Calling Dr. Hive - anyone have an older child with frequent potty accidents?

[blondeviolin]

My oldest has had issues since potty training and we've been seeing a specialist, but I'm fed up and confused and wondering if anyone has any experience in this before I type up my entire novel. :D

 

:bigear:

[ChristusG]

We are STILL working on potty training my 4 year old. She turned four at the beginning of March. She refuses to poop in the potty....has never, ever done it. She'll go in her pull up or underwear. She's pretty good about peeing in the potty, but she still has accidents with that too.

 

I am FED UP. She won't even attempt to try to poop in the potty. Instead of running to the potty when she feels the need to go, she will run into the closet. So I KNOW that she knows the feeling of when she has to go.

[dcurry]

I had one who was 4 1/2 before he was potty trained at ALL. He had some sensory issues, and we went to therapy. They suggested giving him "deep pressure" at home several times a day for only 2 minutes at a time. This required me firmly squeezing (not so it hurt or bruised him, but firm pressure) the limbs starting at the tips (tips of fingers) all the way up to the shoulder, and then each foot starting with the toes and going all the way up to the thighs. Each limb had to take 30 seconds, so I tried to move slowly and make sure he was feeling the pressure. I'm not sure how it helped, but I (at the time) had 3 in diapers and NEEDED him trained, and was desperate to try anything. So at each diaper change (or you could do this at each accident during the day), I took 2 minutes out to do this even if we were in a hurry or late to go somewhere.

 

It seems it was only a month or two of consistently doing this with him that he was completely potty trained, day and night, and has not had an accident since. (This was amazing to me, since my daughter was 8 and still had accidents at night, and my other kids still had accidents occasionally during the day if they were busy or didn't make it in time- but this one child honestly has not had an accident since). I don't even make him use the bathroom before a long car ride. I don't mention the bathroom to him at ALL now. (He is now almost 10).

 

Just thought I'd share what helped with us. I hope you figure it out. Though it doesn't seem to me to be all that common to be "accident-free" at 4.

[Wyndie]

My oldest was 5 before he was even potty trained and he had night time accidents until he was 7... when I discovered gluten was the culprit. Since pulling gluten from his diet, he hasn't had any accidents.

[JaniceO]

This may not be what you're looking for, but I thought I'd go ahead and share anyway. My 5 year old (turns 6 in August) was fully potty trained shortly before she turned 2 (like a month or so before her birthday). She did it on her own with very little pressure from us.

 

For the past almost 2 years or so, she has had lots of problems. At first, I thought it was just a phase and she'd grow out of it. The first time I took her to the Dr. was in October 2009. They gave her a urinalysis, said she had a UTI, gave her antibiotics and said that would take care of it. She continued have wetting accidents with the occasional bm accident.

 

In April 2010, I took her back to the Dr. (saw a different Dr. this time) and he said it sounded like constipation. Felt her stomach, ordered a urinalysis, and said to giver her Miralax. So, we've been giving the Miralax on and off since then. At first, we thought it was helping, but even after we lowered the dose, she was having not only wetting accidents, but also bm accidents. We pretty much stopped giving it to her, with giving it another try every couple of months.

 

I just took her back to the Dr for the same problem because I am getting fed up with it. We saw yet another Dr. and this time, she ordered an xray and urinalysis. The xray showed that she was full of excrement and gas. Dr. said to try fiber gummies. The urinalysis shows that she has e-coli, so an antibiotic was also prescribed. The previous Dr. had mentioned e-coli on the urinalysis results but shrugged it off as a "bad catch" and didn't order another test.

 

She has been on the fiber gummies since Thursday and the antibiotics since Saturday. Yesterday (Sunday) was the first dry day she's had in a LONG time!!! She did wet the bed last night, but I want to conquer the daytime accidents first.

 

Again, I'm sure this isn't what you're looking for, but I thought I'd put it out there just in case these things haven't been checked yet. Constipation sounds weird to be the cause of wetting accidents, but the way the last doctor explained it made perfect sense.

