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I had to write this post for my many many friends that tell me this so often!   If your baby is waking up wet in the morning because their diaper leaking at night, there are a few things that you can do to help, until you can potty train at night.    I have written several posts on how I potty train in three days and I even wrote a book about how I potty train in a weekend (I trained our three kids this way and plan on training #4 next month… when she is 20 months), but the leaking diaper situation was driving me crazy.  Here are tips that have helped us and I hope that they help you, too!

diaper leaking at night - GREAT tip!!

1- My best tip to keep your baby dry all night is to go up TWO sizes in his/her diapers at night.   (We used these diapers) So, if your child can fit into a size 4 in the day, put her in a Size 6 at night.   It works.  If we put her in a size 4 in the day AND night, she used to leak every single time.    I would go up two sizes.  I don’t think diapers really go much higher than that, but if you can’t go up anymore and your child is still leaking, see #2.

2- My friend, Deanna, shared another great tip with me!   She used to put a maxi pad in her child’s diaper before bed.  She said that the extra absorption was just enough to keep them dry at night (and since the cost for a pack of pads is far less than a pack of diapers, it is another good option).

reading a book

3- Put the bigger diaper on RIGHT before bed.  If your child has a bath  at 5:30 and is in her pajamas, be sure to wait to change her diaper into her size 6 until right before bed, around 7:00.  The bigger diapers are more expensive, so I only used them at night.   I used the regular ones at nap time.

4-  Instead of using a pull-up at night, go for the full diaper.   I never use pull-ups in our house for potty training (see my post on how I potty train in 3 days without pull-ups) but when I have tried them for our bed-wetter at night, they seem to do about as much good as a swim diaper (I use them on our kids that are trained, but have occasional accidents).   Plus, when I night-train our kids, I just put their diapers on a little looser than I would in the daytime, giving them the ability to pull it up and down themselves, similar to a pull-up, but with the protection of a regular diaper.

I’ve never tried cloth diapers, so I can’t really say much about cloth diapers, one way or another.

ps- You could always try to gently change them at night, but my kids wake up very easily, so this was never an option for us.

I hope that was helpful!  If you have any ideas, I’d love to hear them!

If you are thinking about potty training, you are welcome to download these printable potty training sheets for free:

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Hi there!

I’m Becky, a former elementary school teacher turned certified child development therapist and blogger. I work at home with my husband and together we are raising (and partially homeschooling) our four children in the Carolinas. I love diet coke, ice cream, and spending time with my family.

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32 Comments

  1. My son doesn’t use disposable diapers but we do use cloth since he is allergic to the chemicals in disposables. I use a cotton prefold with a wool cover and he has never had a leak. Plus I only had to buy them once. I remember with my older boys we had a leaking issue at night. I have an 8 year old that still wets the bed at night. His goodnights pull ups always leak but he has never leaked in his Super Undies cloth pull ups. It was a little pricier up front ( like an investment) but it has saved me alot of $$!

    1. I have found that pull-ups don’t’ work well at all at night. They absorb as well as swim diapers, in my opinion. 🙂 I’ve never tried cloth diapers though.

  2. Is the babies bottom dry in the morning? A little concerned about diaper rash.

    1. Not normally- I think I would have to change our daughter about 5 times during the night to keep her completely dry (LOL), but this keeps her diaper from leaking onto her Pj’s or sheets.

  3. I also give the last drink about an hour before bedtime that helps with leaks as well 🙂

  4. I, like genifer, use cloth diapers on my son. But we will be going on vacation and I will have to use pull ups while we travel. Looking at a pull up made me think there is no way it will keep my heavy wetter dry at night, and I was wondering what I could stuff it with that wasn’t cloth. I might just have to try the maxi pad! Thanks for the tip, you might have just saved my vacation.

    1. I would even just go for a full-out diaper over a pull up. They never seem to work for us at night, but maybe w/ the maxi pad they might. 🙂 Good luck!!

  5. I used to have the problem with leaking nappies on my son until we started to change him just before we went to bed. No more wet bed!!!

  6. My 16mo old sleeps and is already in a 6, but I put her night diaper on a little differently. I fasten the tabs higher up on her body. In the mornings I would notice she just leaked out of the top of the diaper, so pulling the top flap higher up her stomach before fastening has stopped the leaks. The back was completely dry so it didn’t need to be halway up her back when she needed that extra protection on the front as a stomach sleeper.

  7. We used cloth too, however I used a disposable at night with a cloth booster in. Never had a leak.

  8. My son would pee a disposable out in half a night, I think. He is a super heavy wetter at night and I cloth diaper him. On vacation I bring only his night nappy, because I cannot bother finding out, how (un)well a disposable would perform at night. He is now 25 months and I just bought your book. He is already happily going potty 3-4 times a day, so I think I will teach him to use the potty in a weekend, when we get back from our summer holiday! But how much I will miss our fluff, if he quits them…

  9. Thanks for the ‘go up 2 sizes’ tip; i’m planning to go up 1 size to see if this helps and i’ll go up 2 sizes if need be. It’s also good to know about the maxi pad idea.

    Thanks for sharing. 🙂

  10. Thank you for this. My 18 month old grandson is a heavy wetter and I’m pulling my hair out here doing sheets every day or two. I’ve tried changing his diaper around 11pm, but he still wets over the top early in the morning. I read on another site to use two diapers, one over the other but that didn’t help.

    He’s just grown into a size 6 and this is better but he’s still leaking, so I’m going to invest in some maxy pads (hoping my son in law doesn’t read this!) and also look into buying larger diapers on-line.

    1. hahaha!! Love that you wrote that you hope your SIL doesn’t see it! 🙂
      good luck!!

  11. 28 yrs ago when my oldest daughter was a baby, they used to have night time diaper liners that aided in the night time leakage issue. Don’t know whatever happened to them (my kids are 12 yrs apart) because the next time I needed them, they weren’t around. They were probably giving the diaper companies a run for their money. 🙂

  12. So many good advice on the blog. I came in through the ‘let kids sleep longer’ post and kept on reading post after posts. Thanks for the great tips! I’m pinning everything.

  13. My middle daughter pees a ton at night. I found these diaper boosters you can order from Toys R Us, they add enough soaking power to keep her from leaking at night anymore.

  14. Those guidelines were very useful, specially for new moms. Thanks for sharing… 🙂

  15. I know this post is over a year old, but I just found it on Pinterest so I figured I’d put my two cents in 🙂

    We cloth diaper during the day, but no amount of doublers or overnight inserts were containing the leaks from our heavy wetter. Disposables were better, but not perfect so I decided to try a hybrid and it’s worked wonderfully!

    Overnight disposable diaper with a cloth insert (one size down from his daytime size) all covered with his Best Bottoms diaper cover. No more leaks!