What to do about a 3 1/2 yr old who won't stop wetting her pants?

[Dulcinea]

I've tried rewards & taking away her priveleges. She still goes in her pants 1-2 times a week even though she knows she's supposed to use the potty. Any suggestions?

[SoCalDem]

1. Take her to the doctor FIRST..... then

if she gets a clean bill of health, just put her back in diapers.. Buy some pretty frilly underpants, but put them in the drawer. Let her see them, and just tell her that they are "for when she's a BIG girl" and doesn't need diapers. Don't shame her or hurry her.. SDhe'll get it one day:) I had a "tardy trainer" too:)

[SW FL Dem]

2. I agree - this is good advice

Kids develop at different ages and you can't force potty training. The worst thing you can do is make her feel bad about it. My sister in law insisted on potty training her son before he was ready, it ended up taking over a year before he "got" it. They wasted a year washing clothes, sheets etc, (not to mention the stress on my poor nephew) because they refused to realize the kid's bladder wasn't developed enough to have the control necessary to prevent accidents. My son had no interest in potty training until he was almost three, then one day he said I have to go pee in the potty, walked up to his little potty and did it. He was daytime trained in less than a week. Nighttime was another issue, his pediatrician assured me that he was normal and that some kids continue to wet the bed even into their teens. My son wasn't consistently dry at night until he was 6 or 7. He felt bad about it, but we never made it an issue. We knew it wasn't his fault and the guilt was making it worse for him.

[mzmolly]

9. 6 - 7 is a very typical age for night time dryness. And, judging from the

size of goodnights, my guess is many kids aren't dry at night for much longer?

My daughter was 6 before being dry at night as well, but we've only had one "accident" since then, because we made sure she was ready in the first place.

[tavalon]

17. Actually,

the reason there are larger goodnights these days is because of the epidemic of autism but that's a whole other can of worms having nothing to do with this discussion.

[LeftyMom]

3. Don't worry about it

1-2 accidents a week isn't that unusual. LK (age four, but a late potty trainer) is still averaging about that. I would absolutely stop the punishments and rewards, punishing a kid for something she's apparently having a hard time with is at best counterproductive.

Is there a pattern to the accidents? LK tends to make mistakes when he's really involved in his play, or when he's in the car (he hasn't got the hint that he can let us know when he needs a toilet outside the house, I guess) so we're trying to remind him at those times with good results. OTOH, he had a stomach bug earlier this week- yuck.

[AwakeAtLast]

4. I have a similar problem

My 3-year-old can go to the bathroom, but she just won't, meaning that she cannot tell when she has to go. If I get her on the toilet, she will go, but she has *never* told me she has to go. I am going to work with her this summer to see if less clothing helps.

I tried the rewards and taking away privileges, too. Nada. Zilch. Nothing. It does not help that her Daddy left in January with the National Guard, so I have been taking it easy on the potty training stuff. She is signed up for Pre-school in September, so I am hoping that she will want to be fully trained to go to "school". I am hoping. :)

:hi:

[SoCalDem]

5. The truth about 'potty-training'..

Until they go on their own, and don't even tell you, YOU are the one who's trained.

I had one stubborn one, and until I just quit trying, he fought me every day.

Once he figured out that walking around in wet or poopy pants wasn't not that cool, he got his act together. Actually, his 2 yr old broher potty trained himself in ONE DAY..

I had the cute little underoos with planes & fire trucks on them, and the younger one would cry.. "Big boy pants" when I changed him. I told him that No one was getting big boy pants until they used the toilet..

He begged amd begged, so I put them on him.. He spent practically the whole day running to the bathroom, but he never had an accident..Of course, then the 3 yr old got the message pretty quickly, when the younger brother called him a "baby"..:evilgrin:

Your daughter might be dreading the school thing or be apprehensive about it, and the potty training thing might be her "out"..


Don't rush her.. she'll figure it out, and you'll be a saner person when you aren't having that struggle every day :)

[Zing Zing Zingbah]

11. My son is about 3 months shy of being 3 years old.

He will use the potty on his own (without any prompting from me)when I let him run around the house naked. Often he'll use it without me even knowing about it. However, if he wears pants, underwear, training pants, or diapers he won't even try to use the potty. He actually does know how to use the potty and when he needs to go because he has no accidents when he is allowed to run naked. The hard part is teaching him that his clothes and underwear are not diapers. If anyone has any good ideas on how to do this, please let me know. Also, he seems to have a preference for pooping in diapers. If he goes naked all day long, then he might eventually go poop in the potty, but normally he will just wait for bed time when we put a diaper on him to go poop.

[phylny]

12. Who cleans up after him when he has an accident?

Of course, at that age, kids are distracted, but if he CAN do it with no clothes on, I assume he has control.

If you do the cleaning up, shift the responsibility to him. Also, incentives for keeping his big boy pants dry may work (we used stickers and mini-chocolate chips. They worked wonders).

I don't have boys, but I've heard that the "poop" issue can be a tough one, because they may stand up for one, sit for the other, but the same thing may apply - make it inconvenient for him to NOT use the toilet by giving him a hand in the clean up.

