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?

I buy pull ups every week from Tesco for my almost 9 year old (? Age 8-15 size)

It’s a hormonal thing
His dad wet the bed until he was 17!

Anyway op I use a mattress protector
It’s not the kids fault but your sister hasn’t given you the full facts here and that’s not right
Nappy pants all the way

My DD wets the bed and she is 10. It happens a few times a month. When it happens it will be every night for two or three days and then she is dry for a few weeks. It's often linked to her having tummy pains so I suspect a water infection causes it. When we've had urine tests done they have always come back clear though

At home it's fine and we just wash the sheets and forget about it but she gets so embarrassed and fearful if she goes to a sleepover. On holiday we take bed mats but recently while camping , after two nights of having to wash and dry her sleeping bag we had to resort to pj pants - which do indeed come in sizes for older children!

I've taken her to the GP a few times about it but they just say it's normal and not to make an issue of it. The feeling is that she will grow out of it.

If I were you I would get the pj pants and make the kids wear them.

I maybe over reacted and was a bit harsh on poster. I imagined these poor kids feeling embarrassed then read some of the truly awful posts by people who believe just becaus their children were dry through the night all children should be the same.

I still think returning the kids is s bit harsh. Talking to them about how best to avoid mountains of washing should get some compromise.

Sorry if I caused offence to op. Hope you have fun with babysitting _ they are great at that age!!,

Is her house far-is there anything that you can get from it to use rather than you buying a load of stuff?

Regardless of how 'normal' or not bedwetting is at this stage, the DS has still been a grade a cheeky fucker here. She's arranged a fairly long trip knowing she has two bedwetting children without telling their carer that the strategy she'd previously used to cope with it is no longer acceptable. 8 days is a long time to be coping with two children potentially wetting a couple of times every night. Personally i wouldn't even have enough spare bedding to cope with that and would have to go buy a load more.

I have a child who struggles with continence - you can decide it's shitty parenting, dysfunctional family, just me being a generally crap specimen of humanity, cause for child protection concerns or whatever other disablist prejudiced shite you want to come up with (it's actually low muscle tone, dyspraxia, chronic constipation, sensory integration issues with under-sensitivity to the required sensory systems and just generally a load of issues all combining to keep laundry salesmen happy - and the paediatrician and continence team agree with this - but we'll go for the Planet Mumsnet shitty parents approach if it keeps the resident knobheads happy).

I'd be really really annoyed if you put the kids back in nighttime pants if we were trying to make a break from that - but I wouldn't have put you in the position of handing you it as a fait accompli - I'd have shipped them off with their own duvets, mattress protectors, dry nite mats and the like so none of your stuff was going to be damaged. Mine is going off to grandparents next week - and they know we're trying to nail the nighttime dryness thing and have agreed to back up with that and she'll be going with a bedwetting alarm which now is usually enough to wake her after the first dribble so sheets stay OK.

Dollymixture22 - MN in general is utterly vile to parents of kids with continence problems. It's lovely to be in a position of being able to be so smug and judgemental - must be nice up there.

I think those saying this is normal are using the wrong word. It isn’t fine or normal. My nephew is 8 and wets every night. He is now under the doctor and is not allowed artificial sweeteners in juice (eg aspartame) as they make him wee more. He is on tablets too as has a weak bladder.
So although it might be nothing major it is not normal by that age! There will be 3/4 children in each class who still wet the bed but they really should see the doctor to make sure nothing is wrong. My nephew also doesn’t give a shit about sleeping in his wee. So bedtime pants or not he doesn’t wake up.

OP please don’t make the children feel bad for it. I think you need to get some disposable bed pads. To be honest the pants aren’t great on boys because their bits inevitably pop out etc and they wee over the bed anyway.

Bed pads on the bed and a sheet as the cover. It’s summer, they don’t need a duvet and it’s a nightmare to clean so just a sheet will be fine.

