4yo - doesn't want nappy but not dry at night

[BearHuntAgain]

Our 4yo has announced that he doesn't want to wear a nappy at night. However, he's not dry at night. We've started taking him to the toilet when we go to bed, but he's not waking up in the night to go for a wee by himself/or waking us up to help.

He's wetting the bed every night. I'm just not sure what to do. Do we just persevere with it (and the lots of laundry!) or do we try to force him back into nappies until they are dry.

I was thinking of starting a thread about this, also have a 4 year old who would love to get rid of night nappies!

My understanding is that its hormonally driven and still normal at this age.

However I dont buy into the potty training readiness narrative, we were sorted with that before age 2, so wondering if there is more we could do. All I know of is increasing fluids in the day to stretch the bladder, but its hard now they're at school all day!

I get some ads for bedwetting alarms but we're not bedwetting when they're in nappies so not really sure where we sit!

So I had this with DS2 . A child isn’t expected to be dry at night before 7 ,most are, but there are hormonal reason they might not be.
On a pragmatic level, one of the ways they learn to be dry at night is by being wet, and a nappy doesn’t let them feel wet.
for DS we used the wet mats on top of the sheets ( the washable ones, older people may use) to try to keep the wet to pyjamas and mat. It would go either way, that the waking with the wetness trains them to know when they are wetting- or they have no control and you’ll have to wait longer.
also, we didn’t call the night time pull ups nappies, we called them big boy pull ups for sleeping in - so I don’t know if the language would help, as it may just be a matter of time.
DS was wetting after 7, it wasn’t hormonal- he sleeps very deeply and it took time and patience, but it is distance memory for my teenager.

Thanks @Sanddancing that really helps. I don’t want to set him back by forcing nappies but I’ll take a look at the nighttime pull-ups.

@Iguessicoulddothat its so hard to know what to do isn’t it. It doesn’t help that all his friends are dry at night and he’s the last one in the friendship group that isn’t.

He was the last one to potty train but then was the first one to be fully dry during the day.

DH is taking him for a wee when we go to bed but I don’t know if that’s making it worse because he then doesn’t feel the need to wake/go in the night.

Definitely do pull ups, as they are put on like pants and you can get lots of designs to find something he likes.

I think you also need to do pull ups because if he isn’t waking, it’s actually having some of the reverse effect of him getting used to being wet in bed so it becomes the norm.

Asda do waterproof shorts that don't crunch.

But get sone bambino (or other brand) reusable training pants. They are like proper pants but hols enough in to protect beds but let enough wet them that they detect it and learn to wake/control it

pull ups are an option, but I would also try waking him at night before he goes.