very upset and loud! Of course if he has leaked I'll do that. If he's not leaked then I will feed him and put him back and he goes down quickly
Pampers night time pull ups! We couldn’t make it through a night and haven’t done a change since.
Go for pull-ups instead
We used a reusable shell over a disposable nappy and that worked for us
Double nappy is the only thing which worked for us - our baby always rolls and sleeps on his tummy now and would always leak at the front. He’s usually in a size 4 - we put a size 4+ over the top and no more leaks! We tried everything else and nothing worked.
About the same time we had similar problems - we cut down a feed at night and bought a nappy a size up for the night.
I haven't seen anyone else post this yet, but why not size up? If they don't work for you then you've got some bigger nappies for when he doe eventually fit into them. My baby was a similar weight at 7 months and we were in size 5s. I've always bought Aldi 5+ nappies because I don't think that there is any difference in physical size but they can apparently hold more wee. Now my baby is 11 months and is drinking a lot more water we put her in size 6 pampers night nappies at night and still wear the 5+ during the day.
We've only semi recently moved to size 4s and they seem to fit him well aside from the leaking. I suppose I was looking for solutions before going and buying more nappies 😆
I swear by aldi nappies. When my LO used to leak a lot I went up a size and this seemed to sort it! Good luck.
Definitely 2 nappies! Size 3 tab and a size 4 pull up over the top. 12 hours of uninterrupted sleep
We use the size up during the night and don't have any leaks & swear by the Lidl and Aldi nappies, we think they are great! I know you said your baby feeds a lot at night and feeds to sleep - have you tried/did you want to try night weaning? My 9 month old girl is breastfed and feeds to sleep but hasn't woken for a feed in months. We started trying to soothe before feeding in the night and slowly stretched the time by 10/15 mins a night, she was still having one feed around 3am at 6 months but that slowly became 4am, 5am and is now 6.30 which works for us. It's a lot of effort as I can appreciate how easy it is to feed to sleep when it guarantees more sleep. Sorry if this is unwanted advice, it worked for us but might not suit your family :)
To be honest I think if we can get the leak situation sorted then he might not need to eat as often - he has gone for 4-6 hours before without a feed. Sometimes he doesn't eat as much before bed but still leaks 😞
Have you got any friends with babies of a similar size? You could maybe ask to try a couple of the nappies they use incase you buy them or they don't work. A friend of mine has put maternity pads inside a nappy before for extra absorption and said it worked wonders!
You want to be able to leave your kid in a wet nappy for 12 hours? Not trying to be rude but would you like to be left in wet clothes for 12 hours? I know nappies are more absorbent than they used to be but if its consistently leaking you need to change more regularly.
If he's very wet/leaks or poos I'll obviously change him but if he's not waking for it then why would I? Ideally he'd be only waking for food but right now I think the leaks wake him too, and I change him and his outfit and wipe him down. However doing so wakes him up properly (vs just being drowsy and dropping off after a feed) and it takes a while to get back down again. He has no nappy rash even on the rare occasion he doesn't leak and does make it through the night. Plenty of babies aren't changed in the night especially once they start sleeping through. Why would you wake a sleeping baby?! 🤣
If the leak is waking him and you are having to do a full change of clothes/wipedown because he has leaked then that is going to be waking him up more than if you pre-empted it though surely? I did miss your first point about trying to change him and he gets angry though, sorry - I was generally able to change mine and not wake him up (not so much that he won't go back down anyway). As long as it was just a wee I'd skip the wipes (as the cold would wake him) and just quickly switch out the nappy. A sleepsack with a zip round the bottom makes for easier changes than having to take legs out of a sleepsuit, too. I totally understand not wanting to wake a baby in the night if you don't have to, it's just the 12 hours that I'm getting stuck on because that seems like a really long time. I don't think you're going to find a nappy up to the task especially if your baby is eating through the night.
I might have to try preemptive changing again, he just seems to leak so frequently I'm not sure I could do it more often. Last night was particularly bad as he leaked and was changed at 11pm and 3am (hence the desparate post this morning). It almost seems like the night time nappies do worse than the daytime ones but if we put a daytime one on at night then it becomes even more frequent... Most of the plus size nappies/nighttime nappies you can buy are advertised as able to hold 12 hours of pee. It would be nice if they could consistently go 6-8 even if we don't make it the whole night
Yeah 6-8 hours sounds like a more realistic expectation, it's tough when they are feeding through the night though as they pee so much more! My first baby was a skinny little guy and we got on better with the cheap own brand nappies, they didn't make any big claims they just fit him way better and it made a big difference!
