Difficult potty training experience, please help!

[HavingAMinute]

After some advice about my nearly 4 year old.

At 2.5 years old she asked for some knickers and started using the toilet while in pull ups. I decided to train and we booked a few easy days around.

Day one she had three accidents and was since dry at home. Rarely, maybe once a month, she'd have a tiny dribble in her knickers where it had started before she'd quite gotten onto the loo.

Since that, at home and out and about she's been amazing. She'll come running down from the top of soft play to go for a wee, and was reliably dry even on holiday in the midst of all the excitement.

Nursery, however. Was a different story. They tried everything. She'd still have 5-9 accidents a day. She then seemed to crack it over Christmas last year when there was some building work going on, and they were in a different area. It went straight back to lots of accidents when they returned to the normal room.

A couple months ago it just.. stopped. She had a good few weeks of being dry 100%.

And again, it has gone backwards, but not only is she having lots of accidents at nursery. She's also having accidents at home now.

• She recognises them and tells me it's happened.
• It is never a full wee, but more than a dribble.
• No signs of infection and clear urine dip.
• GP advice will be sought as she does seem to wee more than most.
• Drinks plenty.
• Sorts herself out after an accident.

I'm struggling with what to do now and, realistically, can't keep up with the washing despite us having a huge amount of knickers!

Thankfully poo is no longer an issue.

She's been going along like this for well over a year and I'm lost. Do I go back to pull ups and start again entirely? Fresh start? Or just.. any other advice? Thanks!

Have you considered if she is at all constipated? If the bowel is full they can’t feel the sensation of needing to wee.
You can call the Eric children’s bladder and bowel charity helpline for advice or see a GP to rule anything else out.

I’d keep a diary over 48 hours of the weekend - log how much she drinks and then catch her wee and measure it. (Not the greatest weekend I’ve ever had and it was mighty stressful!) I had to do this before due to a similar issue with my child and it showed that whilst she was “emptying” her bladder in fact she still had more than twice the urine in her bladder than she should have done. And it was this remaining wee is what she’d have an accident with - so like your child - not a full accident but more than a dribble. same age
my child has other medical issues of which this is one but the referral to urology has taken about 7-8 months just to be seen and start having ultrasounds etc so I’d get the ball rolling with your GP sooner rather than later

Thank you both. She definitely isn't constipated, regular as anything. I knew about the eric website from when she was having consistent diarrhea but hadn't thought of it for bladder, nor did I know they had a helpline. So thank you for that.

I think a visit to the GP is a good idea because it is always dribbles and something certainly doesn't feel right. I sort of assumed it wasn't anything like that because she was so reliable at home and out, but so terrible only at nursery. But now that it had extended to home more, it is definitely worth an investigation.