4 year old wetting

[DinoGreen]

Hoping someone might have some advice as I’m at my wit’s end with my 4 year old DS.

We potty trained him at 2.5, in hindsight perhaps he was a bit young, but he picked it up quite quickly. However, after a few months he then regressed and began wetting himself a lot. Things improved again after a few more months, but ever since we seem to go through phases of him wetting. I finally thought we were there around 6 months ago, but in the last few weeks it’s started again.

He does not wet himself leaving a huge puddle on the ground and never has. He simply doesn’t go when he needs to and lets a bit of wee out. Then maybe a bit more and a bit more until he can’t hold it anymore and then he’ll dash to the loo. But this means that his pants and often his trousers/shorts too are wet and need changing.

He is absolutely capable of going when he needs to as the problem I describe above almost exclusively occurs when we are at home. If we go out for the day, he’ll happily stay dry the whole day. He’s at nursery 3 days a week until he starts school in September, and hasn’t been sent home from there with any wet clothes for a very long time. But when we’re at home, he just can’t be arsed.

I feel like I’ve tried everything - positive rewards for staying dry (he never manages to get the reward), negative consequences (no treats, time out) and natural consequences (making him stop playing, go and get changed himself, put wet clothes in the washing machine etc). He’s very articulate and I’ve tried discussing it with him, he simply says he gets distracted and doesn’t know when he needs to go.

He’s never been dry at night but I’m not worried about that. I just want to stop washing sometimes as many as 3 or 4 pairs of wet pants and trousers a day, if we’re at home all day.

As I said he goes through phases and it may be that lockdown/change of routine/starting school in September has unsettled him, but I really think it’s just that he can’t be bothered and I’m so fed up!

Any advice?

[DinoGreen]

Bumping to see if anyone has any advice ☹️ Only one pair of wet pants today but that was with me reminding him to go to the toilet every 45 mins or so ...

[TigerQuoll]

Maybe you need to force him to go every half an hour (use am egg timer so it is something external telling him he has to go rather than you), explaining to him it is because he can't work out when to go himself. I am sure that will get very annoying for him, constantly interrupting his games. You could reward him for being dry for a week by the next week only reminding him every 45 minutes. If he has an accident then go back to half hourly. Then maybe an hour, then if that is successful he no longer is forced to go, but it will come back if he starts having accidents again. Maybe this will trigger with his desire to be a big boy (progressing to longer times then no reminder) as well as wanting to avoid the annoyance of having to interrupt what he is doing at a time he doesn't choose himself.

[happygolucky6]

I don't know if this will be helpful but in my family we've resorted to putting a ping pong ball into the toilet with a smiley face on and getting the little boys to aim for it. It's light enough it never goes anywhere and they see it as some sort of fun game so enjoy going. Maybe try something like that? That way he will think about it more. X