Amber, I agree that getting to the point of wearing protection is not an easy road. It takes time, patience and a lot of talking about the whole issue, not just protection. I might add that the talking went on for sometime after the cousins visit. Yes knowing someone else is dealing with the same issue also seemed to help. Perhaps telling him that he is not alone and that you now know of others who are using protection. Also insuring that it will be kept within the house and not outside the family is important. Also we did not use the words diapers or plastic pants, rather simply referring to them as night pants. Also Nicolas2's suggestion about using a towel is a good one. Jeremyrides also provided a great perspective on the subject. One thing is keep talking about everything!

To Oliver9, I think there were a few supporting issues, knowing his cousin wore was one and the regular underpants another. Other things included after he finally started wearing them that he would wake up in dry pj's and surrounding bedding, the fact that we called them night pants and nothing more. We as parents were totaly supporting praising the dry mornings when they started coming.
There were complaints as well, the pants are hot, the pants are noisey, I don't want to wear them tonite. A big help with the pants complaints was letting him choose colors. Taking things in stride I guess is really a way to help them through it.

jeremy, thanks :) I just want to do the best I can to get him through this. @ momplus, where do I find the plastic pants?

Amber, I did not mention that the sleep study idea sounds like a good one. It might show something that is not obvious to anyone. Have read about them and there have been some good things written about them. As for the plastic pants towards the end we were using Tiger Step-ins. They are a very servicable and good fitting pants and I think you'd be happy with them.
http://www.tigerunderwearstore.com/StepIns.html

Careful about the Tiger Underwear place.....there a bunch of pedophiles. They sell their catalogs for like $50 and they post a lot of diaper pics of kids age 10-14. Not sure if their products r good..but it's a shady operation!!!

Try babykins.com. That's where my mom got mine. And I agree, it helps to know that there's other kids out there with the same problem...makes it feel more normal, especially if u have a friend that has the problem or someone else to talk to about it that understands.

Interesting, ordered twice from them, never had a problem. But if that's true then Babykins or All Together Enterprises might the better choice,
Keep us posted with your decision and ask any questions.

I can see how some people draw that conclusion, but it has in fact helped my son feel better about using diapers and plastic pants.

any update since last month?

no...no updates unfortunately. everything is the same. he refuses to wear overnight protection. so, i just give up, i guess. i can't help him other being supportive.

Wait... what was the goal again... supporting him, or getting him to wear overnight protection? :) I don't think "give up" is really the word you're looking for. You can manage without protection, it's just a matter of shifting focus to how you can share the necessary responsibilities effectively (laundry, etc.) in a manner that's ok for everybody... instead of trying to persuade or force him to do something he doesn't want to do. Not wearing protection does mean a little more work, and it's reasonable to expect him to share in some of that work, not as a punishment, but as a means of helping him take more control of his own situation. And it's certainly not the same as giving up. :)

Amber, Remember that I said that it took time to get to the point of trying protection and it took a lot of talking and gentle persuasion to get to that point. And yes after the cousin's visit and after he had a chance to see and hear for himself it did make things go only slightly easier. It still took quite a period of time before agreement came. Remain positive in you discussions, you did mention that he at some point did not absolutely rule out protection. This however small is a point on which to build hopefully. I can fully understand where you're at and I hope he comes to agree with you on the issue of protection. One last thing bythe way, I did have protection on hand for when he did agree to try it and we went forward from there. Hugs!

@midnight77, I suppose they are both a goal, I always have and will never stop supporting him, I have never punished him for this, nor will I ever place blame on him for something I know he has no control over. I am trying to gently encourage him to wear something at night, not often...I do not express my frustrations to him, only on here.

@amber - Yes, I gathered from our earlier conversations that you were not being overbearing with him. I guess my question though is why do you really want him to wear protection? I know it's the "popular" approach in boards like this (and I may get flamed for saying so) but it is very possible to manage bedwetting efficiently and hygenically without it, if that is the parent's and child's choice. Going without protection *might* also eventually help him learn to wake up when he needs to go during the night, because his body will feel the wetness and (over time) learn to associate that with the need to wake up. (Or, conversely, wearing protection might keep him wetting longer because his body will be "used to" sleeping through and wetting during sleep with no repercussions, even when he is biologically ready to be dry.)

I'm not saying it's wrong for him to wear protection if that's what you mutually decide to do - certainly it has advantages in ease of cleaning up and less interrupted sleep. I think you are taking the right approach though by letting him drive the decision.

Is it because you are tired of so much laundry that you would really like him to be in protection? If so, have you considered asking if he will help with the laundry? You could just say directly to him, something like "You know, doing all this laundry is a lot of work for me, and wearing protection would make a lot less laundry for us to do. But I can see that you really don't want to wear protection - so instead of wearing protection, would you like to take responsibility for putting your sheets in the wash each morning?" (etc.) Give him a choice between the two but make it clear that one or the other needs to be done, not because he is in trouble or has done anything wrong, but because he is old enough to help and you need his help to take care of this in the middle of all your other responsibilities. I imagine you value having him help with chores and such around the house anyway and this is just one more "grown up" responsibility he can take on to help manage his own condition.

