Is my three year old showing signs of stress?

[saturnvista]

We have uprooted our family to spend a couple of months working in a children's home thousands of miles from our country. Our 3 year old daughter initially seemed to be coping very well with the change but in the last week or two she's had a series of 'accidents'. Some have happened while in the middle of a tantrum (she's used to being the one and only so sharing her parents has been a shock) and some haven't. She has been potty trained for a year and was always brilliant at bladder control. She's also been very whiny in the last few days which is unlike her. We are already concerned but should we be very concerned? What should we do?

Could she have a kidney infection? Something similar happened my son just before starting school, I thought he might be stressed because he suddenly was not making it to the toilet in time. Anyway, it never dawned on me that he might have be sick, he never complained of pain and had no temperature. I eventually brought him to the doctor just to rule out a uti and felt so bad when the doctor said there was blood in his urine. He was fine with antibiotics. I felt so guilty for ages though!
Anyway.
Is there any chance at all that she is sick?

I suppose it's always a possibility and she's been exposed to children who quite frankly could have anything. Thanks for the suggestion, I'll suggest this to DH.

It could also just be her trying to make sense of all the changes, especially if the novelty has worn off somewhat.

quietly suggests

How helpful.

New experiences often carry an element of stress that is part of the learning experience; that's not the same thing 'showing signs of stress' when natural coping mechanisms become overwhelmed. I'm trying to work out where my DD is on that spectrum.

Definitely check for uti. But regression is quite common during big change times. Do your roles allow plenty of one to one time with her and have you recreated her usual routine as far as possible?

It's hard to say OP. A lot of this sounds like normal 3yo behaviour. At the same age ds's tantrums were spectacular (much worse than at 2) and he sometimes lost control of his bladder at the same time. He hadn't been uprooted, was in all other ways entirely happy and settled and had no infections. We just found the 3s generally harder. There's nothing to say your dd wouldn't have reacted the same if things were different. I think you've just got to go with it and try to spend more time just with her to try to help her over this phase, whatever the cause. We focused on helping ds control his emotions or avoided situations we knew were triggers. And we never told him off when he had an accident or threw a tantrum - we helped him label and articulate his feelings instead. He got over it when he got a little older. This kind of reaction is very common in 3 year olds.

Well yes, I would say it's upset and in my book that equals stress. I would expect if you did a search there are thousands of similar posts when someone's brought DC#2 home and the PFB has acted out, tantrummed, stopped being as reliable on the toilet. And that would be with a child who still has their 'home' routines.

I think you need to create a routine as similar to your home one as possible - lots of reassurance, lots of 121 time. And maybe revise your opinions of how 3 yo's cope with 'learning experiences'. Adults get over the stress of the new because they have enough experience to understand it is 'new' and it will get better. 3 yos not so much, i'm afraid.

Thanks for these suggestions.

An excellent GP has seen her and prescribed antibiotics as a urine sample showed the white blood cell count was slightly up.

We've been living separately from the children's home to maintain a stable home life and have made sure that there is lots of one-to-one time every day. She actually really enjoys going to play with her friends at the children's home. But it's still a change and we recognise that.