Advice about NT children?

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Background: 2 odd (AS?) parents. One perfectly normal 4 year old child (well, as far as we can tell.)
Concern: We're odd - both by nature and by nurture. There are some things our child will probably need to learn elsewhere - like normal conversation and emotional expression.

Generally interested in any advice at all. Anything would probably be useful. We have significant 'blind spots.'

So far:
1. Social: Child in full-time preschool. Neighbor's kids visit occasionally. No progress in arranging for regular playtime with a friend. I read stories, occasionally make up fairy tales. Child is reasonably good at making up stories. Seems to play at preschool. Mom has difficulty with creative play.
2. Large motor: Kind of hoping preschool accounts for this. We also take child to the park sometimes. Arm strength could be better. Bicycle and occasional walks. A lot of daddy gym and bouncing. (getting too heavy for the stomach cannonball.) Limited swimming - not independent yet.
3. Small motor: A lot of iPad, a few crafts projects, abortive attempts to teach writing skills - not much progress there.
4. Reading: Read a broad range of books, centered about toddler comprehension level. Probably 0.5 hours daily. Toddler may be reading simpler books when we're not paying attention. May also be memorization. Toddler is definitely learning to parse 'spelled-out' words more rapidly than we'd like. (I C E C R E A M...sigh)
5. Math: Toddler counts well. Plays with iPad math games and abacus. Haven't found good math text for this age range. Seems to have good pattern recognition and passable addition skills. Subtraction, multiplication, and division not there yet.
6. Games: Likes hide and seek, swords, guns, building. Seems to like socializing with parents almost continuously. Wearisome. Often pawn off onto Netflix. Would like to encourage independent play.
7. Hygiene: Not yet self bathing, does wash hands, can change clothes and shoes but doesn't usually. Still likes pacifier occasionally. Goes to sleep in own room, but wakes after a few hours and cries until let into parent's bed. Uses diaper at night. Sometimes wipes acceptably. Brushes teeth, but poorly enough that we still do it. Sometimes picks nose. Fairly particular about not having dirty clothes and being bathed occasionally.
8. Emotion: Talkative, mostly happy, whines - applying mild discipline. Sometimes sad, sometimes angry. Even-tempered. Cautious. (seems to be a temperament thing, obvious at 6 months - made us taste all the food first, took an extra year to walk after falling once) Cuddles daddy a lot. Mommy not cuddle type. Scared of mommy meltdowns. Worried about mommy depression, sleep. Mommy tends to meltdown a lot, not otherwise expressive. Daddy not expressive. Occasional threats - applying mild discipline. Often sulks in room for a few minutes when disciplined.
9. Discipline: Daddy: 1, 2, 3 timeout. Usually stops at 2. Helpful, but could do more chores. Mommy: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and shouting.
10. Sleep: About 9 hours a night. Same as us. Sigh.
11. Conversation: Talks a lot. Mostly on topic. Has difficulty continuing long conversations.
12. Drinks V8, milk, water. Eats: Chicken nuggets, hot dogs, hamburger, fish, shrimp, most fruit, vanilla ice cream and yogurt, broccoli, PB&J. Vegetables still an issue, as is cheese. Occasional multivitamins and fish oil. Can eat some mildly spicy food, dislikes hot food. Not allowed sugar, excepting pancakes and ice cream. Checks for spoilage and bugs. Overall, probably a survival factor. Still does food testing. (adult needs to swallow first bite) Quite good at avoiding spoiled food.

--Argyle

Hey, Argile. Your kid sounds pretty good.

Interesting that you have not once referred to your child's gender in any way. I don't know what that indicates, but this is the first time I've ever heard anyone describe their child without hint of gender. You are raising either a boy or a girl and it's ontologically significant. Is this a blind spot or an engineer's linguistic thing?

I'm finding it difficult to write a response because of my ignorance of your child's gender. The sentences I'm trying to form sound stilted to me, due to an inability to write he or she instead of writing; your child, each time.

I'm going to send this, requesting gender ID, and continue writing on another "piece of paper" in the mean time.

Preschool is a good start for the conversation part. The emotional expression part - to be learned elsewhere is harder. It would be gift to have a balanced NT (and not all NTs are balanced) relative or friend spend regular time with your child and you are wise and generous to understand and want this. May the universe yield this gift to you.


It's OK to touch on writing from time to time, but it's just too early to get any results. It's a struggle for 6 year olds to learn. Looooots of time spent on that in 1st grade.


