No, you don't need to piss every ten fucking minutes AAAARGH.

[BertieBotts]

Any ideas what might be the cause of frequent weeing in a 4 year old? I've taken him to the GP twice to have his urine tested and they say there's nothing wrong with him, but it's driving me mad and especially seems to happen after bedtime, he gets really distressed if I won't let him go, but it goes on for hours and he ends up falling asleep at about 9, 10pm.

He can happily go for hours during the day when distracted by interesting things without weeing, and if I can get him to go to sleep then he's dry in the night for 12 hours or more, and has been since he was about 2 - well before he was potty trained in the day!

When he says he needs to go after bedtime does he actually go? Like is there actually pee?

You have probably already thought of this, but is he using it as a way of staying up longer?

Is he becoming over-hydrated in the hour before bed-time?

What is the length of time between his last drink of the evening and bedtime?

does he drink alot?

i take it nothing else is going on with him health / behaviour wise?

Potty in bedroom, he deals with his own getting up to pee/getting back into bed, and it doesn't incvolve you .... and it will stop, because when you are not there to tell about it, or ask about it, or observe/supervise it, it will be boring.

He squeezes out the tiniest drip and says "Look see, I did need to go!" This is during the day, as I don't tend to go with him at night. Sometimes it's more of a splash than a drip but still not a full wee like he'd have first thing in the morning (or even half of that).

He doesn't drink any more than usual at these times, tends to have a drink from the tap when brushing his teeth, but surely one last wee after story would deal with that.

Urine test I would have thought would rule out a UTI?

He does go by himself - the bathroom is downstairs though and I shut the living room door and let him get on with it but I can hear him up and down for hours and I have to wake him up for nursery in the mornings. Also, he has become anxious about drinking his milk at nursery because he says it makes him need a wee more often and he's worried about losing playing time.

He is extremely upset if he does have a wee accident so it could be fear of wetting himself, but it's very very rare that he does, and I've always been reassuring about it so I don't know what else I could do to help here?

I can see it's a tactic to stay up late but I don't know how to stop it - he gets genuinely upset (not just I've-been-told-off upset) if I don't let him go and I've made it as boring as possible. It happens if I sit in the room with him and it happens if I leave him to it and go downstairs.

Had the same with DD (5) about 6 months ago but it was during the day as well. Basically over thinking it. The GP was great and said that really it's only necessary to go once an hour at the most otherwise your bladder gets used to being empty then you are less able to hold it...vicious circle starts.

So, when she asked to go during the day we would hang on for 5 mins and distract. At bedtime go before bed, up once if she really really needed. She accepted that her body would be able to do its job properly and if she really needed to go fine but mostly she would fall asleep. After a few weeks things were back to normal.

Gosh, that was a bit long sorry. But hope it helps?!

yy to potty in the bedroom as colditz suggests. We have done just this with dd (3ish) and it has worked great.

One word of warning though, is that pajama pants, which tend to fit snugly, seem to be trickier for her to get down on her own (your ds is a little older so might be more dextrous at this!). She had a couple of accidents while trying to manage them, and she was upset by that because she doesn't wet herself much anymore. So we put her to bed in nightdresses or long shirts (no undies) until the phase of needing to go just before sleep passed, which it did, within a week or so of handing the control over to her by putting the potty in the room.

I thought about putting a potty in his room, but am slightly afraid he might kick it over in the dark! He doesn't have a nightlight and I like to switch the hall light off when he's asleep.

The website Eric might be able to help you?

Hmm. I have noticed a pattern which is that if I say I'm watching a grown-up's programme on TV now he tends to fall asleep then. Perhaps because he can hear that I'm there but knows I'm unavailable to him.

Thanks for all thoughts. It keeps coming and going as an issue so they might come in useful.

BertieBotts try putting one of those disposable Panpers bed protector thingies under the potty to protect the floor? Or my sister used to put a large old thick towel folded in two under her kids potty at night, easier to wash than the carpet! Good luck!

It's getting worse now :(

For the last 2 mornings he's cried on drop off to nursery (which he loves) because he's anxious about needing a poo there, usually he saves it for home or the childminder's. This morning I literally had to prise him off me :( which was awful. Then when I picked him up from CM (who said he'd been fine) he started crying and telling me how he needed to do a poo, we showed him CM's toilet seat insert thing but because it was different to the one at home he didn't like it. He spent about 20 minutes sobbing on me or on the floor because he didn't want to go but he didn't think he could wait until he got home.

Eventually got him to leave without being carried out by CM offering to buy a toilet seat exactly like the one we have (Asda cheapie, so no big deal but kind of her) and me promising (as a distraction!) that we could buy chicken nuggets and something for pudding at the shop on the way home, but he still stopped 5 times to do a wee, on a 15 minute walk.

Seriously anybody??

