allowing an int to take a null value

I am really stuck with this and don't want to take the easy way out an just make the type string:

Google ended up showing me this but I did not find it anywhere in the schema rules and it did not work.

<xs:element minOccurs="0" name="myNumber"  nillable="true" type="xs:int"/>

If I have a null I want it to show zero........am I really going to have to use the string type?

It is a child element and I would rather just fail its parent then fail all the parents (the whole xml doc).