[blondeviolin]

This may not be what you're looking for, but I thought I'd go ahead and share anyway. My 5 year old (turns 6 in August) was fully potty trained shortly before she turned 2 (like a month or so before her birthday). She did it on her own with very little pressure from us.

 

For the past almost 2 years or so, she has had lots of problems. At first, I thought it was just a phase and she'd grow out of it. The first time I took her to the Dr. was in October 2009. They gave her a urinalysis, said she had a UTI, gave her antibiotics and said that would take care of it. She continued have wetting accidents with the occasional bm accident.

 

In April 2010, I took her back to the Dr. (saw a different Dr. this time) and he said it sounded like constipation. Felt her stomach, ordered a urinalysis, and said to giver her Miralax. So, we've been giving the Miralax on and off since then. At first, we thought it was helping, but even after we lowered the dose, she was having not only wetting accidents, but also bm accidents. We pretty much stopped giving it to her, with giving it another try every couple of months.

 

I just took her back to the Dr for the same problem because I am getting fed up with it. We saw yet another Dr. and this time, she ordered an xray and urinalysis. The xray showed that she was full of excrement and gas. Dr. said to try fiber gummies. The urinalysis shows that she has e-coli, so an antibiotic was also prescribed. The previous Dr. had mentioned e-coli on the urinalysis results but shrugged it off as a "bad catch" and didn't order another test.

 

She has been on the fiber gummies since Thursday and the antibiotics since Saturday. Yesterday (Sunday) was the first dry day she's had in a LONG time!!! She did wet the bed last night, but I want to conquer the daytime accidents first.

 

Again, I'm sure this isn't what you're looking for, but I thought I'd put it out there just in case these things haven't been checked yet. Constipation sounds weird to be the cause of wetting accidents, but the way the last doctor explained it made perfect sense.

 

This is EXACTLY what I'm looking for. THANK YOU!

 

Abby didn't potty train until after three and she has never had a dry week. EVER. We saw a urologist who suggested the constipation thing too since her x-ray shows a fair amount of excrement. It was (and, frankly, still is) a surprise to us because Abby's tummy never gets distended, her pedi never palpated any thing, she's never complained her stomach hurts or her bowels are too difficult or ANYTHING.

 

Everything else checked out: she has good pelvic floor activity and the last time she saw the urologist her post-urinary ultrasound showed she completely emptied her bladder.

 

We haven't had a great run with the Miralax which is what the urologist has suggested TWICE now. It makes her super loose and she ends up with bowel accidents. So then I lower the dose (which ends up being nearly non-existent) and then she has accidents (though, even on the Miralax she had accidents). Obviously I'm not pleased with the results we're getting from daily Miralax.

 

So now I wonder if it IS constipation (since we would have never pegged her as constipated anyway) or is it something else? And if it IS constipation, do we try something else? I think I'd rather give fiber gummies than Miralax...maybe we'll try that.

[redsquirrel]

I have a son with low muscle tone. He has low feedback from his bladder and can't always stop the dribble.

 

What works for us, on the suggestion of the ped, is to have him try to pee every two hours or so. If he goes on his own, then I mentally reset the clock.

 

We expect he will grow out of this. He has got so much better in the just the past year.

 

He just turned 6.

[mothergooseof4]

My oldest had constipation issues from birth. I won't go into details, but it was often traumatic and we did the Miralax thing, too.

 

When it came time to pt, he did just ok with wetting. BMs were a no go, though. He refused. I tried everything including rewards, encouragement, sitting frequently, threats, and I am sad to say...punishment. At the time it just seem a battle of wills and when he was over 5 and still went in his pants, well we knew that he KNEW better...he just refused. It didn't take but a couple of times to see that he was still more afraid of pooing than whatever consequences were in store. That's when I realized that he actually associated bms with pain. He would hold it for so long that he would eventually have wetting accidents because in order to relax to pee, he would also relax his spincter and poo. He feared it so much, he just held it until his body had no choice.