Good luck! :)

[wildeyed]

6. My daughter was the same.

She wold get really interested in play and just not make it to the potty in time. Sometimes several times a day. It got very frustrating. But now, at 4 1/2, she is reliable.

The only thing I really did was ask her to change her pants herself when she had an accident. And at 3 1/2 she still needed some help in the dressing department, too, so usually I would end up showing her what direction the underpants went on, etc.

[MrsMatt]

7. Rewards never worked for my daughter

She was night trained at 2 years (so she wore underwear at night), but continued to wear diapers & pull-ups during the day until she was 3 1/2 because she was never reliable about using the toilet.

She still had accidents fairly regularly until she was 5 1/2, primarily because she'd become engrossed in something (even today at 8, she occasionally wets her pants because she's so absorbed in a project that she ignores her bodily clues).

I wouldn't worry unduly - every child matures at a different rate.

[mzmolly]

8. First, don't worry about it. All kids have different times for readiness.

We don't "punish" if they don't *walk* by X age right?

Some kids get distracted and "forget." Nothing you can do will change that. However, one thing we did was "naked" potty training. I bought long dresses for my daughter when she was about the same age as we had the same issue, it seemed to work for us.

Good luck!

[Ilsa]

10. Great advice...try not to make an issue of it...

sometimes kids really can learn quickly what your hot button issues are and use them, passive-aggressively, to get under your skin when they get annoyed.

My oldest son is autistic and he's potty-trained, but it took longer than for most kids, mostly because of delayed neurodevelopment, but also due to difficulty focusing (ADHD) on taking care of his business. He did great after he started a nonstimulant ADHD med.

If I were you, I'd consider keeping up the rewards, but I think I'd can the loss of privileges. Rewards have helped my second child.

[lizzieforkerry]

13. I think 1-2 accidents a week is pretty normal at that age.

All of the kids in my neighborhood seemed to be potty trained except for a few accidents a week. My friends son in 6 and still has accidents so I wouldn't stress too much. At pre-school they are so good about potty breaks for everyone that I really doubt she will have an accident there. And the embarrassment of having one will probably keep her from having another. I know you don't want her to be embarrassed but sometimes peer pressure is the best way for kids to learn. If it really is out of her control you will know because she will keep having accidents even when she is upset by them. Good luck!

[Binka]

14. Peyton stopped wearing diapers at 2.75

She had shown little to no interest up to that point but one day she went pee in the big potty and told me "no more diapers." She proceeded to wear underpants that day and would not put the diaper on at night. I was sure she would be a wet mess in the morning but to my amazement she was totally dry. She turned four in May and she has never had a potty accident nor has she ever wet the bed. EVER.

Now my two boys.... well lets just say..it was nothing like that.

[Ilsa]

15. Sometimes they simply get distracted by all the other

wonderful and fun things they are doing, and they don't realize they are so full and then they can't get there on time. I wouldn't make a big issue out of it at this time.

[electron_blue]

16. Just curious - did things get better for your girl?

[Dulcinea]

20. She's doing much better.

There has only been 1 accident in the past few weeks!! Yay!!

Now for night training.....

[lostnfound]

18. Try to see it as HER choice, have her help, and be patient

I looked at it like this: it's my job to provide clothes, a potty, direction, and to wipe up afterwards.
But it's her job to decide to actually use the potty, and if she has accidents, to help her get them cleaned up. Give her a sense of control not of being controlled. If she is involved in the tasks after an accident of putting the clothes in the wash, putting on new clothes, she will learn natural consequences.

Punishment definitely won't work and is counterproductive. If rewards don't work quickly they won't work at all.
The important point is: Give her a sense of control (over her own body), not of being controlled.

My son cried a couple of times over accidents but I had read an article about how important it was to reassure them that it is no big deal. He looked so relieved when he discovered I wasn't getting mad at him. I would praise him and say "one little accident? it's no big deal, actually you are doing really really well! You hardly ever have accidents...lots of kids have problems with this but you are doing JUST fine!!". It built up his confidence.

Give up on your own expectations that 'she should be trained by now' and so forth. It sends a message to your child subconsciously. Remind yourself that this is your job for now, but in 6 more months this will probably all be behind you.

But I do also agree about discussing it with her doctor to make sure it's nothing physical.

[CornField]

19. Arrange her to be married to my 3.5 year old son?

LOL! He's exactly the same. Today he told me he had to go pee and took off toward the bathroom. Instead of going all the way in, he stopped in the dining room and purposefully peed on the floor! :eyes: If he wasn't so darn cute...

As with most things that are horrible at the time, I'm sure this too shall pass.

[LiberalEsto]

21. when my cats have "accidents"

our vet told me their little bladders are probably irritated, and I should give them plain yogurt. It clears them up in no time.

It's possible your child may be sensitive to some food or have some unexplained little bladder irritation. Try giving extra water, cranberry juice, and a little yogurt. Can't hurt to try.