Weird potty training issue. Sort of.

[BarbecueMom]

I'm not sure what to do about this. DS (will be 5 shortly) has been potty independent for about a year. I don't have to remind him to go, except before we all leave the house. Lately, he's been taking his pants and underwear off after peeing, telling me they're wet, and putting them in the laundry basket. I thought it was just "dribbling" from trying to keep his pants pulled mostly up because it's cold, so I'd been getting him new stuff (his clothes are up high in the closet - he can't reach them), until I realized this was going on every time he used the toilet.

 

So I checked to clothes to see if it was an "aiming issue" or a regression into pants wetting. The "wet" underwear and pants were completely dry. Not a drop anywhere.

 

I asked DS about it, showed him the dry pants, and he keeps insisting they are wet. I told him maybe he just thought they were cold, but he still refuses to put them back on. There aren't enough clothes for him to change his outfit every 2-3 hours, and it's really not warm enough right now for him to go bottomless all day. He'll survive, but it makes me cold just seeing his goose-bumped little legs all over the house (which is what's going on right now after I told him I'd only get him one pair today).

 

Normally this is something that I just roll my eyes and ignore until he grows out of it, but it's one of those "tip if the iceberg" things that's annoying the heck out of me right now. He's never had sensory issues, especially with clothing, and he doesn't seem to care what he wears, as long as it's not what he just took off. I don't think it's a power struggle. I think he really, honestly believes he wet/leaked on his pants. He's very calm about it, only argues that the pants *are* wet, and is not upset that I refused to get more clothes down for him.

 

Anyone dealt with this? Should I just suck it up until he grows out of it?

[Parrothead]

Could they be wet elsewhere than the crotch? Perhaps down one leg or another?

 

Have him hang the pants and unders near a heating vent after he takes them off. Tell him he can put them back on when they are dry. Perhaps just rotating through 2 sets of bottoms will help him out. And if they are not otherwise dirty, let him wear the sets two days in a row to keep the amount of laundry down.

[BarbecueMom]

Could they be wet elsewhere than the crotch? Perhaps down one leg or another?

 

Have him hang the pants and unders near a heating vent after he takes them off. Tell him he can put them back on when they are dry. Perhaps just rotating through 2 sets of bottoms will help him out.

 

I checked the pant legs, also dry. I'll try the rotating pairs. He might forget they're "old" pairs at that point.

[Parrothead]

And even if he doesn't forget, keeping them near a heat source will "dry" them in the hours between potty breaks.

[beaners]

We had this happen for a little while at the same age. I chalked it up to the fact that I'd been complaining about "leaking" when I sneezed, since I was pregnant at the time. :blush: Mine can get their own clothes out, but eventually I laid down the law and said I couldn't be doing all this laundry. There was a bit of resistance, but not so much that it turned into a power struggle instead of the behavior ending. I did ask if there were any symptoms that would indicate a UTI, since that was my first guess at what the problem might be.

[BarbecueMom]

We had this happen for a little while at the same age. I chalked it up to the fact that I'd been complaining about "leaking" when I sneezed, since I was pregnant at the time. :blush: Mine can get their own clothes out, but eventually I laid down the law and said I couldn't be doing all this laundry. There was a bit of resistance, but not so much that it turned into a power struggle instead of the behavior ending. I did ask if there were any symptoms that would indicate a UTI, since that was my first guess at what the problem might be.

 

Holy cow, I didn't even think about the pregnancy thing. I'm 15ish weeks and on my sixth week of bronchitis, so yeah, I'm a little sensitive to the dry pants issue, haha!

 

ETA: I'm also dealing with a 3.5yo who lost his big boy underwear privilege for peeing in inappropriate places (carpet, down the stairs, electrical outlets, etc.). I'm so sick of pee.