WIBU to post Dsis her kids back and ruin her holiday?

[Santasjinglebelle]

WTAF to do?
Agreed to have niece (8) and nephew (7) over to stay for a while so Dsis and hubby can attend destination wedding/ first holiday without kids in tow.
Last time they were here I put them both in pyjamas pants as I know that they're prone to accidents and I just don't have the time or energy (or inclination to be frank) to keep up with the additional laundry.
Dniece pipped up earlier to tell me me that neither of them will be wearing pyjama pants this time round as their mummy told them not to.
Thinking they must have misheard, I call Dsis to get her to speak with them. Dsis proceeds to berate me for wanting to "humiliate" her children. Apparently pyjamas pants encourage bedwetting by infantilise slow developers - better to let them feel uncomfortable in their own piss and learn the hard way.
Before I could get out any kind of response she fobbed me off with some shite about a dodgy line and hung up!!
WTF am I supposed to do? They went to bed at 8pm and used the toilet first but I've just changed nephew's sheets! Another 8 nights of this makes me want to weep.
No other relatives near enough to pawn off on, niece is adamant, nephew does what his sister says and Dsis not answering phone anymore.
Hubby's response (he was joking) "try Easy jet." But now I'm seriously considering this, WIBU?

The ancient Greeks were familiar with bedwetting and wrote about it. Millennia ago!

I did make a disclaimer for kids with psychological or physical issues around controlling their bladders

This affects a very small proportion of children (who have my sympathy) and in fact I do support a charity that supports the same

This does not diminish from my point that the vast proportion of parents in the UK are keeping their kids in nappies day and night beyond the stage that is necessary. And I do blame the parents and the nappy manufactuterers in equal measure.

Setting aside the bedwetting itself -

Your sister is completely in the wrong here.

Fair enough, she can use whatever strategy for the bedwetting that she pleases, but she has no right whatsoever to impose her strategy on you, particularly when it involves a whole lot of work and, since you were not expecting it so may not have mattress protectors, damaged mattresses.

She COULD have had a conversation with you before your DNs stay and come to an agreement with you; but she chose not to. Instead, she told your niece that she was not to wear pull-ups, knowing that this would create conflict. This was very deliberately done.

All you can do is minimise the situation. Mattress protectors, etc. Point out to your niece & nephew the extra work involved if they do not use pull-ups, and involve them in the extra work - helping stripping their beds, helping loading the washing machine etc. NOT as a punishment, but to learn that decisions have consequences that must be accepted.

Your sister is being very stupid here. She had you willing to take her children for a week, so that she could go on holiday. Well, you're never going to offer that again, are you? Stupid, stupid, stupid. And I would be texting her to that effect. Pointing out that she has set you up and that you are not happy with her behaviour at all. And that if she does not phone her daughter and tell her to do what auntie has asked, you will never so much as babysit for an evening again. Oh, and whe will have to pay for any ruined mattresses/bedlinen/new protectors.

Do NOT let your sister get away with this. And I have to ask - is this the first time she's behaved this badly? Or normal for her?

Aww poor thesearepearls, so many issues and character traits which could only be caused by bad parenting and deep-seated psychological issues. Most young people grow out of this kind of behaviour in their late teens, maybe time to see the GP.

I hope your sister will be paying for a new mattress to replace the one that’s been peed on! Yuk.

Please don't shame the kids, this isn't their fault and being left behind by parents with an aunt who is cross with them will be upsetting and make them more likely to wet the bed.
Practical ideas:

1. Avoid drinks other than water and restrict drinks after 6pm.
2. Get disposable bed mats and send your sister the bill.
3. Get into a good routine of going to the toilet before bed.
4. Take them both to the toilet just before you fall asleep 11pm??
5. Make up beds in layers. Fitted sheet, bed mat, fitted sheet, bed mat etc. That means that if a child wakes up wet in the night you quickly whip a layer off and go back to sleep in seconds.
6. Don't iron sheets, get the children to put their own sheets in the machine. It's fairly easy to wash, dry, put them back on the same day so you don't end up with a heap of smelly sheets.
7. Down play the bed wetting, anxiety will make it worse.

Good luck!

If it was normal/average/standard to wet the bed at 7...8...9, then no doubt pull ups would be made in that size.

The odd accident is understandable, but nightly bed wetting is another issue. It's not the child's fault either.

I wouldn't let my kids sleep anywhere else if they were bedwetting at that age.

Its unfair to put that on anyone else.

Dollymixture22: Oh and don’t babysit again! It doesn’t sound like you particularly like your sister or her children

You're oh-so-soooooooo right!! The OP can't stand either the sister or the kids. Loathes them with a passion!

She's doing exactly what I do when I really can't stomach a family member or their spawn: have 'em over for a week while their folks go on a nice trip

Well she's basically shot herself in the foot regarding any future childcare, hasn't she?

Wet suits?

Your sister has an absolute bloody cheek, foisting this situation on to you!
Fine for her if she wants to keep her children feeling uncomfortable to try and prevent it (clearly not working), and she wants to do all that extra laundry (her lookout, time and electricity/water bills) but she's completely wrong to make you go through that too.

I would say to the children that they have a choice (they're old enough for this) - they can either wear the pyjama pants/pull ups/incontinence pants or whatever, OR they can be responsible for changing their own sheets. Plus get waterproof mattress covers if you don't already have them.

And I would bill your sister any replacements required, if necessary, because it is really Not On for her to have done this and refuse to allow you to alleviate the problem, when you're doing her a massive favour!

