Does the Christmas break (or any prolonged school break) make anyone else’s children unrecognisable? Our DS will be five in a fortnight and has always been a brilliant sleeper, 12 hours, 1900-0700. Dry in the day and night since 3 years old, no issues. Pretty much Boxing Day onwards, it’s like someone came and swapped him for a different child. He now will not sleep before 2100, and is absolutely obsessed with going for a wee. If I put him to bed at 1900 he wants to make 5+ trips to the toilet to squeeze out the tiniest drop of wee. He said he feels like he needs to go, so I took him to the GP incase it was a UTI - nothing, completely clear. They’ve referred us to the hospital just incase, but he has no other physical symptoms.
He started school in September and has definitely had a hard time adjusting to the routine and the structure of school - he went to a Montessori style outdoor preschool so his experience to date had very much been free play outdoors. He has a nice balance in our routine - he’s a good eater and his meal times are generally pretty standard, he gets lots of play with us, I do loads of 1:1 time with him and he has a lovely friendship group that we see regularly for soft play/park trips. We had a very good routine over the Christmas holidays - bedtime was the same, lunch and dinner times the same time every day. I didn’t over schedule or over commit us - he had at least 8 days spread out over the break where we didn’t have any plans at all, loads of time for him to hang out with us, lots of time walking the dog outside, I played with him and his new toys loads, as well as him having independent play.
So I am a completely loss of what to do. Initially I was strict and got annoyed and told him “this is the last wee before bed now go to sleep” because I thought he was just messing around, but it just resulted in him becoming even more obsessed with it and upset. I bought some pull up pants to try and ease his worry/obsession - hasn’t particularly helped (and they’re dry every night so once he’s asleep he’s definitely not weeing). The last couple of days I’ve tried a very laid back approach and just let him get on with it - I’ve said to him I’m not going to get cross about it, thinking after a couple of trips to the bathroom he’d get bored and go to sleep. But nope - he was still standing in the living room trying to start a conversation at 2130 after making 7 trips to the bathroom to deposit one drop of wee in the toilet. I spoke to his teacher and she said since he’s been back he has been weeing more in the day, he does want to go more frequently at home too but if he’s watching a movie for 2 hours, miraculously doesn’t mention it!
I am totally at my wits end - I can’t work out if it’s medical, behavioural or just emotional. I’ve asked him if he’s worried about anything or if something has happened and he said no, he likes being at school and is happy. I’ve tried different approaches and none of them work. Is it just a phase?? Do I ride it out?! Am I creating a monster by allowing him to keep going to the bathroom after bedtime? Would it be worse to be super strict again and make him more anxious/upset and it turns out to be medical? The whole thing is trashing my sleep because he’s very late falling asleep and then waking in the night/early saying he wants the toilet. I have no idea what to do - has anyone been through this?!?