My 3.5+ year old (two months shy of four) daughter has recently started having accidents EVERY DAY! I am at my wits end. She has not had an accident at night or during the day for probably close to a year and now all of a sudden she's wetting the bed everynight and having accidents during the day, both at home and at daycare. She's having issues where she "can't make it to the toilet," which is when she typically pees herself either in the bathroom or right darn near it. And with the night wetting, I just don't know what the deal is. A lot of the time, the fact that she had an accident isn't even waking her up, which is also unusual. I don't know if I should consider this a medical problem and I should call the ped, or if I should start 'punishing' her for it. While I realized punishment with potty trianing isn't the way to go, but she is already potty trained! We told her last night before bed that if she had another accident we would have to put her back in diapers, which she balked at, but then she had another one. Should we stand our ground? There hasn't been any major changes in her life in the most recent future (we moved, but it was two months ago now), and health wise she just got off the medicine Diflucan, and to be honest that is when it seemed to start. I did call the pharmicist right away and he didn't seem to think the two were related...
I took her to the ped last night, and although she was only able to produce a small "sample" they could tell that it was likely a UTI. It takes 48 hours for the culture to come back - but she's on a super strong antibiotic now and my fingers are crossed that it will clear up quickly. She did have another accident last night - although this time I was able to address her without stress in my voice and just deal with it. Thanks mama's.
You could talk to her Pedi, but potty training regression is really pretty common. Here's a little information:
http://www.pottytrainingconcepts.com/Blog-Potty-Training-...
Hang in there! :)
Have heart... this isn't your child's fault! There are a few things that can cause wetting (day or night) in previously well trained children. Most of the ones have been mentioned by the other moms already.
I have 2 children a girl & a boy, both of whom did EXACTLY as you describe your daughter. We started with our peds clinic. Have to rule out a UTI. Then they will likely suggest an abdominal xray, if she does not have a UTI. The most common reason for wetting other than UTI is constipation. My two can be amazingly backed up (proved by xray) even if they are having a BM everyday. Even more frustrating is that pediatric constipation does not always respond to healthy diet changes alone.
My daughter just turned 6 yrs old. This continues to be a daily concern for us... many days there are accidents. BUT we are thankful that this is the ONLY health problem she has :-) Also, we have found ways to deal with this without destroying her self esteem.
DON'T let others pressure you into using harsh tactics.... Even if everything checks out... punishment will NOT help... but your clinic should have lots of resources. This is a VERY COMMON problem, we just don't like to think about it :-)
I would not punish her, it is normal to have regression. Could be she is having a growing spurt and is sleeping harder.
Could be since it is warmer, she is drinking more liquids (which her body needs). I would have her help you clean herself up and encourage her to go more frequently.. See if you can figure how much time it is between a drink and her urination.. Maybe it will give you a hint ion how often to remind her.. Eventually she will also learn her own biology and pay more attention to it.
Also during the summer, the outdoor playing is so much fun, some kids wait till the last minute, because they do not want to have to stop playing and go all the way inside the house..
She may be outgrowing her bladder. It happens with many children that their dietary and fluid needs exceed what she can hold for very long. You may have to remind her again (as you did with potty training) to go to the bathroom more frequently, or just put her on a schedule that is more frequent (alot of daycares do this and it's just not frequent enough for some little ones). As for nighttime, there are two basic options for this. She won't like one and you won't like the other. The first is just to use goodnights or pullups until her bladder catches up. The other is that you wake her on the same schedule she uses during the day. This will help her to recognize her full bladder while sleeping, as well as keeping the bed dry. These are two different techiniques I've used with former clients and both work well.
One more thing, make sure to give her LOTS of praise everytime she wakes up dry, be it the pullup or the schedule. You would be amazed what her ego can do for her bladder :)
Honestly, I don't think humiliating her by putting her back in diapers is going to help.
I'd have her checked for a UTI right away. Not sure how long this has been happening. but if a UTI gets to the kidney(s) it can cause irreversible damage.
Did it just get a lot hotter where you live? My son is drinking water like a camel right now and I think his bathroom frequency has doubled in the last two weeks. The other thing I could think of is that she could be going through a growth spurt, which can be cause for more accidents.
You didn't say how long it's been going on, but if it persists more than a week or two I would definitely call her pediatrician to rule out anything more serious. I would not punish her for the accidents unless it seems like she is really acting out, but even then I think ignoring them is probably a better bet.
Frankly, I would also be concerned with a Urinary tract infection. She may not be able to tell you that it hurts when she urinates, but she is holding it in until she can't make it to the potty.
I'm not sure about any connection between the Diflucan (treating a yeast infection?) and the wetting, but if one part her her bacterial "flora" has gotten messed up, it might have led to the UTI.