Thesearepearls please explain to me how I can train my 5 1/2 year old to be dry at night? He’s dry 4-5 nights a week but some nights can be wets twice despite getting him up for a week. We’re going on holiday on Saturday and we’re going to have to go back to pyjama pants as were camping but as you’re an expert perhaps I can use your advice to get him dry by then?
Unfortunately my degree in Medicine and postgraduate training plus years of working as a GP have been no use in helping me in getting him to be dry at night. I’ve been following the evidence based advice from continence services but clearly you know better.

And to be clear, I do not believe it is down to crap parenting! I myself had problems with staying dry until the age of 10! It was so humiliating. I never went to sleep overs because I was so embarrassed. I wish I had had tablets etc!

"Why the fuck are they pissing themselves at that age."

To paraphrase a famous quote, those children will eventually be dry at night, but you will always be a gobshite.

5000 You've clearly had the discussion with the grandparents, a strategy agreed, everyone knows where they stand and are in agreement. Your obviously happy with how they will handle any accidents.
Thats what should have happened to the OP with her sister.

I would go and stay at your sisters for the week and leave her all the sheets to wash on her return

5000 I am new to mumsnet and was really shicked! Some people really have no knowledge of a topic or compassion for others legitimate struggles!!

I maybe need to exit this whole sit!

And again I apologise to OP. Of course she loves the children and was only venting.

This thread has taught me something, I honestly had no idea it was normal for 7/8 year olds to be bed wetting. When I started wetting the bed aged 8 I was marched to the GP’s and given medication. My DC have been dry through the night since they were 3/4 and I thought 4 was late!

DS1 was wetting the bed at 7 until a few months ago, and he wore pullups to deal with it, until he decided he was ready to try something else (just taking them off only led to repeated wet beds which upset him more than the pullups). You putting them in pullups for a few nights will make no difference at all.

Just letting them wet the bed doesn't help either, she needs to actually do something.

What worked for DS1 was an alarm - but it's not something that you should have to do, not least because it was 3 nights of repeated rude awakenings through the night for DS1 and me until his body learned to wake him when he started to wee. He's been pretty much dry since, the worst being the occasional spritz - no floods.

Oh, and to give the other side, ds2 potty trained him self at 2.5, and just announced one day he wasn't wearing nappies at night when he was just about 3. He has never wet the bed.

Some kids have it easy, some kids need some help.

As far as I've read, night time dryness is frequently genetic and thus happens when it happens. Therefore people with older children who aren't yet dry at night are likely to have gone through it themselves or a family member has.

If the quoted stat of 3% (not sure what age that is at) is correct then it's not 'normal', but neither is it abnormal.

Both my children were dry at night as soon as they were in the day (and from about 1yo they woke up dry after naps and often in the morning), the same as DH and me. However I have empathy and therefore I'm aware that our experience is different to others.

One friend's 8yo is still wet at night, they have been under medical care for it and tried alarms, lifting, drinking more early in the day, restricting certain types of fluids, no liquids after 5pm and so on. But my friend's brother took until nearly 10 to stop bed wetting so they may have a while to go.

I feel very sorry for children who struggle getting dry at night. I pulled my 6yo up for laughing about a fellow Beaver wearing 'nappies' at a sleepover.

My son struggled massively with night time bedwetting. At 15 he is now mostly dry and a wet bed is very rare. He is autistic.

I bed wet until around age 13 due to neurodevelopment disorder.

It is highly unlikely to be “shit parenting”. As a HV I have seen truly neglectful parenting. Funnily enough their kids tend to get dry at night rapidly perhaps because Mum and Dad won’t bother with things like changing sheets. They tend to feed themselves from what they find in ththe fridge and cupboards too.so weight often isn’t a concern either.

As many have said night time dryness is a mix of things coming together. Hormones released at night to tell the kidneys to slow down vary in when they get released and children tend to be different ages. Usually 1 in 10 kids are still bedwetting age 7 so it’s very common.

OP you’ve been left in a crappy situation.