I'm really very angry on your behalf because this situation would infuriate me! Not because the children are bedwetters (they can't help it) but because you are expected to deal with the fall-out rather than use prevention!

The level of ignorance on this thread is unreal.

"Anyone can be dry at 2.. lazy parents"

You haven't got a fucking clue what you're talking about.

The kids can't help it.

For full disclosure I wet the bed until I was 13. I had a rubber sheet. No amount of charts, diet, liquid consumption etc made the blindest difference.

I was a stressed and anxious child, and quite frankly threats and shaming are hardly going to help.

Pampers does disposable bed mats. Layer mat / sheet / mat / sheet so that in the evnet of an accident in the middle of the night you can just pull off the top two layers and deal with it properly in the morning

If you are near Ikea, I'd get some of their waterproof sheets plus some new bedding, and I'd take the soiled bedding to a cleaners for them to launder every day (and bill it to your DSis)

Thank you for all the practical advice I layering up etc, I'll be trying that and the "text from mum" today.

Lecvybill: The kids are lovely, get on really well with my dc (oldest 2 are the same age).

Free peeing rules

Hollow: pyjama pants are basically big pull up nappies.

Xmasbaby: Drynites do the pants up to age 14, so there's clearly a market even for older kids. I wouldn't have an issue with Dsis choice to manage the issue - it's the foisting all that work and stress on me that's pissed me off (pun intended)

So you have her Dc, she is abroad,and won't answer your calls? This would really concern me. What if one of them is taken I'll?
Dsis sounds inconsiderate on a number of levels

Haven't disappeared - my last post was typed out around midnight but I dozed off before I could load it.
Am now rth while I prepare breakfast

If it was normal/average/standard to wet the bed at 7...8...9, then no doubt pull ups would be made in that size.

They are. Therefore you agree that it is normal.

If its normal and hormonal then the only difference pj pants makes is the cleaning time.

Pj pants for them both. You can't train hormones!

If it was normal/average/standard to wet the bed at 7...8...9, then no doubt pull ups would be made in that size.

They are. They are branded under names such as Dri-Nites, Sleepytime pants etc but essentially they are pull ups available in a range of sizes. They go up to 15yo to cater for late bedwetters. They are sold in supermarkets generally around the nappy section.

One of mine wet the bed until 8yo then grew out of it overnight (literally it was every single night then just stopped one day and never happened again). The other was in mid-teens and needed a lot of professional assistance to stop.

Both wore the pull ups until the day they stopped (even with the second who required professional medical assistance they directed putting the alarm sensors in the pull up. They completely agreed that no one has capacity to be doing loads of washing and scrubbing mattresses while trying to get a family out the door for work/school of a morning. To be expected to do that for kids that are not even your own is completely bizarre. I would send the parents a text stating that they either have to wear the pull ups or they have to cut their holiday short immediately and return to pick them up. Otherwise they will be wearing pull ups. Just tell the kids the truth, you told parents it was either agree to pull ups or they needed to come back straight away and given they are not back the pull ups are okay. Complete CF’s.

if she's doing it full time 8 days isn't a lot to ask
Sounds exactly like my sister.....

Whereyou - I like the suggesting of getting them involved, I'll have them both loading the machine when they wake up....

Donkethotei (great name btw) and I couldn't have said it better. Dollymix

I do have their house keys so finding passports shouldn't be too hard but my kids would be heart broken.

PJ pants! Screw their mother. She’s left in a really awful position. Poor kids.

Puppy pads are £12 for 100 at Pets At Home and exactly the same as the more expensive ones sold for children. Layers, as PPs have suggested, make for a much quicker change.

Your sister can get the idea of any more babysitting right out of her head.

I would suggest to those that have never heard of children having bedwetting issues at these ages that perhaps it's going on more than they hear about because the parents don't share the information with acquaintances - possibly due to fear of judgement, which seems to be a very real thing I had four DC, same parents, trained the same way, all reliably dry at different ages. Basically human beings are all different, and statistically uncommon does not = unnatural.

But of course the issue here is not why the children are not dry, but the fact that they are not and that their parents know they are not. They have beetled off for a week of fun and frolics leaving poor Auntie to deal with soggy mattresses and non-stop laundry because they have decreed the obvious solution, that would render the whole thing a non-issue, may not be used. Why can't the training (which sounds doomed to failure tbh, but her choice 'n' all that) be put on hold for a few days then resumed when parents return? I know it's my kids my rules and all that, but not under someone else's roof surely? Not when it causes so much of a nuisance for the kindly babysitter. Sis needs to either rescind the order or come back and sort out her own damned laundry.

Must be very hard to deal with I have never come across anything like this so with them been so old so I can’t suggest practical help as I never knew they made such things for older kids only for like those that are sick etc.

I think though that you’d not be unfair telling her she foots the bill for all the extra expense and wasted time having to change beds washing etc and if the beds are damaged the cost of replacing the mattresses. Though billing someone and getting the money may be 2 very different things.
She should have fully made you aware of there soggy nights long before and of course when asked you to have them plus should have discussed howcto deal with it and comevyo a agreement with you.
It would be rather horrible for the children if you put them on a plane as they’d of course think they were unwelcome because of something they are struggling to control so would feel they are been punished over it I’m sure.
But it does seem very bizarre she wouldn’t tell you this about them.
I guess if I was stuck in the situation I’d use some kind of pull ups like you talk of and try and keep the cost to minimum as I’m sure getting the money back will be a big problem.