4yr old DD keeps having 'accidents'

[AuntieMonica]

i say 'accidents' as she's only doing this at home...

this past 2 weeks DD (4.3yrs) has had more and more wet 'accidents' at home

she holds on and holds off going to the toilet until by the time she gets there she can't control herself and wets over her clothes/floor etc.
she's done it 5 times in the last 24hrs.

she can sit and wriggle and fidget and i'll ask her 'do you need a wee' and she swears blind she doesn't, so i leave it. if she's wriggling again i ask, she denies it..until she finally rushes upstairs by which time it's too late

she is dry at night and has been since she self-trained at aged 2.6yrs, we've only ever had 3 wet beds (touch wood)

she's due to start reception later next week and would be generous and give her the benefit of the doubt if it were nerves, but she's been to a summer playscheme over the break and been fine there. i would take her to the GP but she's fine out of the house and isn't wetting her bed.

i've talked to her about smells, about how difficult it will be to keep changing clothes at school, about how she can prove she's a grown up by going to the toilet..

i'm now wondering what to do..if anything?

help!!!

ds2 goes through phases of this. and ds1 did for a short time

with ds1 i went with it... hoping he would learn when he really needed to go, and he did and it stopped.

ds2 is another case and he just will NOT go even if he is desperate. So I now make him. I will comment when I first see him wriggling and remiind him to use the toilet, if he doesn't and I can see he is getting desperate then I make him go.
Eventually he starts going normally again. But as I say, we have a little blip every now and again.

If he does wet himself then he has to help clean it up and go and find himself clean clothes as well

thank you for your reply thisisyesterday

i do get her to help with the clean up, but she's now trying to hide the fact she's not made it. (only by hiding things behind her back as she walks past on the way to the washing machine btw)

how old is your DS btw, did he potty train easily too?

not that it probably matters, just trying to make/break a connection

he is nearly 4 and he potty trained relatively easily at around 2.5.

She may have a uti... Urine tract infection.
May be worth taking a urine sample to the GP.

i have thought of that too, Mollymax but it's only when she's at home and she never wets her bed, and she gets up to go to the toilet herslef 1st thing in the morning

i will keep an eye out though, thanks for reminding me

We're dealing with this atm. Dd1 is 3.4 years and had only had one accident since she was potty trained 5 months ago, up until a couple of weeks ago when she started wetting herself at least once a day. One day she wet herself six times, funnily enough during her sister's birthday party. Even took a sample to the health centre to check for a UTI. It seems to have been sorted now, in only 4 days - how, you ask? Chocolate button for every wee in the loo, as well as a round of applause.

Has she just started school?

Not yet, Dione, that's the main reason i'm concerned about this, it's inconvenient (and bloody well unneccesary IMO) enough at home, but later this week she'll be starting reception.

I'm sure it's a 'behaviour' issue now - dry bed and she got up to the toilet before she called me to let me know she was awake think she's got a stubborn streak, just like her mother

Ds is exactly the same. It will deny he needs the loo until he us standing there in wet clothes! He started reception last week and I told his teacher about the wriggling/dancing when he needs to go, and she said not to worry ad they take them regularly, and we had no sccifents at all at school

it's good to read we're not alone in this, it's been really useful

i think deep down, i'm still worried DD isn't ready for full-time school, and i'm overthinking this slightly then?

she's made a point of telling me today when she's nipping upstairs, so it IS a behaviour thing...

DS did this not long after starting pre-school. Always a bag of wet clothes on his peg when I collected him.

I spoke to the teacher who said it's common because they learn that they can hold it in so instead of realising they need to go and going immediately, they hang on, but can't judge how long they've got before losing control. It did resolve itself in time although he needs more prompting these days than he did when he first started to use the toilet.

The choc buttons have sorted us out, she's been dry for 4 days now for about 4/5 choc buttons a day. Am starting to "forget" them now, saying we'll do something before we get the button, to distract her. I was prompting a lot before but she would just get cross and deny she had to go and then refuse to go and then wet herself so I don't mind a few choc buttons for a few days rather than all that palaver.

I'm sure it's not recommended in any of the parenting books though!

Maybe she is worried about starting school and picking up on your anxiety that you think she is not ready. They all have blips - I'm sure she will be fine once she is used to school.