It's great that your child enjoys this and that you're providing it. Also, literature is a viable conduit to emotional life; expression of emotions and portrayal of a broad range of interpersonal relationships. I feel it's good to introduce small children to stories above age level from time to time. You never know when something a little more mature might resonate with the child. This is especially true when the child is older and can read. I remember my father reading Ali Baba and the Arabian Nights to myself and my younger sibs when I was 6. It was wonderful and magical even though it was mostly over our heads to comprehend. (Small doses and only occasionally, don't push too much above level reading.)


I really believe this is an individual personality thing. Our oldest daughter was this way, she needed to be engaged socially continuously. I myself, am an introvert and her need for talk was demanding for me to meet. I tried my best and thank God, she was a lovely child, a very reasonable individual, easily interested in the world around her.

My younger daughter was less social and naturally would entertain herself with toys & objects for long periods of time. She was naturally interested in the physical mechanics of things. They are both lovely adults now.

Before my oldest was in school full time (1st grade) I made do, conversationally with my oldest girl, by just talking about what we were doing, which meant including the girls in my adult day to day activities. They were given parts of my tasks to do (those they were interested in). They helped with washing dishes (yeah, that got us wet), they had little garden tools (yep, dirty), they loved to cook (messy) and they stitched when I sewed (1st with stitching cards then with scrap). This slows tasks but a stay at home mom's biggest task is taking care of the kids, so including the kids in tasks is a natural fit. (They had no interest in laundry.) I always pointed out that we clean up after each task, so if they weren't interested in that part (or incompetent) they at least had to wait without protest until clean-up was complete.

You can do this with your boy(?) too. I know you're employed, so do not have the amount of time at home that I did as a young mom, but you have some time at home and perform tasks. Try working the kid this way and talk as you go.


I am a big proponent of exposing kids to the world as much as possible. Get them used to all kinds of places and spaces. It won't change their innate proclivities but it will expand their comfort range a bit.

I live in the wooded suburbia of CT. So we walked in the woods. But we also would ride the train to NYC (we each had appropriately sized backpacks so we could hold hands unencumbered). We walked through Grand Central Station and the Museum of Natural History. We went to the Bronx Zoo and the Botanical Garden. (No, not all on one trip. But repeatedly to each place.) Art museums are great for little kids in small doses, simply as sensory spaces. We went to garden center nurseries, farmer's markets, libraries and aquariums. Outdoor and indoor pools, ponds, lakes, rivers & the Long Island Sound (sea exposure in all seasons). We walked somewhere outdoors each day. That was a rule I made for myself. We walked on crowded city sidewalks and country roads. We walked on beaches, on bridges, under bridges, along creeks, up & down hills (sometimes rolling down hills). We should have run with dogs (but we didn't); my oldest introduced me to that wonder in the last couple years. I now yearn to swim with dogs.

We also swam, weekdays, in the spring, fall & winter at the Y. The obsessive swimming is peculiar to myself, but the girls liked it too. Between the walk, the swim and chores & errands - that was the structure of our day. Once or twice a week we went abroad by car or train to do the walking in the exotic places and spaces.

We loved to get into different climates, in a pretend kind of way. A favorite was botanical garden tropical greenhouses in the winter. Or simply hiking in the woods on a sunny winter day, working up a sweat until we felt as warm as summer.

Excursions with little kids are done in kid size doses. A visit in a museum, for instance, was approx 15-20 minutes walking around, lunch in the museum cafe, then another 10 or 15 minutes walking, then done. Exposure to the space was the point. (Many museums have an entry fee free day during the week - I really capitalized on that sort of thing when the girls were small. Some libraries have passes to places such as zoos, bot. gardens & aquariums available on loan to their card holders.)


I can't say I ever involved in creative play. Reading aloud, walking, working, swimming & running errands with the girls filled our days. Were we supposed to be playing creatively? Not sure I'd know exactly what that is in practice. But work is creative, no? I mean; we created gardens, and leaf free lawns and leaf piles and clean dishes and meals.


Sounds to me, child may have natural talent which might lend self to gardening.

Regarding toddler gender, mostly a silly habit to remove identifiers. Male. Sorry about that.

Tricky bit is that all of our relatives, excepting my BIL, are rather similar to me, probably more so. (Some nature, some culture.) My BIL is pretty busy and fairly introverted and tends to maintain a distance. I haven't found a good candidate - excepting our babysitter - who will presumably move on at some point. Longer-term, when my wife is back at work - we'll probably need an after-hours babysitter - which will be more long-term and probably give some contact. Dunno. Something usually turns up.

