A Milder Challenge

Sunny's behavior has improved a lot since returning to full dosage. He's still often pouty, of course, but no more meltdowns.

We're working on a new front this week: bedwetting.

We were so worried about his self-confidence in the beginning that we didn't want to focus on bedwetting at all. He wears pullups and he has two layers of sheet protectors. When he lived with his foster family, he had dry nights 50% of the time, and during his visit he also had 50%, but that soon changed to 100% wet once he moved in. We weren't giving him any positive or negative feedback about wetting, just making sure he threw away his diaper in the morning and then wiped with wet naps (he has his regular shower at night, not in the morning).

Since then, we've realized that lack of self-confidence is not one of his issues, and that taking a very hands-off approach to bedwetting is not getting us anywhere. Recently, I noticed that he's peed in his pullup even before going to bed! These modern-day diapers are so comfortable that there's very little motivation not to pee in them.

We had a talk with him a few days ago. We said we're all going on vacation soon. He might also want to go on a sleepover at some point. Maybe it's time to try going without a diaper. It's not going to work right away, but if he keeps trying, we know he can do it. He seemed to be very receptive to this message.

The new routine is that Sunny's not going to wear a diaper, and we're going to wake him up at 11PM to use the bathroom. If he wets the bed, in the morning he needs to put the sheet protector and maybe also the sheet in the washing machine, which is across from his bedroom. Then we'll have to shower him off and re-lotion. This is going to make the morning more difficult and we'll all have to get up a bit earlier.

He wet the bed last night, but it was only a very little bit. We'll see how it goes. I think he can do it. We were having a lot of problems with light daytime wetting several months ago, but that all cleared up when we really focused on it and talked a lot about how to make sure he made it to the bathroom on time. Nighttime wetting is going to be harder; we just have to be patient. The wet sheets should be a simple natural consequence against peeing in bed.

Sunny did a very nice thing the other day. I gave him some money to buy a book at his school book fair. He bought a book for himself, and then bought another book for a classmate who didn't have enough money. What a sweet kid!