Is being dry at night parenting or nature?

[Highflow]

I have DS nearly 11 and DD 8.

DD is just getting dry at night. She still wears a pull up but the last couple of weeks they’ve been dry in the morning and she’s either got up for a wee in the night or first thing in the morning.

DS however has never had a dry night in his life. Is it something we’re doing or not doing? I thought it was something would happen naturally without training for, unlike potty training, but it’s not. His school residential is fast approaching, he understandably doesn’t want to go if he is still in pull ups, I’d love for him to be dry to be able to go. Any advice would be gratefully received.
This is our routine… he wears a pull up to bed, takes desmopressin 1 hour before bed. This does cut down his urine output overnight but doesn’t stop it. Without desmopressin he would wee 3 times in the night on average, with it he wee’s twice I’d say. The reason we continue with the desmopressin even though it’s not fully effective is that without it, he would wee too much for the pull up to hold and wets the bed. Taking the medication at least makes it contained in the pull up.
Just for clarity, he sleeps all through this, he is such a deep sleeper (which I think is his problem), it’s me getting up checking in the early days to see if/when he had wee’d to give a proper description to the Dr before they prescribed desmopressin.

He only drinks water, occasional lemonade. Doesn’t drink an hour before bed. Wee’s before going to bed. On advice of Dr we make sure he has big drinks throughout the day so as to make his bladder work during the day.

Sorry for the long post but I’m willing to try anything to get him on his residential 🤞🤞

We tried everything with my ds, but nothing worked. He got there on his own eventually - it's been about a year now I think (he's 14).

I feel your pain. My son is 11 and only stopped about six months ago.

He soaked the bed every night and just didn't wake up. Desmopressin had no effect. None of the other strategies worked. Alarms didn't work as he'd just switch it off and go back to sleep.

For school trips I bought these pjama.co.uk/pjama-pants-and-shorts/?gclid=CjwKCAiA2rOeBhAsEiwA2Pl7Q6Z-hF1YZzC50Nb_JHh54eoWW2BRD0Ax4DotDgI-Dbm-51-3jPqLjRoCi5oQAvD_BwE

They are expensive but worth it.

He also wore them every night. Saved my sanity, truly, as I wasn't dealing with pee soaked bedding and pyjamas every morning. We kept the alarm use going although I'd have to go and wake him. In the end he just randomly stopped. Hope the same for you.

Yes this.

Also - sorry if someone else recommended them - the wee alarms work really well.

Oops sorry - ignore this. Should have read the full thread!

Definitely not parenting unless there's abuse or something else more sinister going on. My son was 3 when he first went without a nappy at night, total accident as I forgot to put his nappy on him and to my surprise he didn't wet the bed - he would always wet his nappy. Tried again the next night and he was dry and woke up to go to the toilet. He was just ready!

From what I’ve been told, DH was 13. They tried everything but he was just a very very heavy sleeper.

How long did you persevere with the alarm? We had success with one recently (DS age 6) but as someone else said upthread, it’s the waking up that breaks the association in the brain with staying asleep while peeing - if the alarm isn’t waking him, you have to go in and wake him. It will be too late at first but for many, it works if you persevere - I think we had our first dry night after about 4/5 nights, totally dry within about a fortnight. It was a very painful and sleep deprived first few nights though!

Chase the consultant aswell.

@Robostripes we had to do the same but it took about 6 weeks before he was dry most nights. It reminded me of having a newborn with the amount of times you have to get up in the night.
I do think a lot of people don't realise that it doesn't matter if the alarm doesn't wake the child up as long as SOMETHING does. So if you can bare it, waking them up when the alarm wakes YOU up does work

This struck me, the “big drinker, he loves his cold water.” This coupled with wetting the bed several times during the night..have you had him tested for diabetes? He’s got two of the four main symptoms of diabetes. Thirst, Toilet, the other two are Tired and Thinner.

