Dry Nights - should we give up?

[BoyMeetsWorld]

Hi all,
My DS actually asked if he could try sleeping without nappies. I took this as a good sign (hadn't wanted to push him before) - he's nearly 4.

However, we've now had 2 nights with mattress protector insitu & each night hes woken up soggy. I can't establish whether he's doing it in the night or literally as he wakes up (he's not sure).

I've tried not making too much fuss about it, saying oh well let's try again tomorrow. & I've tried offering a sticker if he manages a dry night. But the thing that worries me slightly is he actually seems perfectly happy about wetting the bed - he thinks it's a bit funny & was saying the wet patch looked like a fish?!

How do you motivate a child that doesn't care at all if they bedwet? I've read so much about not making a fuss. Or should we give up for now & take it he's not ready yet?

Thanks in advance for your advice x

When my dcs asked to go to bed without a nappy I told them they could after 5 dry nights with a nappy.

I did same as sleepless with dd, except 6 in a row was the requirement. She did it, at 4y 2m, no problem. Ds2 was repeatedly dry at night pretty much from potty training around 2.4 so I just stopped bothering and ds1, at 7 yo is still not dry. We saw a consultant just recently about it who said that 75% of 5yo boys are not dry at night so I wouldn't stress about it yet, but put him back in a nappy until he has dry ones for a spell.

Both my boys just started waking up in dry nappies of their own accord.

Dd never did and still bedwets at 7. They either do it of their own accord or they don't, you cant train them as it's reliant on their bodies starting to produce a particular hormone.

Boys are often older than girls when they learn to be dry at night. They have to be producing a hormone that suppresses urine production meaning they don't have a full bladder in the middle of the night. Meaning it doesn't send a message to say empty me.

Personally I only took ds1 out of nappies at 4 because they were actually bursting open with the amount of wee in them. He has only just become dry at night at 9 years old.

We went through years of lifting him with some success, we took him to the GP for hormonal drugs to get him through residential school trips. So we knew with him that he just wasn't producing vasopressin (hormone) so nothing we did would help.

I would also recommend the we'll take you out of nappies when you have been dry for X number of nights, shown by a dry nappy. If he isn't ready then he isn't ready. Save yourself a lot of washing.

Thanks everyone. I'll try incentivising dry nights in nappies, then see where we go from there

I found when they woke up I had to tell them to go straight to the toilet or they would wake up and go in the nappy!