Sounds like the advanced version of baby-wearing. He's pretty good at sweeping, although clearing the table is reducing our available crockery. (I kind of like this...we picked up too many dishes a while back.) Some whining, but helping with chores gets him a star. 10 stars gets him 'something small'. We do this on weekends - but time is limited. I should probably schedule some chore time on weekdays, but they're pretty busy already. Main issue is that bedtime is about 1.5 hours. I should probably sleep-train him, but, last time, my wife tried to break down the door. Oh well, it'll get better with time.

We should start going to the zoo again. And maybe an art museum or two. He doesn't mind most places - he's just more physically cautious than I'd prefer. (Knock on wood, but...no trips to the emergency room in ages.) He learned to walk without falling - which really weirded me out. (_Every time he stood_, he had a grip on a nearby ledge. Then he'd slowly lower himself to the floor. Then he'd crawl somewhere else. Then he'd pick up a toy. Crawl to a ledge. Put the toy carefully on the ledge. Pull himself up. Stand. Wave toy while gripping ledge.) Eventually, I started worrying and started taunting him with jingly keys. He went from crawling->walking->running in about a day. Everyone's different, I guess - I just think a bit more risk-taking is healthy.

...stuff like cowboys and indians...or three pigs, angry birds, and the big-bad wolf. Dunno, she can read to him sometimes and play at a preschool, but even walking next to him is difficult for her. (Hard to walk and watch him at the same time - worried about him jumping into traffic - or react when he stops. Tends to trigger meltdowns.) So, she usually keeps him in a stroller. Just one of those things, I guess. I wonder about getting him accustomed to a leash. That might simplify things for her.

...gardening could be good.

...we're trying to get him involved with our neighbor's livestock.

--Argyle

OMG, are you my husband?? Because our 4-year-old boys sound like twins...and I have many of the same problems as your wife. Major difference though--my husband is NT.

...my wife is on the site...and has a different ID. So, unless you have more than one ID?

Thanks for the information though...my wife's original diagnosis is BPD. But, she's weird for a BPD. So, I've been suspicious of AS for a while.* And she basically met her twin at the local AS self-help meeting - even with the same style of speech. I'll take it as a tentative confirmation that I might not be totally foolish in that guess.

--Argyle
*That, and one of our MC eventually guessed a combination of AS and personality disorder. (After therapy, the BPD stuff decreased a lot, but the weird stuff didn't.)

Haha no...I have just the one. It's just amazing that our boys sound so similar. I tend to think my son is pretty well-adjusted, and I'm lucky that my husband is able to take up some of my slack. Going to preschool also helps, because my son gets the social interaction he needs. My husband recently has been trying to get our son to go on more playdates, but that involves interacting with the kids' parents, something I'm terrible at. So I'm pretty reluctant to do it, even though I know it's good for him.

I don't think I have BPD, but I do have bipolar II, with terrible, medication-resistant depressions.

Not necessarily. An acquaintance had her 2 boys in bed with her at ages 7 & 9. Don't know when it stopped; or whether it did.

For many kids, sleeping alone after being in bed with the parent(s), is a huge struggle. The advantage to the child, in learning to sleep alone, is achieving the ability to self soothe which is important for the child's sense of competence, confidence and autonomous person-hood. It really is an important goal and it sounds as if you had a method on track. Your wife has interfered with this? Does she know that your boy needs to learn to do this for his benefit? Perhaps the goal of helping your boy achieve sleep autonomy deserves one of those long explanations to your wife.


A blind spot? At age 4 a child is no longer a toddler by any definition (medical, English usage or developmental). Toddler status ends at 36 months at the outside. Labels are useful, they're helpful to mental framework. Changing your label from toddler to boy will help you to re-frame your mental image of your boy, age appropriately. So for instance, instead of imagining your "toddler" graduating from stroller to leash; you might imagine your boy graduating from stroller to competent navigation.


Walking outdoors is an activity where parents do a lot of training of toddlers, then children, concerning staying on the sidewalks and out of the course of traffic. This is one of the obedience training arenas (together with stove/fireplace/electrical outlets sort of stuff) wherein we obedience-train our kids to: stop when told, come when called, walk closer when asked. If your wife is incapable; then you must do this. (Are you keeping him a "toddler" because no one has put in the considerable time needed to train your son in the mundane yet mandatory areas?)


