After several months with my baby, I thought I had diapers figured out. Find the brand you like…Keep moving up in sizes when they get small…Look forward to the time they’ll be potty trained. Unfortunately after about 1.5 yrs, when my son started to repeatedly overwhelm his diaper at night,I realized I had more to learn.
Overnight diapers are something every parent will need to learn about, likely within the first year, even if you really don’t want to deal with it. Who wants more complexity in their child’s gear?! Unfortunately standard diapers eventually just won’t cut it at night, and you’ll need an upgrade.
Do you really need overnight diapers?
While you don’t need overnight diapers, you’ll likely find them to be essential. As your child gets older, their bodies will start to make and hold more urine than a standard diaper can hold. It doesn’t help that every night your child might wear the same diaper for eight hours or more. Standard diapers just aren’t designed to be worn that long.
Unless your child is ready to be potty trained at an early age, then you will likely need to choose between using overnight diapers or having frequent bed wetting. Because letting your child frequently wet the bed could lead to infection, ruined bedding, loss of self-confidence, and frustration from caregivers, overnight diapers are definitely the preferred alternative.
How do overnight diapers help?
Overnight diapers do two things to help your child sleep better at night…they hold more and are more comfortable.
These diapers contain more absorbent material than a standard diaper, so they are able to hold more urine and are generally able to prevent blowouts. That being said, overnight diapers still have a limit. If your child’s overnight diaper still isn’t cutting it, perhaps you’ll need to help it out by limiting your child’s liquid intake before bedtime. By limiting how much they drink in the hour or two before bed, they’ll produce less urine and stress the diaper less.
The lining of these diapers are also made out of a softer material, since they are designed to be worn for a longer period of time. They are less likely to scratch your baby’s soft skin and help them to sleep more comfortably.
When do children start wearing overnight diapers?
Usually between 6 months and a year. Though it could be up to 1.5 or 2 yrs.
It varies by the child, but often starts around six months when they are transitioning to solid foods. Some children though don’t need these diapers until they are more than a year old. So you’ll need to watch your child, and see how stressed their diaper is in the morning.
There are ways to hold off the arrival of overnight diapers, which you can see in the sections below. Since overnight diapers are significantly more expensive than standard diapers, this can be an important step to take.
When do children stop using overnight diapers?
Generally once a child starts using overnight diapers, they will continue to use them until they are potty trained. Unless you take some steps, shown below, to reduce the need for overnight diapers, they will continue to push standard diapers too far during the night.
What are some alternatives to overnight diapers?
Because overnight diapers are so much more expensive, and it can be annoying to maintain a stock of two, three, or more different types of diapers, it can be a good idea to explore ways to avoid these diapers.
When thinking about how to avoid using overnight diapers, you have to understand why they are needed…which is that your child is producing too much urine for a diaper. To handle this dilemma, you have two options…get your child to stop producing too much urine and/or find a way to contain it.
Some ways you can do this include:
- Limit liquids before bedtime – You shouldn’t make your child go to bed thirsty, but maybe don’t let them walk around with their sippy cup for an hour or two before bed. If they are thirsty they can drink a little, but not so much they fill their belly.
- Use two diapers – If one diaper isn’t enough, then use two…one on top of the other. Cut a small slit in the outer covering of the inner diaper (before you put the diaper on your baby!). Then when the inner diaper is overwhelmed, the urine can seep into the outer diaper instead of into your child’s clothes and bedding. This does double your diaper cost, but it’s possible that it’ll still be cheaper than using overnight diapers. This is also a good emergency alternative if you run out of overnight diapers.
- Use diaper liners – You can buy liners that fit inside a standard diaper and provide some more absorbent material to help the diaper survive until you get up in the morning. These also add some additional cost, but not by much. They can be much more convenient than overnights for parents than overnights.
- Ensure a good fit and placement – Sometimes your child’s bed might be wet simply because the diaper wasn’t placed quite right on your baby or it didn’t fit well. If the diaper doesn’t fit snugly against your baby’s body at all three exits, then urine can leak out.
Sometimes you can fix this by finding a better way to adjust the diaper’s position and straps, but other times it might be the diaper itself. You can try several different brands of diapers to see if one fits your baby better.