And we kept a chart so we would mark if they had a "wet" night a "dryer" or a "dry" night. It really helped us keep going when we could see the progression from wet to the odd dry night. Otherwise I think we'd have given up after a couple of weeks tbh

By the way wet the bed until I was fourteen. Mum sent extra sheets when I went to my residential trip.

I agree with this. I slept in the same room as my son and the alarm. I had to wake him the first 2 nights and then he started to hear the alarm himself. Within 2 weeks he was dry. The first 2 days were super hard as I was up I think 4 times both nights. Definitely felt like giving up but it improved quickly after that. He had never had a dry night before using the alarm. He was just about to turn 7.

Definitely nature. My brother wasn’t dry till puberty and now his 9 year old boy is the same - other boy dry by 3. He reckons it’ll be ok by 12 and doesn’t want to put too much pressure on him. Waking around midnight helps a lot with them - two weeks before bed then another one at midnight. But the kid doesn’t remember the midnight wee so it’s not training him really. My nephew had done scout trips but they sleep so little it didn’t happen !

I'd go back to the doctor but I don't see how it can possibly be parenting.
Could he go the toilet before bed, put his pull up on in the toilet cubicle then go to the toilet first thing in the morning and take it off and put it in the bin.

Or ask a teacher to get him in the morning before anyone is really up stating he needs to take his medication so he can take it off and put it in a bin where no one could possibly see it.

I don’t have any advice about stopping the bed wetting but just let his teachers know and they will come up with a strategy for the residential if it is still an issue then. I was in scouts for years and I would say on every residential there was at least one child who had this kind of issue, usually never in beavers as I think parents just didn’t send their child probably thinking they were not ready but from cubs and scouts usually at least one.

We wouldn’t even raise an eyebrow, just make adjustments so the young person is happy and can participate. He will get to being dry at night eventually.

Try taking 2 desmopressin

As in I was a beaver/cub/scout leader.

Sorry ignore my last post. We have tablets that melt under the tongue and he can take 1 or 2.
We haven't tried 2 yet, but 1 means the pull up contains it.

DS is on 120mcg desmopressin. He can take 2 if need be
I don't really understand the dosage but if a doctor has said you're on the max, then I guess you can't increase

Definitely nature. DS was dry at night from around 18 months without us doing anything special, whereas I wet the bed regularly until 7 or 8 🤷‍♀️ That’s not to say advice from experts couldn’t help.

Nature, I think. DC 1 was dry at night by 2.5 years, DC 2 and 3 ( twins) are 6 and no sign of it yet, heavy full pullups every morning

11 and still wetting the bed isn't normal. You need to push for more intervention.

My just-turned 6 year old son isn't consistently dry at night yet, and so wears a pull-up. Our doctor said leave it until he was 7 before worrying. I admit I do worry a bit though. Our DD was dry at night from about age 3.5, and I think it's probably natural to compare children.

Stop the drinking two hours before bed. Bit exceptional to be peeing in sleep everyday at 11 years.

Never made a difference with me. I peed the bed til about 12 years old..closer to 13 i believe. It was horrendous.

There was 100% nothing I could do about it.

That alarm scarred me, woke the whole house up and I woke in a blind panic with my sister screaming at me in the dark and crying not knowing how to turn it off. Really it was horrendous.

I had charts to fill out, I wasn't allowed to have drinks up to 3 hours before bed. I had to watch everyone else have their tea and drinks in evening and I couldn't have any. I would feel as though I was dying of the thirst.
I constantly felt like I was being punished for somthing I had no control ove. It was honestly horrific for me it's just stopped happening around 13.

Similar story here with my boy. We tried multiple medications alarms as he was so worried about residential. Got no where. We did get him so incontinence boxers (they looked 100% normal) and lots of the same pjs for residential (so no one knew he d changed. School alerted and we're ace about sneaking and sorting it out for him - was.our school care taker actually. Still the same at 14 off all medications at his choice slowly decreasing to only three wet nights a week. We ve kind of all accepted it