5 year old lies to me every single day

Hi guys.. I’m at the end of my rope and need advice. I have a 5 year old son, who is potty trained during the day. He wears pull ups at night just in case. For the last 6 months, he has peed the bed most nights. We never get mad if he pees through the diaper, we simply say it’s okay and get him cleaned up. However lately for the past 2-3 months, he lies EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Last month he pooped in his diaper and of course it made a mess. He went to the bathroom and smeared it all over the floor, wall, everything. (I didn’t know at this point) I was tending to my other child so I called out to him and asked if he peed the bed or anything, he said no. So then I said, did you poop in your diaper because I could smell it in the other room. He told me no, then when I walked in and said “oh you did poop” he got mad and yelled that he didn’t do it. I let it go that time because I figured maybe he was embarrassed or something but we talk EVERY DAY about what he should do if he has accidents (which is to tell us)

It’s increasingly gotten worse. He started peeing on his mattress pad, taking it off along with his clothes, hiding it, then making his bed with the clean blankets so no one sees it. I will agree that it’s my fault I didn’t check but he hid them pretty well under his toy box so I didn’t see it. Then he’d go back to sleep, pee on his actual mattress as well and we’ve had to buy 2 mattresses in the last 6 months because they got ruined with pee.

He will even go as far as taking the diaper off for most of the night, peeing the bed, then putting the dry diaper back on so he gets rewarded for having a dry diaper.

2 weeks ago we decided to take everything but the bed out of his room (they have a huge playroom) and waking him up at night to go potty. Well, that doesn’t work either. If we wake him up in the middle of the night to pee, it’s a nightmare because he screams and yells saying he doesn’t want to go back to bed, or he’ll scream simply because he’s so tired and overwhelmed. We finally got a mattress pad he can’t get off so that’s been great but the lying hasn’t stopped. Every morning I go into his room and I’m always cheerful and try to keep his spirits up and I’ll say “good morning! Are you dry or do we need to clean you up?” Or I’ll say “Did you have any accidents?” Or something along those lines and he KNOWS he will not get in trouble if he’s honest. Without fail, he will lie. Not just lying, but he will stand up and say let me check, then he’ll feel his diaper as well as all of his blankets. Even when they are absolutely soaking wet, he will swear up and down that it’s not.

It’s not the only thing he lies about, it’s a huge problem. For example he’ll hit his sister then run to me crying saying she kicked him or hurt him when she didn’t. He’ll lock the cat in the closet and swear it wasn’t him. He’ll steal things from people and lie, he’ll even have an apple I gave him and he’ll go to his dad and say “I didn’t ask for this, I took it” and laugh. It’s almost like he thinks it’s funny to lie about everything.

I’ve done all the gentle parenting things and tried to talk to him, in fact we talk every single day about it and every day he swears he won’t do it again. My husband suggested months ago that we put him in the corner or take away toys, or make him clean it up when he lies but none of that works either, if anything I think it makes it worse. What else can we do?

We spend so much time with him and make sure his needs are met. He’s such a smart boy and I know lying is completely normal but this kid lies from the moment he wakes up til he goes to bed 😩 I feel like I’m out of options. I’m a stay at home mom, also pregnant so my emotions are all over the place but I’m trying to keep it together