Almost 7 year old still wetting herself every day, at breaking point

[soupmaker]

DD1 has come home from school and after school yet again having gone through 3 sets of underwear and 2 skirts.

I'm at breaking point.

She is on medication. We have tried bribery, star charts, being annoyed, withholding tv, making her clear up her own mess.

Nothing works. Nothing. We've had support from a continence nurse for over 3 years and frankly it's getting to the stage of being pointless for all the help it's been.

I've spent hours on the ERIC website.

I just don't know how on earth to support my DD1 to just go to the toilet when she needs. Or will she become the little girls everyone shuns because she constantly smells of wee.

What does the continence nurse have to say? Are they testing her for anything medical which could be causing it?

I assume she has been thoroughly checked for constipation and that it's being managed if so?

Chronic constipation is the problem with my DD. She's 6 and we have only cracked reliable daytime dryness in the last six months.

Sorry. I should have given you the whole story. She was chronically constipated and still on daily movicol but after years of soiling has done brilliantly for the last 5 months. Not one poo problem. She's so proud about it which is lovely.

Every time her wee gets really smelly I get her tested for a UTI. Poor DD1 had a UTI three weeks ago which got zapped with antibiotics.

I guess I should be glad we are not having poo problems at the moment. But years of wet pants is just getting me down.

Continence nurse hasn't much to say. She reckons medication levels are fine. It's behavioural and because DD1's normal is wetting means she doesn't care.

Poor you. It does drive you to distraction.

We were told that poo and wee were inextricably linked as chronic constipation means you lose the sensation of needing to go. So I wonder if your nurse is being a bit simplistic in saying it's just behavioural - she may need a lot of help in recognising the sensation? If she's very proud of being soil free that doesn't suggest to me that she's not bothered.

How much movicol is she on? We were told to increase DDs movicol until she was pooing every day, no exceptions, and no soiling at all. Then keep it that way. Two sachets a day does it for us.

Are you trying the approach of sending her to loo whether she needs it or not at regular intervals?

Drinking plenty also seems to be important for DD.

DD1 takes 1 sachet a day. Seems to be working as she does at least one poo a day. In fact she pretty much always did.

I do wonder how much DD1 feels. She was diagnosed as having an irritable bladder 3 years ago for which she has medication.

The wetting happens in afternoons. Never mornings. DD1 is encouraged to drink lots of water but there is only so much we can do when she's at school. I work 4 days a week so don't see her til 5pm on those days.

She is a withholder so will wait and wait to go to the loo. That plus urge incontinence is just a bloody awful combination.

She used to have a reminder watch to make her go to the loo every 2 hours. Made not a jot of difference.

Could she be scared of the school toilets? DD (7) is quite a nervous wee thing, and just can't go to the loo on her own at school. If she can go at break with a friend she is ok, but sometimes she comes out of school and I have to rush her to the loo.

No. She's a fabulously confident little girl who happily goes to the loo at school. I thought school toilets would be a nightmare, but she's quite happy with them. She'll go anywhere - which is at least one big plus as long as she goes on time. She's very happy going outside still as well.

Oh bless her. One sachet a day is a teeny dose - what cracked it for DD was the move up to two per day, even though we thought she was pooing pretty regularly at that stage.

Maybe just ask for two and/or try two for a bit, see if it helps?

Will try upping the movicol. She'd been on two but it made poos very soft and hard to clean up after for her. You can't win it would seem!

is she emptying her bladder completely with these accidents or smaller amounts?

Hi,

I was like this as a child. My mum and dad and would do the charts, the bribery etc. It was pointless - I wasn't deliberately wetting myself so how could I choose to stop (which is what charts and rewards imply)?

There were some preventative tatics that worked - no drinks in the hour or so before bed and having a watch with an alarm set for every hour to remind me to go to the toilet. Also every time we passed a toilet my mum would ask me if I needed to go. The aim was not to let my blader get too full. Eventually, after many visits to doctors and hospitals where they guessed what was wrong with me, I grew out of it. Pretty much overnight.

Hope things improve.

I had this problem too and it was very frustrating! Eventually someone said to me 'don't worry about it too much it's highly unlikely that she'll be coming home with wet pants when she's 15' and they were right

She wet herself regularly until she was about 9 and still had wet nights up until 12. I was a master of the double/triple sheeting thing (plastic sheet, sheet, plastic sheet, sheet, whip one layer off when wet and sling it in the corner until morning).

She's absolutely fine now (15yrs), sometimes you just have to ride these things out. Good luck!

She very rarely has a full bladder accident. It's nearly always just very damp pants.

I instinctively know she can't help it because she managed to stop sucking her thumb literally overnight without even a suggestion of reward, and is so eager to please and be proud of herself.

These replies do give me hope. (Sorry I'm on iPhone so hard to name check). We haven't even attempted to get dry at night - too much pressure. But every now and then she is.

I suspect DD2 who is 15 months will be dry before DD1. The thought of DD2 having the same problem gives me cold sweats.

Tesco do a thing called Dry Like Me, which are essentially a little pad yo go in your childs normal underwear which could stop her wetting through and any odour.
I don't think they are a Tesco product, but it's where I found them when ds was still wet at night at 7.

Have a look at my thread in behaviour and development when you're ready to tackle nights, I had lots of support and advice on there.
He's 7.11 now and have started saying that he's dry at night without crossing my fingers now

My heart sank a little when you said that you'd tried bribery, star charts, being annoyed etc., because I had this problem as a child and would have done anything to not have accidents but could not control it. I always had bladder problems, and it was found that I had a faulty valve between my kidney and bladder. I had lots of tests in hospital, but it literally just seemed to stop overnight when I was about seven. Has your DD had any X-rays of her bladder? Could it be a similar thing to what I had?

I feel your pain op, my ds is the same age and we are going through the same thing, although he soils as well.

I will try movicol to se if that helps.

My ds has had ultrasounds, x rays etc and the pead says his nerves are fine. She offered him counselling . We got referred to the enuresis clinic but got a letter telling us that there was a waiting list so too bad.

At our school the children with similar problems have a special subtle signal they give their teacher and then they can leave the class without asking and disrupting to go to the loo. This depends on where they are sitting otherwise they can just leave the table to go to the loo.

Hope this helps.

She needs to be taken to the loo every hour

DD1 used the Dry Like Me pads to help when she started school, but actually they became a bigger problem as she was soiling and wetting then and not changing them so became sore. Was heart breaking.

Her class teachers have been great. She can go to the toilet whenever she needs without asking.

I've had contradictory advice about toileting every hour. Nurse said not to as then she'll not know what a full bladder feels like. GP suggested it so she'd get into a routine. She did wear a watch for a year and half which reminded her to go every 2 hours - made no difference.

I have long since stopped all bribery, charts, etc, as they just put pressure on DD1 and she's set up to fail which is useless. I try very hard not to be annoyed but have days when I fail miserably.

We've had an ultrasound but no X-ray.

Poor DD1 also recently had a horrid UTI, the first she's had, and I worry they will become more frequent.