I am hoping to get some guidance from you great and all knowing Moms regarding my son! He is a happy, healthy, active boy who pees his pants multiple times a day. I am beyond frustrated and I just don't know what to do next.
My son was day time potty trained at 3 years old. He did beautifully for a while (3-4 months). He is now just over 4 years old and has regressed so badly, I'm at a loss. There have been no significant changes in his life that we can link to this regression. We've been struggling with him peeing his pants daily for almost a full year now. (He poops on the potty just fine and has never had an issue with that. He is not night time trained. We'll cross that bridge at a later time).
We have tried everything. Many different types of rewards...toys, stickers, treats, special trips, charts, stars, fun underwear, etc. We have tried positive reinforcement, hugs, high fives, special phone calls from Grandma/Spiderman, etc. We have tried taking away his "big boy" privileges like play dates and staying up "late". We have set a timer for him to go every hour. We make him stay home and not go places if he's wet. For several weeks, we completely ignored his wet pants and the issue itself. I have him helping with his laundry since we go through so many underwear/shorts per day/week. The pediatrician did a urinalysis that came back normal. We have made him wear pull ups. Then, we started making him wear diapers. Lately, he has been wearing underwear with plastic training pants over top hoping it would be so uncomfortable wet that he would want to be dry. We have talked to him endlessly about it. NOTHING has worked long term. Everything worked for a day or two, but after that, he goes right back to peeing his pants.
The fact of the matter is, he just does not care. He is a strong willed child and I thought for a while it was a control thing, but I'm not so sure that's it. He truly does not care. He's not embarrassed. He lies and says he's dry when we can plainly see his pants are wet. He's in preschool 3 days a week. He smells like urine. I'm embarrassed, disgusted, and I'm losing my patience. I love my son more than anything in the world and I would do anything to help him. Any thoughts would be extremely appreciated!! Thanks for reading!
hi, i just wanted to say, i know the feeling. i'm having the same type of problems with my 4yo too. she hasn't had an accident since i've had her go every 30 min. i told her if she can't stay dry on her own she has to go when i tell her to. i'm hoping she will get tired of having to go so often and want to stay dry so that i don't make her do it. i am giving my no chances. once she wets her pants she has to go when i say. if she can keep them dry on her own than she won't have to go try every 30 min.
so far i've only done this for 1 day, and so far no accidents(when i have her go every 30 min). maybe try making him try more often? i don't really have a lot of advice, just what i have started doing. i hope we can both get our kids to go on the toilet on their own soon.
I don't know that I have any great answers, but I'll throw out some thoughts.
First of all, nighttime potty training is completely different from daytime potty training. The body must first develop the hormone to slow urine production at night. Once they show signs of having developed the hormone, by not urinating as much at night, then you can begin training a child to awaken to the sensations of a full bladder by limiting fluids before bed and taking them to the toilet once during the night.
For daytime urinating, I know you said your ds does not have problems with pooping in the toilet, but does he tend to be constipated? Could his bowels be pressing on his bladder, making it more difficult to control his wetting? Could your ds have an over-active bladder?
Does your ds have any sensory issues that might make it more difficult for him to recognize the sensation of a full bladder until it's too late? Two of my kids have sensory challenges that make it so they don't know they need to go to the bathroom until it's almost too late. When they were younger, they had a lot of accidents. Now that they're older (10 & 14yo), they have better bladder control, so they can get to a toilet before they wet themselves, but they still don't know that they need to use the toilet until it's almost too late. Many times when I've sent my kids to the toilet, they've insisted they didn't need to use the toilet, and then they were stunned to see they actually had a full bladder.
Like the PP said, you may just need to insist that your ds use the toilet at regular intervals until he can recognize his body's urges, and be willing to respond to them, better. You can even get your ds a wristwatch with a timer (or silent vibrating timer) to prompt him to go to the bathroom at set times.
OMG, I just came here to post this very thing about my almost 5 year old.
We too have tried everything, from positive to negative, and ignoring it altogether.
And if one more person tells me just to wait until HE's ready, I'm going to scream. We've waited already.
This is threatening to hold him back from school commencement - we have until late January. Schools expect children to be fully toilet trained unless they have a disability. Even that thought is not enough to motivate him. He's an otherwise very bright child who is more than ready for school in every other way.
Doctors, nurses and educators don't seem to have any answers for me.
The only way I can get him to instigate using the toilet is to keep him naked-butted. But, like you, I work 3 days per week and he is in care, so I can't have him naked full time. I can have him naked for 4 days at home, and he will still pee in his pants on daycare days. On the days I don't work it makes me a prisoner in my own home - I've spent 2.5 years trying to toilet train this boy.
OH MY GOODNESS!!! Have you been in my house?!? My son (4 1/2) will have WEEKS that he will regress back to peeing his pants. This has been going on ever since he turned 4. We've gone through the "Does it hurt to pee?" (no) No fever, no hurting...my guess is no bladder infection. So WHY in the world are you peeing your pants? "I just don't want to go potty today." (Oh, I should add, he's been fully daytime pee / poop trained since he was 2 1/2)
This week alone he's had 8 "accidents," and it's only Thursday. Yesterday he peed his pants 3 times. So today I went out and purchased a package of diapers. He's in pull-ups at night, but I was thinking that an actual diaper might make a dent in his little head. This afternoon, after he peed his pants, I put a diaper on him. Screams, tantrums, "Don't make me do this! I don't want to wear this!" Etc. After over an hour of screaming, once he was starting to calm down and would hear me, I went in the room and informed him that, "Oh, by the way, those diapers cost me over $6, which you will pay to me from your piggy bank." (He's BIG into saving his money - he understands now that he can use his money to buy the toy he wants). Screams again. I informed him that babies pee their pants, so babies wear diapers. I was thinking that THIS would get through to him.
Nope, once he was done sleeping off his fit, he started bragging about how he wears diapers now and doesn't HAVE to go potty anymore because he can just pee in his diaper....which, in fact, he has. I told him he could unfasten the diaper and go to the toilet if he had to go, after he told me he wanted me to take off the diaper, etc. Nope...he has just peed his diaper all afternoon. He just asked if he could put on his pull-up for bedtime. I told him that I would change his diaper in a minute, that pull-ups were for boys would would pull them down to go pee while they're awake, but since he just pees in them while he's awake, he could just wear a diaper to bed.
The only threats I have left are telling him that he'll wear it to church and then to preschool next week. Help?!?!?
