Is it common for a 3.5 year old to frequently have wet accidents?

[outthere]

My DS is 3.5, he has sensory processing disorder, low muscle tone and Autistic traits.

He was fully potty trained but recently he seems to have regressed slightly. He obviously still feels the urge to go and tries hard to hold it (evident from holding his bits and hopping around!). I repeatedly ask him if he needs to go but he ignores me. Sometimes he will go if I pick him up and place him on the toilet. Frequently though his hopping and clutching will go unnoticed and he'll wet himself... sometimes a little and sometimes a lot. He seems to never ask to go for a wee off his own back any more.

Is this a typical 3 year old phase or something I should be more concerned about?

My NT DSs went through phases of getting too absorbed in their play to want to break off and go to the toilet. I think it's fairly common but blooming annoying. My DS with ASD at 11 still won't go to the toilet for no. 2s without prompting, but never has wet accidents.

It may be a combination of ordinary stubbornness and a bit of hypo-sensitivity. Does he get upset when he has an accident? If they just don't care it can be tricky. My NT boys grew out of it eventually, certainly by 4 but these things can take longer with SEN. If it's really getting to be a worry ask to be referred to the enuresis nurse.

A boy at 3.5yrs I would say it was common to be wet and not even potty trained. We didn't even get help with potty training until ds was 4 and going to school 3 months later and he was still wet. And even then I was being told by the paed that really with boys they don't like to refer to the continence team until they're 5.

I would say it is fairly common for a 3.5 year old boy to still need to be told to go to the toilet, with or without SN's. I work with pre schoolers and many of them still have accidents, some regularly. We know the children who need to be sent to the toilet and some of them will still not go unless you actually go with them and make sure do. [Hope that doesn't sound wierd]

If I were you I would take him to the toilet every hour or so until he starts telling you that he needs to go.

Also my Dgd [NT]has been toilet training for 12 months now and she still wets herself most days, the trouble with her is that her other Nan started tiolet training her too early when she wasn't ready and she actually doesn't care about having wet knickers on. Don't know how we are going to tackle this yet but I am going to be her carer during the day from September so I guess it will be down to me to sort it.

Good luck.

Thanks everyone, just feel like I have no sense of what's "normal" sometimes!

Slight concern that he really doesn't care when he's wet but really good to know that it's generally nothing to worry about.

Thanks!

I've read that children with asd like the feel of wet clothes on their skin as it's heavier. My son is pretty much dry 100% during the day but is very erratic when it comes to night time. He doesn't let me know when he's wet either, so I always have to check round midnight & we get the massive kick off if I do have to change him. I've told him to shout me in the morning if he's wet but he just says he doesn't want to. Also he'll never get out of bed until one of us has gone in to get him up. Being wet just doesnt seem to bother him at all.

Funnily enough outthere we were having a discussion around children with SN and tiolet training at work today, I know sad lives we have. But my thoughts on the subject were that if a child has a developmental delay in some areas especially understanding then it would follow that they are going to be later to toilet train. Don't know how true this is but it was something that came up today.

Babe... the opposite is true of several ASD Dc's that I know including Dd3, they absolutly hate being wet. Dd3[8] will still strip off a top just because a tiny bit of the sleeve is wet..

Ineedalife - Odd cos sometimes ds is the same. If he gets a tiny bit of dinnner on his top or on the table I have to clean it instantly. It's weird how he goes from being over sensitive to under sensitive. But then again if I started listing the things I don't "get" I could be here all day :)

BabeRuthless - I could have written that!!! If he gets even the tiniest drip of water on his trousers he insists that they're changed.

Other times he'll walk around seemingly oblivious that he's soaked in wee.

He's the same with pain. Sometimes he's so hypersensitive that even a little bump will send him screaming like he's cracked his head open; other times I've seen him scratch his hand to pieces on thorns (bug hunting roll eyes) and he's so absorbed he doesn't even notice he's bleeding!