I've also heard where bubble baths can irritate little girls, especially... and I know we all love bubble baths! You might limit that, or her length she plays in the tub.
Where this is such a drastic change in her previous potty behavior, I would really check with the doctor on this.
Take her to the pediatrician. We didn't notice the signs of Epilepsy (Absence / Petit Mal Siezures) until we started having a similar problem.
I would take her to the Dr. This could also be a kidney infection or UTI.
Take her to her pediatrician. It sounds like there is something beyond her control going on.
Why was she put on diflucan? Has she been checked for type 1 diabetes? Not to be an alarmist but with two type ones at my house I see diabetes everywhere.
My son is going through something similar. During the day we think it was an attention getter because they had increased the number of kids in his room at daycare. We seem to have stopped that one but now we are having night issues. I believe, like Laurie A mentioned, he is drinking a lot more because he is running around outside. Plus since he's playing so hard outside, he is sleeping so heavily that the urge is not waking him up. I have been told regression is normal and the move could have something to do with it, or maybe consider other possibilities. I refuse to go back to pull ups. When my sister was little, she had a problem and they found that she was getting too cold at night and it caused her to have accidents. I would just say think about her surroundings and maybe talk to her to see if you can come up with a solution together.
Her brain has closed a window and it is working on another developmental growth. It is a stage, buy some pull ups so you can have an easier time cleaning it up, then just know she really isn't just peeing to "piss" you off.
She is developing something else right now and the time will come when she's back on track.
It would not hurt to talk to the doc about it anyway though. She may have grown and her bladder is still trying to grow and catch up.
My son did something similar, at about that age, also near a move that we made, (although I don't think the "move" is responsible for the issue) We have done everything to try and stop it. we did blood and urine tests and we have seen two Ped. Urologist, and we are still having problems, and he is 9yo now. I'm not trying to take away hope by telling you his age just trying to let you know that I understand, I really do understand. but here is what has helped us so far. the first Ped. Urologist discovered that my son wasn't eliminating waste (poop) properly, and that the pressure of waste still in his colon would create pressure on the bladder in one of two ways, either it would be hard to empty the bladder or make the bladder to small both causing accidents, so we gave him Miralax to help him eliminate waste/relieve constipation, and although this helped, it did not solve the problem. (the main question to ask here is, is she pooping every day? if not this could be part of the problem) The second Ped Urologist explained that until we solved the night time wetting he would still have day time problems, and he recommended that we get a bed wetting alarm, which we did, we got one from www.bedwettingstore.com we loved it, it worked great and for a time it was very helpful with the day time wetting also, it is expensive (about $100) but it works!!! (he was wetting 3-4 times a night before the alarm) he no longer has night time accidents (we used it 3-4 years ago) and has only had maybe one accident per year since we used it. We also used one of their watches that reminds them to go to the bathroom every hour or two (what ever you set it for) the watch helped till he lost it, because he couldn't help from playing with it constantly and taking it off at school. so we didn't buy a new one because I figured he would lose it too.
The first Ped Urologist said that it was "his" problem and the "he" would have to correct it, that there was nothing I could do to help, that "he" needed to fix it. The Dr was very adamant about it being "his" problem, and would almost reprimand me for trying to help, which although I didn't like what he had to say I did understand why he would emphasize that in from of my child. The Second Dr felt that if we solved night time issues we would solve the day time issues as well, which based on what I have read it works 99% of the time, we are just one of the few it doesn't work on.
we haven't followed up with the Ped Urologist yet about the daytime wetting, but this summer we are going to use the alarm during the day time to see if that will help stop his day time accidents.
as far as punishments I've tried everything, discipline, anger, frustration, spanking, time outs, discussions, pressure, ignoring it, rewarding successful days/weeks, EVERYTHING!!! nothing has worked, but I do know that punishment doesn't work so I don't, his body simply doesn't have the control, with my son it seems to be more of a focus issue, he is so focused on what he is doing he doesn't realize that he needs to go, or that he has already gone in his pants, he doesn't even known that he is wet till I tell him, and at this age you can really smell it. so this summer he knows that he is going to have to wear his night time alarm all day every day till he can go two weeks without an accident, and he does have a reward at the end of the two week period so that will help motivate him to wear the alarm, (he will get a cell phone, which is very motivating at his age) I would say that the only thing we haven't tried consistently would be to have my son wash out his "wet" underwear by hand, but everything I've read says that that works really well, maybe we will do that this summer as well.
I do recommend discussing it with your regular Dr/ Pediatrician at her next check up or sooner if you feel you need to, it never hurts to rule out the basics.
if you decide to go with the alarm, feel free to write me and I'll share some easy tips we used with it that made a huge difference for us, or if you have any questions please don't hesitate to ask. Believe me when I say, I do understand!
