Did potty training wreck your toddlers sleep?
Sorry in advance for how long this post is.
Our girl is 3.5 and we have been trying to buckle down on potty training since we want to send her to pre-k in September. She's in underwear all day and when we go outside, however we keep her in a Goodnites toddler training underwear overnight. We do this because we are kind of hesitant to send her to the potty at night, she's never been a good sleeper (wakes up anywhere between 1-6X a night with the average being 3-4x) we don't have a small potty to keep in her room, we have a toilet seat that comes with a magnetic toddler seat. She uses it on her own and we help her wipe.
It's been about three weeks where she's been solely in underwear throughout the day (we started with just as home, now we're doing no diaper outside) and I noticed her sleep slowly going to shit, for lack of better words. As I said before, she always woke up during the night but it's usually for comfort, we come in and she'll ask us to adjust her blanket or to give her a bit of water and she falls right back to sleep so we kind of just accepted that's how it is. However, she always fell asleep without issue, never calling us back in more than once if ever, and slept 12 hours through the night. It's been this way since she dropped her nap a little after she turned 2.
Suddenly now, when I put her down for bed she will say things like "mommy I still have energy" or "I'm bored". She will also force herself to pee and ask me to change her training underwear even if it's just a drop. We take her to the potty before bed to prevent this, but as she lays there for ~20 minutes she's able to do a bit of pee and insists it bothers her enough that we have to change it. she calls us in about 4 times before finally going down for the night. We tried telling her we are also getting ready for bed and she needs to try to stay in her her bed and rest her body, but she's able to come down from her bed (she's in a loft bed that has stairs) and if we don't respond she will come down and find us.
On top of this, she's been waking up 1-2 hours early for the past week. It's been effecting her as it's been effecting us, as she wakes up very very cranky and will sometimes cry for small things or even no reason at all. We tried to talk to her about resting more, doing quiet time, we have even tried to let her rest in our bed in a moment of desperation but she will just try to wake us by kicking her legs, kicking us, putting toys on our face or just talking to us, saying "I love you" or "remember yesterday when..." and so on. If I try to encourage her to get a book or listen to her Yoto for some calm time, she will simply start to cry. She's very sensitive during this time and it's been difficult for all of us.
She's been waking up before her dad has to go to work, and is very adamant on everyone waking up so he has had low patience for her and I feel bad. For me, I am 31 weeks pregnant and also exhausted. Especially because I am the one that wakes up during the night with her. And even though it's usually just a change of underwear or a drink, the constant waking up plus early waking has really taken a toll on me. I find myself drifting off as I'm playing pretend play with her or reading. It's not sustainable.
Has any one else had this experience? Is it potty training? Is it the pregnancy? Is it both? Is this something we just have to ride out? Daylight savings is next week and I'm hoping it works itself out but I'm having terrible anxiety that it won't and the best sleep I will have for the next two years is after I give birth in the hospital.
Posted Mar 2, 2026, 4:07 PM UTC