DryNites® Stories

My son, who will be 7 in september, has always had a problem staying dry at night. To be honest I have a bit of a lazy approach towards it and rather than changing sheets and getting out of bed at night, I have just always had him wear an absorbent underpant such as DryNights. We always limit his evening drinks, with nothing being consumed after dinner(6.30pm) and have a last minute toilet stop before hopping into bed (8pm). We tried a sticker chart system but this I believe lowered his self esteem as he was mostly wet and very rarely got a sticker for being dry. Around 18 months ago we tried putting him to bed without an absorbent underpant (thinking he was just doing it because he could) but this just resulted in wet sheets, pjs and mattress (went through the towels and "drycot" we had put under the sheet), a grumpy mum and upset son:( So after a week (short lived i know!) we threw the towel in and once again resumed using DryNights. A few months later I decided i would get my son to leave his pants near the rubbish bin each morning so i could check to see if it was dry or wet...almost always wet, but on the rare occasion when it was dry a big deal was made and it was a great boost for the whole family!! We recently moved countries, taking my son away from all his loving and dear extended family that we miss so much. I had very low expectations of getting a dry night while all of this was going on so we made sure we were well stocked with DryNights. For the first time in my adult life i finally had a computer and internet setup, so I started searching for remedies/helpful tips on bed wetting when I came across the DryNights website. Immediately I signed up as I was over spending money on absorbent underwear (I also have a daughter who is in nappies and drinks formula..it all adds up!) and I wanted my son to feel good about himself and to be able to go to sleepovers if the opportunity arose. Funnily enough about 2 weeks after joining and reading stories, helpful tips from the DryNights team and members we ran out of pants!! It was a Saturday night when I realised and nothing is open after 5pm here and nothing is open on a Sunday either!! So i knew we were going to have at least 2 nights without the pants..I wasn't looking forward to it but had no other choice. I had been telling my son how it is normal for some children to wet the bed (just like the webpage suggested) and even told him about his grandad doing the same until he was 9 (which isn't completely true but his gdad means everything to him so I knew it would have impact!) He was relieved to hear this and told me that he hated being in the pants and just wishes he could stay dry (sadface!). So I told him that its not his fault and its actually a part of his brain that hadn't learnt to wake him up when he need to go to the toilet, he liked hearing this and knowing it wasn't his fault seemed to give him a wee esteem boost. He ended up being dry that Saturday and Sunday night, a BIG deal was made and he was so over the moon with himself!! I ended up forgetting to get more pants on the Monday and so on and so on...it has been 4 weeks and we have only had 1 wet night!!!!!!!!! I cannot begin to tell you how happy we are (especially my son). He has had such a huge boost in confidence, people are commenting even!! I would like to thank you all for your wise words and helpful hints and stories! i know its early days but we all have a really good feeling about this:) THANKS!!