[chickymum]

I will start from the beginning.

OK so we went on a nice vacation with the children. Most people here know, however that the disruption in routine can sometimes be stressful for our kids, right?

Anyway my son (7) who sometimes pees the bed, peed his pants on a late night flight while he was sleeping. I just felt so bad for him. He woke up when the plane landed and was so embarrassed. He was just quietly distraught as he walked through JFK and I told my husband that my heart was breaking for him with his big wet patch as we waited for luggage to come so that we could find him some new pants. After that new pants found , lets move on.....WRONG!

We had 2 more flights to catch before we got to our final flight destination, which was still a 3 hour drive from home. Throughout the next two flights there were pee breaks etc before and after all flights. The boys went pee at the last airport before we took a cab to our truck. There was a slight hold up to get our truck so we had to stand for 1/2 an hour outside and wait.

In this time DD (8) peed her pants. Please remember this is a child who has NEVER had an issue with holding on. The only time she had an accident was when she first came to us at 3 years old and didn't want to ask for help to undo her belt. Since then NEVER.

I was pretty sure that she did it deliberatly after she saw how upset I was for my son. (her middle name should be hypervigilant) Anyway since then I told her that she needs to ask me to go to the toilet and sometimes I make her wait for 20 mins or 1/2 an hour just so that she can learn to alert me before it is too late. (because she claimed that she peed her pants because I was not in the immediate vacinity and could not hold on for me to come back. I was not more than 30 secs away at any given time) I was just trying to turn her actions around on her.

Well she has only been asking me once a day. I told her that for now she needs to ask every time she goes. She said that she is. I said that is not possible. But I locked bathroom doors and sure enough once in the morning and that is it.

In order to get out of telling me that she needs to go she has just basically stopped going.

Does anybody else know if it is possible to only go once in a 24 hour period? Is she just that stinking determined to not have to give in to my rules? Grrrrr

[athikers]

I don't know...

But, please don't make her wait when she says she has to pee unless you are 111100000% certain she's manipulating. That can be hard on her kidneys. To me, only going once a day, unless she is EXTREMELY chronically dehydrated also means she is holding it, which ones again means it could be damaging her kidneys. This is not an area I would mess with, I would let her go when she wants to go and not fight this battle.

But that's just my two cents I'm certain others will have different opinions.

[lucyjoy]

I had a respite kid who could hold it for 30 hours. Her mom was a doctor and it drove mom crazy because it is bad for her.

I've also had kids who peed down furnace registers, into bottles, in toyboxes, corners of closets, out windows.........so she could be peeing elsewhere.

If your are locking the bathroom doors, seems like this is becoming a bigger problem for you then for her and depending upon just how much staying power she has, could last a really long time.

If this is something you feel strongly about, it might be better for you to tell her to go to the bathroom every hour until she gets tired of the game.

If she's holding it all day and all night, she's not sleeping either and that will cause more issues.

[waited2long]

My first thought was to see if she's peeing elsewhere. I was able to hold my urine for very long periods of time as a kid. For example, I don't think I have EVER used a school restroom, I always held it till I got home.

You might also consider making a doctors appt to have her checked, that's a really long time to hold it...

And, I agree with Athikers, it's not something I would choose to have a power struggle with... Though, I'm not you, so I really don't know what you're going through with her.

Good luck!

[chickymum]

BINGO Lucy you got it. I thought I would see how much exactly she was holding to so I told her that the doctor said she will get very sick if she did not pee soon. I had her pee in a bucket and guess what! No more than a few drops. I hope I do not find smelly carpet but I am pretty sure she has been doing it outside. By the way it is below 0 degrees F out there right now.

This was not meant to be an issue.or a control battle. This was a lesson on alerting me that you need to go well before it was too late. My daughter does not learn from me just telling her what to do. She only learns by experiencing things first hand. She continued to claim that she just could not hold on so I had her practice saying something sooner. And if this was inconvenient for her then thats what she gets. She is not 4 years old. She knows better. She was the one who decided that she did not want to alert me and she was the one who decided to try to get around it. She chose to pee outside rather than tell me all for the sake of control. I told her to go ahead and pee outside just don't lie about it.

[waited2long]

Like I said, I don't know all the particulars. I am glad she wasn't really holding it so long!!

And, wow! Congrats on having such an imaginative kid! Truly, I think that took some real thought.

Glad it all worked out.

[Again!]

LOL.

I had the opposite problem a while back...my 9 year old was having to pee several times in an hour. Turned out it was just that he wanted to leave the room I was in to steal stuff from the offices in the back.

Oh, and this was at our church.

Sigh.