At least it sounds better to me when put that way. :) Fwiw, that's what my parents did with me and I never felt like I was being punished... on the contrary I felt better in many ways because I could "take care of it myself" and did not have to announce to anyone when I had wet the bed. He may really appreciate the ability to do that if he is still having accidents when he is a little older.

well, @midnight77, the laundry is certainly an issue for me. I have taken the route of having Nate help by making his bedding his responsibility. Now, you dont know him, so I'll tell you what thats like....I double-layer the sheets, with a vinyl one in between, like a lot of people do, and make sure there are extra blankets ready to go nearby. Nate wets, and wakes up at some point, pulls the wet sheets off the bed, throws them in the floor, not in the basket, and goes back to sleep. Then in the morning, I have to rouse him from bed several times to get him to get up and moving for school. He ALWAYS forgets to bring down the dirty laundry, and when I "remind" him, he groans, rolls his eyes and says "I cant! I have to eat breakfast/brush my teeth/get my shoes on/go tot the bathroom, etc etc etc" there is a plethera of excuses, and inevitably, he has to run out of the house to catch the bus, with no time left for bringing down the laundry. So who gets to do it? ME. I have tried that route with him. Then, after it's all clean and ready to go, I go through thte same thing again to get him to take his laundry upstairs and make his bed. But, if I dont do it for him, he doesnt do it! he will just sleep on the bare vinyl cover with a blanket!!! So, I do the laundry, because he wont take responsibility for it and do it himself. So, yeah, Im a little tired of doing it. Now, understand, I dont yell at him or argue much about it, because then it's like a punishment. But my nearly 13 yr old son, who is very priveleged in most respects, is just too lazy to do it, I think. And I also realize that I enable him in a way. Because he knows that I'll take care of it, and he doesnt really need to worry about it. I have tried just abandoning control over it, and letting him deal with it, but then i end up with urine soaked sheets laying on the carpeting in his room, ruining it, and causing the odor to spread through my upstairs, and then having him come to me at 9:30 at night, "Mom, I dont have any clean sheets..."
What to do? I guess maybe some might think I sound selfish, but thats ok. I just wish he were more responsible about handling this issue.

Seems like it really comes down to a question of parenting, then - which no one can tell you how to do. There's a distinction here between what he does and doesn't have control over. Does he have control over wetting his bed? No, and you shouldn't punish him for it. Does he have control over whether he brings his sheets downstairs? You bet he does. I'm not sure what you would do if he refused (or made excuses about) doing some other household chore you ask him to do - like picking up after himself, feeding the dog, or even doing his homework - but I don't see how putting his sheets in the wash wouldn't fall in the same category.

Myself, I don't think it would be too draconian to simply say, "Either you WILL put your sheets in the laundry or you WILL wear protection"... not in a mean or punitive way, but in a way that makes clear there's no more discussion. He still has a choice and can do whichever one he sees fit, but doing nothing is no longer an option for him. That's me, though, maybe for you that would be being too hard on him. If so, I'm not really sure what to tell you. If you don't "make" him help around the house, and you want the work to get done, who do you expect is going to be the one to do it? Sure, it's hard on you, but it seems like you are the one with a good deal of power to decide whether it remains that way.

Bottom line, you are still the parent and he is still the child. How you choose to act is your business, but the way you decide to parent him will have consequences that will affect how easy or hard it is for you. This is not meant as a criticism at all, just an observation. I wonder if maybe you are trying a little bit to have it both ways, though. You want to be the laid back, "nice" parent who doesn't push him, which is great, but then you are stuck with the workload when he chooses to be irresponsible. If you want less work for yourself, that means getting him to do more of it - whatever that looks like. If you don't want to put pressure on him to do things, that means you're sacrificing some of your own time and energy to do the work for him when he doesn't do it. What isn't going to happen is you not putting any pressure on him, and the work getting done by anyone other than you. :) I don't think you can have both of those things. I hope you understand I'm not trying to be mean here, just being honest about what this situation looks like from my perspective on the outside of it.

I totally get where you're coming from. And when it comes to his other responsibilities/chores, there's just as much of a struggle sometimes, but he gets told to do it or there's a consequence, such as not being able to go out and play with his friends or having his ipod/PS3/computer time taken away. I just dont know if those are appropriate consequences for the laundry issue. You have me figured out spot on when it comes to the parenting. My household duties are many, with 4 kids and a hubby who's not home a lot to help out, it gets pretty daunting. I don't want to be the "drill sargeant" mom to my kids, but I also know the importance of teaching them responsibility. It's a hard balance to maintain, and with Nate being the oldest, it's almost as if I do expect more from him....I know I've strayed a little off-topic here, sorry :) And just so I'm clear, I dont take anything said here as "being mean" at all. I appreciate the feedback and the discussion, the insight, and support.