Alternately, there may be a disconnect here. Your son is cautious and risk adverse. But you wife is projecting that he will behave randomly and recklessly. The upshot is that you, as parents, are treating your boy as an incompetent; keeping him in a stroller and contemplating the leash. Logically, does this make any sense? In-congruence in how a child behaves and how he is treated may be psychologically damaging.


It's for her. Regardless; it's a step in the wrong direction. Your son is a noetic human being who will not forget that he's on a leash by becoming accustomed to it. The shame of being leashed will increase with time and maturity. Ask yourself the question; Once having gotten accustomed to leashing your son, at what point will your wife be willing to relinquish the leash?

I have 4 NT kids, and I have AS and an NT husband. One of them I am now suspecting is AS as well, because of some things about him, although he has amazing social skills.

What I did with mine, because I was an only child and didn't really know how to play because I didn't mae frieds till my early teens, was just talk to them and treat them like adults. I basically talked to them like I would somebody my own age and expected them to understand. I'd explain things to them if they didn't understand and they pretty well got it. I'd also let them watch whatever they wanted on tv and as much of it as they wanted, as long as their homework was done. We didn't have porn channels so there was no problem.

They are actually a lot more mature than their friends.

@Mountain
Plan A involved sleep training. It derailed when my wife started ramming herself against the door and screaming louder than the baby. Plan B...which she's okay with...is putting our boy to sleep in his own room. (He likes that...) And letting him climb into the bed in the middle of the night. (Not ideal, but s'not like I'm going to wake up.) This is taking a while though.

Good point. Little boy it is. A bit of a wrench - seems like he was crawling yesterday.

When we walk alone (sans wife), I train him in things like staying off the street and looking both ways for cars. He's pretty good at it. The current rules are: stay on the sidewalk, wait for an adult before crossing a driveway, stay in sight of an adult. He's starting to stretch the last one. Although, sometimes mischief-prone. When my wife comes along, there's tension, and occasional meltdowns, and a lot of panicked screams. When my wife walks him. I'm, overall, fine with the stroller. One thing I've ever so slowly learned is that, when my wife says that she can't do something...like...for instance...drive safely in the mornings...within a few months...she'll be proven right. (In that case, she hit a child and later wrecked a parked car. The child was lucky and unharmed, the car...not so much.) (In her parents' case. they ended up with one child having a plate in their head and eventually finding another at an international terminal.) I suspect that he would end up hurt/lost if mother walked him everywhere for a month or two. Part of the problem is that my wife is not good at providing consistent discipline - so our boy's obedience to her is somewhat limited. I'm mostly wondering if a leash might be better than a stroller when they're alone. For now, constant hand-holding works - but it is basically a really short leash.

...that is a good point. If she starts using a leash, she'll most likely taper off at age 7. (I'd guess...4...everywhere....5...public streets/multiple children...6...busy streets/multiple children....7...airports. Eh. I'll go with no leash - but a stroller in the airport.

@Olive
I like this plan. I worry a bit about the TV though. I suspect it doesn't provide good models for how normal humans interact.

--Argyle

Thats why you just tell them "Thats not real, you know" about that kind of stuff. Or "People don't really do that".

From this thread and a previous one, it sounds as if your boy, at 4 yrs old has more self control than your wife. And I understand your position; she's the wife you have and she's the mother your boy has.

Your boy is a rapidly evolving child; your wife is a formed adult, trapped in her considerable fears. Clearly, she is afraid, even, of her own 4 year old son. Ignorant of the concept of self control, she is certainly unable to perceive any in your boy. So she treats your cautious son like a wild phantom; likely to bolt into random tragedy at any second. This sort of dynamic is psychologically dangerous for kids because what is being reflected back to the child is in-congruent with the child's progress in self control and behavioral accomplishments.

Imagine for a moment, that you have a boss who is not an engineer and doesn’t understand engineering. Also imagine that he is incapable of recognizing your technical abilities and insists on checking your projects for mistakes each morning and afternoon, even though he can’t tell what’s done correctly. And that he throws tantrums at you when you’ve done nothing wrong. Imagine he does this in view of everyone in your workplace. And imagine that your boss’s inability to comprehend your credentials and proven competencies precludes you from advancement. How well would you thrive and grow professionally under such circumstances? How would this affect your morale?

