Urine Trouble
(Sorry for so long between posts. We’ve all been sick.)
As I’ve mentioned in the past, Henry tends to sweat a lot. Like father, like son.
While this really doesn’t seem to make his life any better or worse (other than it helps make his hair nice and curly in the back), it does make Kristen and I worry. How so? Well, when we check on him at night right before we go to bed (Henry, of course, has been asleep for hours), we’ll usually feel the back of his head. Invariably, it’s sweaty, his hair damp. And this causes us nothing but worry. Is he too hot? Does he have a fever? Are there too many blankets?
Nearly all of the time, the answer is “no” to all of those questions. He’s just a sweat-heavy kid.
As I worry about nearly everything, I’m always concerned that Henry’s going to get dehydrated as he sleeps. About 6 months ago, we started to keep a sippy cup in his crib at night, mostly because we were worried he’d get dehydrated due to the radiators drying out everything our apartment. And we’ve kept up with this even with the heat off.
But here’s the thing. With all the water he’s drinking at night, he fills up his diaper. (We even use the extra super capacity overnight Pampers.) When he gets up in the morning, the thing is packed to the gills, and he plods around in it, the crotch hanging down to his knees.
And yet, he somehow likes it. He’s never been fond of the diaper change, but the first-one-of-the-day seems to be even worse. He’ll squirm and protest, just so he can keep it on. When we finally get it off, it takes a forklift to carry it to the trash can.
Ultimately, the big problem with the sweat/sippy/urine conundrum is going to come when he goes without diapers overnight. This summer, we’re starting to use training pants now and again, and we’d love to have him diaper-free during the day before the end of the year. Overnight may be a different story.
Do we try and phase out the sippy cup? Do we just try and wake him up every 5 hours to go pee? Do we have him wear plastic underpants? Do we just let him wet the bed until he’s 10 like his father? (What? Who? What?)
Parenting is never easy.
June 16th, 2010 at 9:16 am
It’s summer. Let him sleep in the baby pool in the picture, then hose it out in the morning.
June 17th, 2010 at 6:41 am
First of all, I would like to suggest using the Huggies Overnights vs. Pampers, we found those to be much more absorbent. Second, .. are you being serious about waking him throughout the night to go to the bathroom???
You gotta be cuckoo! 
No worries…