I second all the advice about bedmats
Mattress protectors can be bought very cheaply too. In the case of the 8 year old I would see if she is able to strip a bed. If she can then put a clean sheet on, pop bed mats over the top and another clean sheet. Give her a change of clothes if needed. Then if she wakes up she can simply pull the wet stuff off, change her clothes and get back into bed on the clean sheet underneath.

More general advice.

Let them drink properly during the day but only half a cup of fluid in the two hours before bed.
Avoid hot chocolate as it stimulates urine production (from experience).
Get them to empty their bladder before bed and then again before they sleep if possible to squeeze out any last fluid.

However if the younger child is producing a massive amount of urine within two hours of falling asleep then the likelihood is that his brain is not yet telling his kidneys to slow down and that’s an age/development issue which will resolve itself as he gets older.

Wish you were my sister, I’d send the teenager straight over . He’s a rad moody but you just need to throw food at him a few times a day to keep him amenable.

Oh and I would have no issue with bedtime pants either...most are very child friendly.

Those poor children

Still struggling to get Ds aged 9 dry through the night. Possibly related to ADHD, anxiety, sensory issues, very deep sleeper, it can be hard for people with ADHD to switch off and it seems when he finally does he is utterly shattered and sleeps through anything, up to and including being picked up and moved from bed to bed, thunderstorms while sleeping under canvas and an ambulance coming for DH on one famous occasion. Wet PJs don't even come close to waking him up.

We use washable bed mats at home and can go for weeks where sheet, bed mat and duvet cover are washed daily and the duvet goes to the launderette on a regular basis.

Sleepovers/staying with friends is our nightmare. I live in fear of him wetting someone else's bed, as does he. In these situations we do revert to pull ups at night. It's not advised if you're working on being dry through the nights but it's a compromise over wrecking someone else's mattress and duvet.

We've just been camping for two weeks and he had pull ups at night throughout. We've found that spending every morning hanging around waiting for the campsite washing machine and tumble drier to be available and for sleeping bag to be washed and dried just takes up too much holiday. As soon as we got home he was back to no pull ups and has been dry every night.

If you've the key to her house could you not go over and get her bed sheets etc , use them then bag it up when used and give her the soiled washing back on her return. I wouldn't do that but my sister wouldn't be ignoring my calls or expect me to do that amount of extra washing.

I think those saying this is normal are using the wrong word. It isn’t fine or normal. My nephew is 8 and wets every night. He is now under the doctor and is not allowed artificial sweeteners in juice (eg aspartame) as they make him wee more. He is on tablets too as has a weak bladder.
So although it might be nothing major it is not normal by that age!

But it is. As with most things it runs to a bell curve and a certain number of people must be on the tails. I stopped at 10yo. DH can’t remember when he stopped. One of mine stopped at 8yo and that was considered perfectly normal. When my other reach 10yo and was still wetting they ran tests to make sure there was nothing physically amiss and when there wasn’t they let them be. When they were 12yo they started trying to do something about it. The medication did not solve the problem and it took another 3 years of professional assistance to get there. Realistically we probably could have done absolutely nothing and they would have stopped at 15yo irrespective. This wasn’t just one Dr either, I’d had numerous opinions over the years and ultimately went through a bladder control clinic at a major children’s hospital. No way would they have batted an eye at an 8yo bedwetter.

As a parent to bedwetters I think the OP's attitude is far healthier than her dsis's.

Just give them the PJ pants and tell them that (a) it's not their fault that they wet the bed, (b) being on holiday is not the time to train, it's the time to have fun and (c) because you're their grown-up for this week you will take responsibility for it.

If your dsis is being so stubborn and unhelpful, ignore her and get on with what you know is right. This definitely a case for 'your house your rules'.

Not their fault. If they are wetting the bed every night at that age it is down to slack parenting or another issue.

Be kind, it is not their fault. However, do as above posters have said about no drinks after 6pm and get them up just before you go to bed and ask them to go to the bathroom.

Tell your sis you are not looking after them again due to her lack of planning and inconsideration about not answering phone.