DD wetting pants every day at school

[tiokiko]

DD is almost 5 and started school in August, unsettled at drop-off at the start but absolutely fine now and having a good time, lovely teacher, lots of friends etc.

She had a couple of small accidents over the first couple of months but in the last fortnight has wet her pants once or twice a day. GP has tested for UTI and all clear, but thinks she may have had an infection as she wasn't herself for a few days and was sick once on 2 separate occasions.

Teacher thinks (and DD says) it's because she doesn't like going to the toilet alone, and because she doesn't like missing out on whatever is happening in class/playground.

Any tips? I have tried ignoring, rewards, am feeling cross now but I know it's not her fault. Is this a phase or something to worry about?

Can they not remind her? I know they're busy....but she's 5! Gosh they should...in my opinion anyway.

They have been reminding her this week but I think they are too 'soft' about it and she just says no thank you... she would still rather keep working/playing.

It can be the same at home sometimes but I am firmer about reminding her to go at particular times so the accidents don't happen here.

DD was exactly the same in reception, she did have a few UTIs but they cleared up after a few weeks. She tried to hold it in too long - like your DD, too busy doing other things. I sent in two sets of spare clothes in her backpack every day and did discuss accidents with her though tried not to tell her off as she only potty trained fully a few months before starting school. She got much better during the spring term. She's in Y1 now and still has accidents every couple of weeks, so far less than before.

Thanks, that's reassuring to hear. I don't want to make a big deal about it but didn't want it to become an established 'thing' either.

I could have written your exact post except my dd is yr1. Dr suggested that she is made to go every 2 hours even if she doesn't need to. This is to train her bladder up to cope with her getting distracted. Then we gradually increase time up to 3 hrs and see how she gets on.
We've only started this today but I found it carried more clout with her teacher to say 'we went to drs, she has no uti, but this is what the Dr said..' DD seemed much happier today as a result so all good so far.

I think the teachers will be happy to try anything if it will help, I just wasn't sure if there is some magic 'cure' or approach that's worth trying. Glad your DD is making progress.

We had a similar issue with DS he would often leave it too late, and kept saying that he didn't like using the toilets as they were dirty. When I fed this back to the reception teacher she turned on us both and said that was a ridiculous excuse he is just not concentrating etc. I had to have a meeting with the head, and he also said that the toilets were spotless and it was DS.

I started volunteering as a reader and we used to sit at a desk outside in the cloakroom. At breaktimes there were 60 children using 8 toilets. I went in to use the toilet and they were all almost completely covered in urine.

So it seemed that DS used to leave it too late and then hop from toilet to toilet to find a clean one (he used to prefer sitting down to wee) and then wet himself.

So we also had to train him to go regularly at the beginning of breaks, to stand up, and not leave it until the last minute. What also helped was to tell him to count to 20 after weeing and then wee a bit more. Also to stop/start mid flow.

But I did get the reception teacher that day and show her the state of the toilets.

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Thats's awful Wally, no wonder he didn't want to go. I don't have any concerns on that score with DD, the toilets are clean and there are enough of them so I think that's OK.

Even at home she would rather wait and wait till the last minute rather than miss 1 minute of playing or CBeebies; I know she can definitely hold on when she needs to though as she is fine on long car/plane journeys.