Isn’t that analogous to a child who’s learned the rules of walking on the sidewalk and has demonstrated that he can do it competently but is treated as if he has learned nothing about it?

I understand that you cannot substantially change your wife’s way of behaving with your son. But be aware that psychologically damaging your son through developmentally in-congruent measures can be crippling. Balancing the needs of an advancing child and a frozen-in-fear wife is a Herculean task, no doubt. Please consider tipping the balance in favor of your son’s needs, when in doubt. You’re raising a son; your wife has already been raised and she has born a child.

You are clearly a smart, realistic and creative man. Having your son in pre-school together with your wife where she can interact with him under guidance is brilliant. Keep bringing that realism & problem solving creativity into your parenting along with the consistency in discipline you seem to understand so well. One loving, competent parent can be enough. That’s assuming you can parent as you see fit when you are with your son without interference.

Your weak or blind area may be in realistically tracking your son’s rapid growth in competency. Examine him weekly, to see his increasing competencies and reward them with trust in those abilities & new freedoms when appropriate.

An example would be that since he is competent to get up in the middle of the night and travel out of his bedroom, use that to introduce him to middle of the night use of the bathroom. Reward: when competency is demonstrated; freedom from pull-up diapers. He has the credentials for this too; his age, this is age appropriate training for 3-4 year olds.

...yup. She isn't likely to change much. And, I honestly believe that she has a fairly realistic appreciation of her own capabilities. (She seems to randomly shatter glass or otherwise injure herself once every few days. And usually cleans it up...but still...) This was really hard to accept for me - she is extremely capable in many ways. (Ran a small, profitable company at one point...)

That's exactly my worry. Living with a disordered person with a distorted view of reality is hard for an adult. It isn't good for children. On the bright side, our boy understands that his mother is mentally ill. On the down side, well, you can see the down side. I'm torn. She's afraid - and trapped in a looking glass world - but she tries really hard. On average, most counselors have advised that he's better off with her in his life than without her in his life. I'm not sure - still figuring that out.

That's definitely a weak spot. My parents inclined towards pushing their children and neither tolerating weakness nor offering affection - and I suspect I'm overcompensating in the other direction. (It's broken? Let's see it if gets better before bothering a doctor. Stop whining and go to school.)

Really? The parents I quizzed kept their kids in night diapers until 5ish? 4 seems okay? But 3 seems young. I'll give it a shot. Do people sell some sort of absorbant pad? - I'm anticipating a few mattress level incidents.

--Argyle

This surprised me because pride; in the worst sense of the term, prevents most folks from allowing the kids in on this important insight. Your willingness (yours and your wife's) to allow this to be named and spoken is laudable. I believe this one point of honesty may make all the difference for your boy.


In response, I may sound to you like your parents, but here goes. I actually checked the internet on this one before writing last time and the current recommended age range for night training is 3 to 4 (trained by the 5th bday) on the few sites I checked. I felt I needed to check because the last time I potty trained anyone was 26 years ago. I have a number of younger friends who have very young kids and I am aware that the current trend is for preschool kids to get potty trained over a very long period which literally lasts for years, with 5 year olds still wearing some sort of diapers at night. It's jaw dropping to me.

My girls were potty trained weeks short of the age of 2. Yes, (that's not a typo). When I realized that my oldest was able to anticipate urination, I figured she might be ready. So I checked the old tome; 'Potty Training in One Day' out of the library and gave it a try. It worked and the method recommends potty training and never looking back. So from that afternoon onward she wore underwear and used the toilet for all her elimination needs. Yes, there were night accidents but not every night and only lasting for a couple months. I did the same thing with my younger daughter at the same age with the same result.

Making a clean break in potty training made a lot of sense to me behaviorally; it's saying to the child: "This is how you go to the potty now. It's how you do it; at home; on a car trip; when we're outside or inside or in bed." No complications.

My friends get very worried about the diaper thing just before kindergarten; many of their kids are wearing night pull ups and still having occaisional daytime accidents. During discussion with them I start to see that something has scared the current generation of parents of young kids about potty training. It seems to be a fear that any pressure around potty training will spook the kids and cause the process to be delayed even longer. So kids who have urinated pretty much at will for the whole 5 years of their lives are now put under intermittent pressure by skiddish parents to comply by the 1st day of public school.

