What To Do If Your Baby Poops While Sleeping
Let’s be real – everyone poops, even your tiny baby! It is a natural part of life and helps your body stay healthy by eliminating waste.
Once you’re potty trained, you can recognize the signs of having to poop. As a baby, though, it’s impossible to control your bowels. This results in babies pooping whenever and wherever they need to. Even while they are asleep!
If you are on the fence about what to do when your baby poops while they are asleep, continue reading for guidance.
Do You Change Your Baby’s Diaper If They Are Sleeping?
There’s no reason to wake up your baby periodically throughout the night for wet diapers. As long as your baby has the proper size diaper, it should hold a whole night’s urine with no problem. Unless your baby wakes up uncomfortable (or has a diaper rash), it is A-okay to rest without nighttime diaper changes if your baby pooped while sleeping.
For the most part, though, your baby should wake up if they have pooped in their sleep. But this is not always the case! Both of my children will be more than happy to sleep all night without a fuss, even if they happen to have a bowel movement shortly after falling asleep. I can’t count the number of times I change their diaper in the morning, and I am greeted with old poop that obviously happened overnight.
It won’t typically hurt your baby to sit in a soiled diaper for a little while. Your baby’s poop can also affect the amount of irritant in their bowels. Breastfed babies' bowel movements usually won’t irritate their skin for a few hours, but formula-fed babies can have more irritating poop.
If you know your baby pooped and they still have the entire night ahead of them, it’s best to change their diaper, rather than leave things overnight. If they are simply taking a nap and they should wake up shortly, let them get some rest! It would have woken them up if it was bothering them.
Another thing to note is that if your baby is older, you do run the risk of them sticking their hands in their diaper and it getting on their hands. Knock on wood that it hasn’t happened with my children yet, but it is certainly a possibility! An interesting hack to prevent this from happening is to use zip-up onesies on them overnight and put them on backward.
Cloth Diapers or Disposable Diapers?
Like most parenting choices, the type of diapers you use for your baby is completely up to you and your family. They each have their pros and cons in certain situations. Cloth diapers are expensive up front but environmentally friendly and last throughout their entire babyhood, and disposable diapers are a continuous monthly expense but are easy to just change and throw away.
If you choose to cloth diaper your child, you can expect to change their clothes (and probably bedding) at least once a night. This is because a cloth diaper does not hold as much as a disposable diaper. Many parents and caregivers choose to use disposable diapers for only nighttime to ensure that their baby isn’t waking up multiple times a night with a soiled diaper.
The Easiest Way To Change Your Baby’s Diaper While They Sleep
Changing your baby’s diaper while they are sleeping can be a difficult task. For me, it was as stress-inducing as if someone had asked me to diffuse a bomb! As long as your baby isn’t young enough to need regular feedings throughout the night, you can change their diaper without waking them up to feed. Here are some helpful tips to keep your baby comfy and dry without disturbing them too much:
Before you do anything, see if your baby is in a deep sleep. You can test this by lifting their leg and dropping it to see if they stir. If they don’t react, you should be in the clear to change their diaper without them waking up (hopefully).
Use only a dim light to avoid waking them up.
Try to change their diaper while they are still in bed as long as doing so won’t soil the bed. If you move them to the changing table, you run the risk of stirring them too much and waking them up.
Use sleep sacks for nighttime instead of blankets for easy access. Many sleep sacks open from the bottom so that you aren’t jostling them.
Use a white noise machine. A sound machine will not only help your baby drift off to sleep but also to stay asleep. If you come in and need to rustle around for diapers and wipes, the sound machine will help drown out this noise.
Get everything ready before bedtime. This means gathering diapers, wipes, and spare pajamas to have at a moment’s notice during the night. A low-lit lamp will work wonders for nighttime diaper changes.
Keep Track of Your Baby’s Poop Schedule with Baby Connect
Your baby will poop wherever and whenever they feel the urge. This could be while eating, playing, and even sleeping! As their parent, it’s your job to keep track of their bowel movements to ensure that they are happening regularly and are of healthy consistency.
But how do you keep track, you may ask? Baby Connect was designed for parents and caregivers with busy schedules. All you have to do is download the app, create a profile for your child, and then document all of their important health information and milestones! Monitoring your child’s health and wellness has never been easier with this tech-savvy app. Try it for free now.