I've been awake for 3 hours because he's been up and down and every time he gets to the top gate he needs a wee again. And then needs to tell me he saw an ant. Or a spider. Or that we need to take some apples next time we go on a walk to see a horse. Or that he's hungry. OF COURSE YOU'RE FUCKING HUNGRY YOU'VE BEEN AWAKE FOR THREE HOURS. Just given up and given him breakfast now. But we've got barely anything in because I've been so tired I haven't had chance to do a shopping order online.

I was late for work yesterday because it took me an hour to get him to leave the house. When I carry him out of the house because I literally cannot wait for him any longer, he screams, hits and bites me. This is NOT normal for him. I've been in tears over it and so has he. I've had four hours' sleep and today was supposed to be a chance to rest and have a less stressful day, that's going well so far :(

It sounds to me like he's become very anxious about something and this is how he is dealing with it. Could you ask for your gp to refer him to a child psycologist

Hi Bertie

Sounds horrible for you both. Poor you. I'm not sure whether I can help much but didn't want to read and run. My Ds is also 4 and since he turned 3 we have had poo issues on and off - luckily more off now (he's 4 and a quarter now). They can get very worked up about these things and I certainly found it very difficult to keep calm myself. I'm sure you know that the more stressed we become the more it gets worse. So do as much as you can to accept the problem and try to keeping smiling on the outside. I know this is very difficult!!
It might be that the bedtime thing started as a distraction from going to sleep, or maybe a security thing (a bit light adults checking the oven is off or whatever) and has grown due to (1) it being noted by you as an issue (Not blaming you for this - Obv it is an issue) and (2) maybe other stresses? Could it be that he has witnessed other children having upsetting wee accidents at nursery??
Sorry I'm going to have to go out now, not sure this was much help. I agree withthe previous post that this is probably anxiety related now but not sure if Gp and child psych needed at this stage - and also they will take time. Calmness, patience by the bucketload and maybe some gentle questioning might be a starting point. Is there anyone who can help by giving you a break over the weekend to recharge your batteries a bit??

I'm sure it is anxiety related. He had a (poo) accident the other day when we were coming home from the childminder's and was really upset about it which I think this must stem from. Even though I was really reassuring about it he was very upset. The frequent weeing has been happening for ages but the anxiety about accidents and the poo thing is more recent (since the accident)

I've noticed a pattern as well that it's happening at change or transition times - so going to bed/transition from awake time into sleeping (although he fell asleep very happily last night without any fuss) and then trying to leave the house in the mornings.

I know it's probably total woo but I got a homeopathic remedy for anxiety for him in the hope that will help - even if it's just a placebo I'm ready to try anything

I cried on my lovely neighbour yesterday as she said hello just as we were leaving for the CM and she told DS not to worry as even her 6 year old still has accidents sometimes. And to come round for a play any time :)

I would take another urine sample in to the doctors just to double check ther is no UTI. My dd is 3.4 and is prone to them and wee's all the time when she has one. I have no advice about the poo thing as dd is a poo refuser, she is on 1 sachet of movicol a day to help. Hope your ds gets better with it soon!

gah there no ther

typos!! I give up, you know what I mean!

Regarding the poo accident, there's a book called 'sneaky poo' which has very good reviews for addressing that type of anxiety. As for the weeing issues etc, is anything else changing in his life at the moment? It does sound like an anxiety response in some ways.

One effect of anxiety is to make us need the toilet - so it could be the more anxious he gets, the more he feels he needs the toilet (and the more likely he is to actually open his bowels too). I'd second the potty in the bedroom idea - he might worry that he won't get to the toilet in time if he does need a wee as its downstairs? Could you get a nightlight in this case? Or maybe give him the option of wearing pull ups or something until this phase passes? With leaving the house, is it an issue because he's worried about needing the loo en route? I'm guessing you already give him a countdown beforehand so he knows to go... It's a classic from my childhood certainly, my mum saying 'just try' before any journeys!

I'd go back to your gp - or talk to your hv and don't let them fob you off if you're worried or need some support/advice.

Good luck, sounds frustrating :(

This may sound like an overreaction, but frequent urination could be an early sign of diabetes. I'm sure your GP may have already explored this option but it may be worth having him checked out if it runs in the family.

It does sound more like an anxiety problem though. Good luck OP

Thanks all. The placebo/anxiety pills seem to (hopefully) be having an effect or perhaps it's the result of a more relaxed weekend, but anyway he seems better. Much less fretting about poo and still weeing often but not as often. We'll see how he is in the morning as I think he might still be worried about nursery, but fingers crossed.

Lemons I've taken a urine sample in to be tested a couple of times now and spoken to the doctor too and I think that was one of the tests they do on it. No diabetes in our family either - I'm quite sensitive to blood sugar levels so have been tested myself a few times but nothing's shown up.

They are v on the ball about that sort of thing glad everything is going a bit better