I didn't put pressure on my girls; they were just 2 year olds! I just showed them what to do. (I followed the method in the book). They were happy to be free of big sloppy diapers and pleased with their comfortable new little undies. (Imagine the $$ savings and the reduction in wear 'n tear on the environment if almost everyone potty trained their kids during the 3rd year of their lives.) Honestly, I blame disposable diapers for this weird trend in late potty training.

Before they were trained, my girls wore cloth diapers except when we were going to be gone from home for more than an hour. Toddlers can feel a wet cloth diaper rather distinctly. I changed diapers much more frequently than current parents do. Today's disposables are so absorbent and hold so much urine that I assume that a toddler has urinated at least twice before they're changed. And the toddlers seem to be unaware that the diaper is wet until it's spilling.

My girls were pretty vocal about wet diapers the minute they were wet, because it was uncomfortable. That's why it was apparent to me that they might be ready for training at what, by today's standards, seems an incredibly young age. But during the early and mid 80s, almost all kids were completely potty trained (including night time) by their 3rd birthday. I don't think kids have changed; I think the quality of the diapers changed. The quality of the diapers has robbed little ones of a major physical signal; wetness. I urinate, then I'm wet is much more instructive than; I urinate then feel nothing.

Sooner or later you will face the drudgery of night training your boy. And part of his learning process will necessarily be feeling wet when he's urinated his cloth training pants and bed linens. But I'm thinking the sooner you start, the better. I wonder whether the current crop of parents still buying pullups for 5 year olds haven't missed the optimum training window neurologically. Could it be; the longer a child urinates unfettered, the more ingrained it is? I'm just surmising.

Have a plan before starting. This is not the exact book I used, but seems to follow the same method. You don't need the whole method. Your boy is largely trained already. But this book seems to have a section on night training.
www.amazon.com/Toilet-Training-Less-Tha ... 0671693808


Yes, there are disposable ones at pharmacies that have hospital supplies.-(rather expensive) I used machine washable rubber pads that have flannelized surfaces to prevent the mattress from getting spoiled (rubber pad directly on mattress, covered by bed pad, then fitted sheet on top). Yeah, when there were accidents it was a lot of laundry. The girls were in single beds, so the linens weren't as giant as those for adult beds.

.

@Mountain
Thanks. I think you're right. Most of the parents I polled actually blamed disposables for their children not noticing pee. They're actually good enough to be pretty close to 12 hr diapers. The prolonged discomfort from cloth diapers probably helps a lot with potty training.

At this point, I think my plan is...put down some sort of rubber pad on the bed. (buy 2). Offer drinks an hour before bedtime. Suggest pee right before bedtime. Put to sleep. No diaper. He's pretty good at this point - usually asks for diaper removal instead of peeing in it, so this may not be too hard. Oh, and add a nightlight in the bathroom. And try to get the wife to actually drain the tub reliably.

When should they be changing clothes on their own? He can do shoes (velcro) and pants (except buttons), but shirts are mostly beyond him. Part of the problem is that he has a pretty big head relative to the rest of his body, so I pretty much have to yank shirts off. I could buy a different set, but I'd rather not (hand-me-downs from the cousins are cheaper).

--Argyle

He sounds OK with dressing. I raised girls and their dexterity tends to be better than boys at young ages. Also, girls' clothing is much more varied than boys'; lots of choices.

I have twin brothers 13 years younger than myself. When they were 3 years old my mother went to visit her sister in CA (we lived in OH) and my sisters and I took care of the boys that summer while my dad was at work. They had drawers organized with their shirts, shorts & underclothes. They chose from the drawers and dressed themselves. One of them was very particular about what he would wear, so his wardrobe was redundant.

My younger girl could tie laces at four yrs but she was a savant at tying. She was intent about it; it was a special interest. In sailing lessons 5 years later, she won the sailor's knot tying award; big surprise. (It was amusing to me, because of the scarcity of realms wherein intricate knot tying even exists, much less adjudicated.)

Your plan sounds like a good one, especially since he wants the pull-ups off to pee. I might add, be sure to present the new program as a positive change. And it's OK to be groggy when changing linen in the case of any accidents, but be a good actor and don't show disappointment or annoyance. Celebrate dry nights by mentioning that you noticed. Get him some nice new underwear or training pants in colors or prints he favors. (I'd go for a dog motif, but that's just me.)

There is a difference between not yet fully night trained (at 4 yrs age) and actual night time incontinence. It seems to do with age, frequent accidents at age 6 would indicate the incontinence and you'll want to read up on that if it were the case.