 

I talked to docs about it and they just kept recommending Miralax. That would make him go, but didn't solve the issue that I still had a 5yo pooing his pants. I finally got on the SL forums and a mom that was a PT told me to take baby steps. His fear was a real one and overcoming would take time. She suggested telling him that pooing anywhere in the house was not acceptable (he did wet in the potty unless he had been fighting back a bm) and just get him to go to the bathroom, but no more. After a week or so, we then told him that he was not allowed to mess up his clothes. I used cloth diapers for the baby at the time, so he was to remove his pants and stand over the diaper. Eventually he worked up to cleaning himself up, but for a LONG time I could not get him to move beyond this point.

 

Finally, when he was 7 and a half....YES 7!!!!! We were at a friend's house playing. I realized that he was holding back a bm and had leaked into his pants. I told him we had to go home. He started crying. I told him that he was not in trouble, but that holding his poo was unhealthy. If he couldn't do it where we were, we just needed to go home so that he could go. He promptly went into the bathroom and had his bm on the toilet. After that, I insisted that he do the same at home and he complied. I think he finally had the motivation to overcome his fear.

 

For the record, this kid has no developmental issues. This was just an intense fear brought on by horrible constipation when he was young. At the time, I felt like a horrible mother! Like someone told me though, your kid is not going to go to college and still be having potty accidents. This too shall pass and seem like a minor thing.

 

Hugs to you!

[NoPlaceLikeHome]

My ds was close to 5 before being fully potty trained despite trying every trick in the book and I think it was mostly that he was not physically ready. Constipation may have contributed some but not much I think. Some kids simply are not ready IMHO. As for night time bed wetting some kids experience this normally till they are 7 to 8ish. Ask your doctor.:grouphug:

[dirty ethel rackham]

FYI, with the Miralax ... it is not a cure. It will only help clean out the excess stool. Sometimes holding back all that stool will cause the colon to enlarge, thus making it difficult to feel the urge to have a bm. I wouldn't use BM accidents as a reason to stop the Miralax, but a sign that the body is on its way to healing. It may take time to clean out all that excess stool. It is a good idea to plan on being home for a few days while the body is cleaning itself out.

 

Miralax alone will not work without behavior modification to help retrain the body to handle the signals to evacuate. What our ped GI told us was to take the child to the bathroom about 20 minutes after each meal and have them sit for 15 minutes. This takes advantage of the peristaltic action in the colon that is stimulated by having a meal. There are also other methods for dealing with slow stool evacuation leading to accidents, but that is a conversation for another day. BTDT.

[JaniceO]

Blondeviolin,

 

I'm glad I could post something semi useful then! My DD is Abby too. She never complains about her stomach or having trouble with BM's either. They were always a slightly runny consistency, but that's it. I ask her if it hurts to pee and she always says no. We originally tried the Miralax out over a several week period and it was just constant BM accidents. We were in the process of moving from Italy to Washington, so staying home wasn't an option. That's why we stopped giving it to her. We've tried it several times since then, but always with the same results.

 

She likes the fiber gummies much better! And they seem to be doing the same thing without the accidents. TMI alert, but her BM's look much more normal and there's more to them. The doctor said she had a little boy with the same problems with the Miralax and the gummies worked better for him.

 

My Abby also has the ecoli issue, which the doctor said could be causing the accidents as well. She got the ecoli from not properly wiping.

 

I'm not sure which is the biggest contributer of the accident problems, but as of right now, things appear to be getting better.

[SailorMom]

My youngest was potty trained by 4, but had accidents all the time. He would get so involved in what he was doing, and would just forget until it was too late. That just took time. At night, though, he would wet the bed - all the time. After ruling out medical issues, we determined he was just a heavy sleeper, and tried an alarm system that goes off when it senses even the tiniest bit of moisture. It took about 5 months - after that - no more problems at all :)

[FrogMom5]

Our oldest trained at about age 4. Once trained though, he continued to wet the bed until he was around 10 or so. We tried a lot of things but, in the end, he just grew out of it. We did not use pull-ups, put a plastic covering on the mattress on the bed and changed the sheets- almost daily. :tongue_smilie:

 

I don't know that any of this helps your situation. I hope it gets better.

Denise