8 yr old DS is wetting pants

[changename]

I'm a regular poster who is desparate for advice, or for someone to say he's not the only one .....

for a while now my 8 yr old DS has wet pants by bedtime. We have spoken about it for months now, asking does he realise he is doing it, is he worried about asking to go to the toilet at school, etc, etc.

But he never really gives an answer, he is trying to say he isn't aware of it happening, but I know he is. We've seen how he won't tear himself away from a playstation game, or a game with friends outside, so thinks perhaps it's easier just to let some leak out .... I just don't know.

Should I take him to a Dr, I know night-time bedwetting can go on for sometime into school age children, but can daytime wetting too?

Please help!

Has he always done this or is it a fairly recent thing? If it is recent I would ask for a urine specimen to be taken and have it tested for an infection. If not then ask the gp to refer him to the hospital for a proper check up. They can to ultrasounds and xrays to make usre everything has formed properly, adn will advise you on options that may help him reduce the amount of times he does this. Also do a google search for Eric, they have a lot of info.

Janh is our resident expert on urine though

thanks lou33

Is this an ongoing thing? If it has come on suddenly then it could be an emotional thing or a bladder infection. If it is long term I echo what Lou33 has said. Have a chat with the doc.

Is your ds upset by it? Or does he just shrug it off as one of those things?

just been on the eric website, don't know if it made me feel worse or better!.....

hmb, it has been going on a long time, I worry is it something deep and psychological, or is it little bladder, bits not working? Hard to know and DS doesn't help me figure it out!

He pretends it doesn't happen, I will sometimes find the pants hidden inside the shorts in the dirty bin, if we see them (or as in tonight smelt) then he just says "sorrrreeeee", followed by me saying "but why?????".

I've asked him to try really hard this week, and that if there is no improvement I am taking him to the Doctors.

My 7 year old has the odd accident - one weekend he had four in one day (I was not happy!) Basically he gets so engrossed in what he is doing he leaves it til the last possible second to go and then can't hang on to it long enough to get his trousers down. If your son is dry at night (mine isn't) I wouldn't worry too much - perhaps taking him to the doctor might just push him into taking it a little more seriously though. Perhaps because I have made it my policy never to get mad about accidents my ds1 now goes "ah well...I'll just get a dry pair." Grrrr.

marthamoo, thanks, I'm like you, have always tried to be low key about accidents when they were little etc, and now I want to scream!

I dropped him off at school today, and said "what are you concentrating on today" and he said "pants"!

We shall see.

Janh resident expert are you about?

thank you beetroot for the resassuring post.

I am trying to be calm (I am in front of him) but not inside myself!

I think because it's been for so long, you wonder will it ever right itself. Does he continue out of laziness because I don't freak out, or is there a genuine problem.

changename - does this happen at all at night? I think you really do need to visit your GP asap and exclude physical illness, such as infection or diabetes, to know how best to approach this.

beetroot, I really agree with your first post, I worry about friends noticing the smell and then the teasing starting, which then tends to stick. He never wets himself fully so that it shows through his school trousers or shorts, thank goodness.

Night time has never been a problem, he was dry at 3 and has only wet the bed twice (bizarre I know!) so there has to be bladder control there!

Thanks for second website, we posted at the same time. Amazing what can be found on the web. Also makes you realise that it's not that unusual. Yet there is no way I'd ask one of the Mum's from school whether or not her son, by any chance, still wet his pants! Oh the joys of mumsnet.

If it makes you feel any better, dd1 and dd2 aged 12 and 7 are still not dry at nihgt. Dd1 is soaked every night, and dd2 is about 50% of the time.

Calling Janh for her input!!

So if ds is OK at night, doesn't sound like it's a physical illness (though now someone is bound to tell me there is something medical that could cause daytime wetting but not night time). Just it would have been awful for you/ds to spend ages on behaviour modification and then find out that it couldn't have helped anyway.

I missed this before but I'm sorry , I can't help with daytime wetting like this; DS1 used to be damp most of the time and wet at night too and his problem seemed to be that his bladder would let go whenever it had more than about a tspful in it! We did work at increasing his functional bladder capacity and that did help him.

As your DS is dry at night, changename, it does sound like hanging-on-too-long wetting, not a medical or capacity problem - does he do it at home too or is it just at school? Only if it's just at school, it could be that the school toilets are are not very nice so he avoids using them - do you always remind him to go when he's at home? If so it would be interesting to hear if he would still wet if you don't remind him (I know you said he hangs on because he's reluctant to leave games etc but not whether he actually does wet himself at home too.) (IYSWIM!)

Not much help, sorry!

I had this problem with one of my boys, until he was about 8 or 9. He was fine at night, no accidents at all, but often had damp patches during the day. It started well after he was potty trained and I really do think it was because he was too engrossed in whatever he was doing at the time, and a little bit leaked out. Once he was at school he never seemed to do it there but it would happen after he got home. I never found a solution, but he just stopped doing it eventually, thank goodness. I did get to the stage where he was the one who had to sort himself out, though, with clean pants etc. Good luck.

thanks Suedonim and Janh.