When my daughter was a baby she didn’t sleep through the night consistently until 9 months old. Then she reverted again around a year and it took another two months before she was sleeping consistently again. It was an amazing time. Both my husband and I were well rested for the first time in over a year. One of the biggest worries I have had about our new baby is whether I’ll be able to manage the lack of sleep again while still caring for a toddler. Well, now I have a new worry. My toddler has begun waking up in the night again.

It has been so exciting watching my daughter become potty trained. She is pretty much completely day trained and is also going without diapers at nap time. However we have faced a new challenge I did not anticipate. On her way to night time dryness she has begun waking up multiple times a night and asks to use the potty. While on some level I should be pleased because this means she will soon be completely diaper free, part of me would gladly let her continue to wear diapers at night for a few more months if it meant I could get more sleep. On Sunday night she woke up 3 times: 12:30 AM, 2:30 AM and 4:45 AM. I don’t quite know what to do about it. This is almost worse than having a newborn again. I’m in my last two months of pregnancy and rest is the one thing I really can’t do without. But my husband also needs to be functioning on all cylinders at work and hopefully have some energy left to help me out at home in the evenings.

Possible solutions I’ve come up with so far include: limiting her water intake during the evening and no longer letting her sleep with a sippy cup. (This may have a serious temporary consequences as my daughter is such a creature of habit that she may cry for quite a while at bed time if denied her routine sippy cup of water). I’ve also considered ignoring her nighttime cries and hoping she will eventually go back to sleep. (This may produce even less sleep for us all as she is very loud and hard to drown out, even down the hall with doors closed.) My other option is to just keep putting up with it and hoping the behavior will fade with time (not my favorite solution). Any suggestions anyone?