4yo won’t wear a nappy to bed…

[BoredOfChangingSheets]

…but is very much not able to wake himself up when he needs a wee. He decided a couple of weeks ago that he wasn’t going to wear a nappy at night any more so I’ve let him try, but he’s only had 2 nights of not soaking through his sheets. He’s adamant that he won’t wear a nappy, and obviously I can’t force him to! What should I do? I can’t deal with the broken sleep and laundry 😭

You are right, and I can only apologise if I came across as flippant or ignorant. I was just speaking from personal experience.

@Icecreamhelps thank you for that. I know with my youngest this would definitely have applied he was literally just 3 and dry at night, reliably. Ds1 was 10 and it was really hard for him. He had residential school trips and had to hide pull ups plus take desmopressin, the synthetic hormone to help him try to stay dry. The fear he felt of being discovered in a pull up was awful.

I too wet the bed as did my Dad and they medicated me with some horrific stuff, I was 4 and it was the 70s. So from my own experience I can still feel the shame of it and I am bitter about that now knowing about vasopressin so my posts too might be a bit spiky.

My 2 and 4 year olds are wearing washable potty training pants that we call night pants. They never wore them for actual potty training though. They hold some but not all of a wee if needed. I pair them with hygge sheets just incase. Between the two it's not much washing if they wet. Luckily it's not very often but it's pretty easy to strip without stripping the whole bed as the mat goes on top.

Not really, not if he’s wetting the bed every night!!

And it might not be short term at all either - my ds wasn’t dry at night until 8.

I was going to suggest this. DD1 had occasional accidents at night until she was about 7. We layered a disposable mat (like the puppy mats) sheet, second mat, second sheet. At 2am, strip off the top layer, bin the mat, throw the sheet and PJs in the wash (or bath) and back to bed.

And yes to lifting for a wee.

This is not true. Whilst some clinicians will prescribe vasopressin to children over the age of 5 with enuresis where all other strategies have failed, this is not the primary function of vasopressin, which occurs naturally in the body and has multiple functions, none of them linked to personal convenience. To be blunt, your body doesn't care what time you sleep, or if you piss the bed when you do. All humans, with a very few exceptional medical deficiencies, produce vasopressin from birth. There is no evidence whatsoever that a child deficient in vasopressin up to the age of four will spontaneously start producing it.

Mine didn’t want to after he finished potty training but I couldn’t cope with the between 5 nights out of 7! Waking up for a wee wasn’t an option for us as my son would then be wide awake and need ages to settle again. So I found ninja pants. He doesn’t love them but they are acceptable to him (he’s 5 now). I would stop calling it a nappy to start with! Just find some pull up pants he likes the look of.

I have apologised in a previous post. But I'll apologise again. My son refused nappies because he didn't like how they felt I couldn't force him to wear them it was too upsetting for him.

Pull up pants weren't sold then either.

My advice would be to explain to him he will need to wear special ninja pants ( for big boys) until he’s dry through the night. It takes the pressure off everyone.

One of mine did this for a year or so, then wore pull up’s till he was 7, he just couldn’t stay dry at night. You do get good sheets that go on top of sheet that can be whipped off and saves changing the whole bed. Never found a solution for the duvets though! Maybe two cover less duvets on rotation…. Mine got fed up of waking up wet and uncomfy so agree to the pull ups eventually. Certainly meant we all slept better and we got there in the end. Other two just stopped at 3 and slept through with the occasional accident.

I disagree. Some dc just don’t produce enough into they are older.

See this for more info: https://eric.org.uk/advice-for-children-with-night-time-wetting/

plus, lots of 4yos are not dry at night but many more 8yos are, so things can clearly change.

Night wetting is hormone related. An alarm won't work on a 4yo, they're for older kids.

If your son isn't making vasopressin then he is unable to be dry at night. It reduces the amount of urine produced during sleep meaning a person shouldn't need to wee in the night (my kids go 12 hours without the toilet). It's totally normal not to produce the hormone before 7yo and boys often develop it later than girls (but not always).

So basically, no amount of limiting drinks or lifting is going to stop the bed wetting until that hormone is produced. So either get waterproof bedding or get him wearing pull ups.

I had a 4 year old bed wetter.
I used to obviously try and make him go before bed and then also shuffle him to the toilet again for a wee just before i went to sleep.
I also found some half pants half nappy things.
Search Pee pants for boys, anti bedwetting pyjamas and waterproof pants for boys
It doesnt stop them peeing but stops it going everywhere when they do.

I did a 2 sheet system to train mine at night. A plastic sheet in between. If the bed got wet, my chills got up and threw the sheet and plastic on the floor and got back in to bed as there was a fresh sheet under. They only wet one time so did not wee on the second sheet.

so a plastic mattress cover, then a sheet, then a sheet of plastic and another sheet.

I don't care whether you agree or not. You're not a clinician, and frankly, it shows. Even the website you keep endlessly linking to as evidence does not support you. Vasopressin is only given in exceptional circumstances where all else has failed. The primary function of Vasopressin is not to keep people dry at night - that's your error and you can't seem to let it go. And your earlier claim that babies are unable to produce vasopressin and then miraculously start producing it at four is bollocks. Stop masquerading as an expert and stop giving people poorly-understood and misinterpreted information.

And we have another one. You know this is nonsense, right?

We kept a potty on a waterproof sheet right by the toddler bed. So if we heard dc call we could have them on the potty in two seconds, and without having to wake them up even more by trekking to the bathroom.

(we also did the sheet layering thing, although not with puppy pads as I don't like the chemicals in them, or the environmental waste. Waterproof sheets worked fine).

Help him and praise him for wanting to learn.

Layer up the bed sheets:
On the mattress - waterproof fitted sheet, then a disposable mattress pad, then a cotton fitted sheet, then a waterproof fitted sheet, then a disposable mattress pad, then a cotton fitted sheet, then a waterproof fitted sheet, then a disposable mattress pad, then a cotton fitted sheet.

Also put a waterproof duvet cover onto the duvet underneath the normal cover, and keep a spare duvet (with waterproof & normal covers) on hand in a cupboard.

Of course he will wet while he is learning. He's not going to start learning until he tries. It's important to get him to help with taking off the wet sheets and making the bed ready to sleep in again - doing this is part of how his subconscious will eventually learn.

Never criticise or complain or do anything to make him feel shame or guilt when he wets. It's all a normal part of learning.

Having dealt with two bed wetters - one through to about 11 years old - I would probably try and find an option that is less like a nappy but nonetheless is absorbent. It is horrendous having to do that level of washing all the time.

Can’t you use pull up pants instead of a nappy.

Two of mine were dry literally overnight aged 3 my other child was still wearing pull ups aged 6. They are all different. It was just a routine and he is now a fully dry functioning adult.
I was a bed wetter until about 10 and so wish I had pull ups then .

Calm down, dear.

Although I’m not an expert, I can read. The ERIC website is the expert, which is why I added a link to it.

And a quick google shows that vasopressin does play a role in night-time dryness. I have no idea why you’re so angry about it. 🤷🏼‍♀️

are YOU a urologist? Do you have the answers? Or are you just irrationally angry?

Um he's 4. Of course you can force him to.

I really can’t, he just gets up in the night and takes it off - this happened the one time he’s not wanted to get up when I go to bed, and a couple of hours later the bed was wet again. Anyway, he’s just gone through tonight without wetting, so I think I’ll just go for more waterproof sheets and keep going