4yo never had a dry night - help please

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DS is 4 and 8 months. Not only has he never had a dry night but he wets the bed up to four times a night. It seems like he is has more urine at night than he does during the day.

This doesn't seem to bother him, he never wakes up because he has a wet bed and has never complained that his bed is wet. The only way we can tell that his bed is wet is it makes him cold and this seems to cause him to cough (or the smell of urine does) and this wakes us up so we go and change his bed clothes.

He refuses to wear pull ups and I'm not sure that they help anyway as they always leak.

I have read a lot of threads on MN on this and followed a lot of the advice - he does not drink squash, only water, we try to give him plenty of water in the morning but don't restrict water later in the day, We have four brolly sheets on the bed for quick changes. As far as I can tell he doesn't have a UTI - he is perfectly dry in the daytime and has been since he turned 3, he does not have a sore penis and his pee is clear and does not smell. We do lift him but that is mainly because when we check him he is soaking wet - he goes down at 7 ish and we normally check him at 9.30 to 10 and at the moment he is normally wet, last night he was coughing cos he was wet at 12.30 so I lifted him again and it is not uncommon for him to be sopping at 3am and always when he wakes at 6.30am.

Having a cold makes things worse and at the moment he has a cold but before he came down with this he was always soaked in the morning and sometimes in the night too.

Bearing in mind that I will never agree to use drugs to sort this problem out - I have read lots of threads with parents insisting that this is a hormone issue that can only be solved through prescriptions of desmopressin and I do understand the physiology behind that theory but I do not agree that it is a hormone issue in this case - his diurnal rhythms have always been perfect in every other way.

We are not negative about this with DS, in fact we are just pragmatic - the bed is wet, change it, have a wee, go back to sleep. Trying to talk to DS about it is waste of time - he just refuses to discuss it in anyway, he is not distressed through. Generally he is very happy and content.

His older brother was a bedwetter also but totally different - he only occasionally wet, he always woke up and was quite distressed by it, he grew out of it aged about 10.

I have run out of ideas, please help.

Same here with DD3 who is exactly the same age (27th August birthday). Based on my previous experience with her older siblings, I am not expecting her to be dry at night until she's at least 6/7. Being dry at night is really not a matter of choice or controlled by the child. It depends on a number of factors that cannot really be altered. Some children's processes just take longer. DD3 is going to stay in a nappy at night until she no longer needs them. I tried the washing the sheets thing with the older three and was washing 3x sets of sheets every day.

I am happy to wait it out if it is quite normal. Nappies just don't hold that amount of pee so we still end up washing three sets of sheets and liners a day...
Thanks for the reasurance Duchesse

Four years old is very young to be quite so concerned about bed wetting at night. It's pretty normal. He's just not ready to be dry yet, no biggie. I would absolutely keep him in pull ups; if they are leaking you probably need to size up?

Mine were all still in pull-ups at this age. Have a look in the supermarket, as you will find there are larger ones to fit him. Alternatively, I think you can get mats, which you can put in the bed, and it's less palaver than changing the whole bed.

Just discuss it pragmatically with him - it will be better, as he won't be woken in the night, all cold and uncomfortable. Reassure him, that whatever others may say at school, lots of children are still not dry at night at his age. And tell him not to talk about it at school - not because there's anything wrong, but because people don't always tell the truth, and can be nasty about it, even though there's nothing to worry about!

Thanks for the reassurance, I know he is still very young it probably because I'm not getting much sleep that I'm getting concerned about it - selfish I know.

As far as I am aware he has no problems with friends or not so friends in school about it. He has a good wash every morning and certainly does not smell. He is a very confident if slightly socially awkward little boy.

I guess I just needed to know that its normal to be quite that wet every single night.

DS is a similar age and still in pull ups every night. They are always wet in the morning despite no liquids an hour before bed. We don't lift (have read mixed reports on if you should this) there was a pretty lengthy thread in behaviour/development about night time toileting. I wouldn't be concerned OP he is still young to be dry at night.