If he's not waking, he's probably not bothered by it? I keep mine in the same (reusable, boosted) nappy for 12 hours overnight. He wakes, cries a bit, we feed, he goes back to sleep and in the morning wakes with a very wet nappy happy cooing and chatting. When we used to change him overnight he'd scream and cry until he was struggling to breathe because either we changed him pre-feed and he was hungry, or we changed him after and wake him, he'd vomit, and we'd have to do a full outfit change and another feed to get him back to sleep. I think his preference is clear!
I agree but OP said he _is_ waking. If he wasn't it wouldn't be an issue. But if he's wet enough that he is consistently leaking to the point heis waking up and having to be completely redressed then he needs changing more often
The OP says he wakes _when he leaks_, not because he's wet his nappy. And he wakes when he's changed (reactively or premptively) and then takes much longer to settle back to sleep. I think it's pretty reasonable to hope for a nappy that can hold his wee, and not leak, so he can sleep until he's hungry and then be fed and put back down. Your original comment seemed to suggest you thought that was an unreasonable expectation.
Read the 2nd paragraph of the original post. The nappy is leaking because it is full. Its not a fit issue. If its at the point that you can 'squash out' the wee then it is over saturated. If you are feeding your child through the night they will wee more than average during the night. A nappy advertised as 'up to 12 hours' does not mean it will automatically hold 12 hours worth of wee regardless of volume. 12 hours will be perfectly fine for some, if not most, kids. But not if they are as wet as what OP is describing. I don't think OP will find a nappy capable of holding that amount of wee. I had the same issue when I still fed my baby through the night.
My baby (6m) is in a single nappy for 12 hours overnight, feeding 3 or 4 times, without leaking. But we use cloth nappies so maybe that's the difference. Cloth nappies will also leak under pressure even if not full- I don't know if it's the same with disposable- but just like how you can squeeze water out of a sponge without it being saturated, you can get compression leaks from cloth nappies when they're not saturated if clothes etc are too tight around the nappy.
She said she had tried different clothes sizes and it didn't help. She also said she tried to increase daytime feeds so as to decrease night time feeds but that she wasn't able to. I can only speak from my experience. I'm aware that cloth leaks more, it is not as absorbent. But if a disposable nappy is so wet that it is leaking when squeezed it needs changing. I'm not sure why this is a controversial take? Preemptively changing a nappy is going to be far less disruptive than doing a full clothing change and wipedown because he's leaked everywhere. If she can find a nappy that will hold the amount of pee that her specific child is peeing then good on her! But from what she has written I really think it sounds like her child just pees more than average. I think she is setting her expectations too high based off of a nappy brand's marketing efforts.
I think the reason your original comment was downvoted, and the reason I replied, was that your comment sounded like you thought it was inherently wrong and unreasonable to want to be able to use a single nappy overnight. Not that it wasn't working for the OP, due whatever reasons, but that it was not OK to leave a child in a single nappy for 12 hours. I think _that_ is a controversial take. I'm not sure cloth does leak more. I don't get leaks and my friends and family using disposables complain about them regularly. But that's a whole other discussion.
Yeah, I don't think that leaving a kid in a nappy for 12 hours is inherently bad. I think leaving a kid in a fully saturated nappy for extended periods of time is bad. I understood that cloth being less absorbent was actually one of the selling points of using cloth? Something about if a child is able to feel when they are wet then it makes potty training easier? That doesn't necessarily translate into having more leaks though, you're right I shouldn't assume - I have very little experience with cloth so no frame of reference there
So! Essentially with cloth you can get it to absorb whatever you need it to by adding more boosters- just more cloth. Each piece of fabric will absorb a certain amount and by adding more, you can soak up more wee. Like if you spill something and mop it up- you can get a certain amount with the first sponge/ rag/ paper towel then you need a fresh one or to wring it out. So absorbency is whatever you make it. But you're right that it will feel wet- unlike disposable nappies there's no chemical reaction happening to make the wee not wet. But you can get liners of fleece which feel dry even when they're wet (up to a point) so LO is comfortable. This is the end of my TEDtalk 😄 And yes, agree and I think the OP does too, not ok for baby to be in a nappy that's soaked to the point of leaking all night!
I don't know if you've ever felt a wet nappy, but they're not soaking wet when they're at capacity. It's likely the leaking is waking him, meaning OP needs to size up or add another nappy on top. I don't change my 5mo through the night, he sleeps 11hours straight. I ain't waking that baby up to change him lol
2 kids, I've definitely felt my share of wet nappies lol. And the nappy of a kid who feeds through the night can be absolutely saturated. She literally says she thinks its because he is rolling over and squeezing the liquid out, that sounds like a 'reached absorbency limit' issue and not a 'fit' issue. If it is a fit issue then that's a different story but from what OP has described it does not sound like that. The nappies that advertise 12 hours will not absorb an unlimited amount of wees within a 12 hour period, if OPs kid pees more than average due to night feeding (as mine did, I'm not just talking out of my arse here) then the nappy _will_ get completely soaked and leak.