5 Y/o Still Having "Accidents"

Dear M.,
I feel your pain. Our daughter had the same problems until she was 8 years old slowed down as she got older in the day time, but it continued to still be very upsetting to her and of course the laundry.
I am also a nurse and about the time she was 8 years old I hurt my shoulder at work and a friend of mine who worked as a PT told me that I should go see his wife's chiropractor and that I would get relief much faster then just going to PT. So I went while I was in treatment with him I was taking about the wet beds and how having to change them did not help my shoulder, he asked me a few questions about my daughter and said he thought he could help. I went home to talk with my husband and we decided to at least let him take the X-ray's and go from there. He showed us that her pelvis was tilted forward and that it was pushing on her bladder and he thought he could adjust her and she would get better.WELL much to our surprise within 3 weeks maybe 5 or 6 treatments we had no more wet beds!
This daughter is now 30 years old and gets an adjustment every 4 or 5 months for he tilted pelvis issue because she says it feels good.
Just wanted to share
Good Luck
M.

This could be a medical problem. I would speak to her pediatrician about this and get some testing done.

Take her to see her doctor. I wet my bed/underwear until I was about 7 years old or so because - and don't quote because I don't know exact details - something about my bladder function wasn't developed properly. There wasn't anything they could do for me... my system in that area was just "immature" so we had to wait for it to catch up to the rest of my body. I still remember how shocking it was to wet my pants at that age because I never knew I had to go to the bathroom until I felt the wetness... it was quite embarassing.

I woudl atleast speak to your pedatrician... And see of s/he is worried about it and wants you to see a specialist. I have 2boys that had bet wetting problems until they were 10 years old... yes 10... we seen ever doc under the sun.. even a peds hypotist....all bed alarms...wakin gup every 2 hours... ellimating drinks before bed...herb meds... you name it. There baldder jsut was not matures or growing large enough... it had to do it on it own time.

However we did not try the chiropractor... very interesting.. i am going to check into this...

First, I do remember being in first grade, and there were still just a few kids with issues with that.

With our 5 year old, we did a couple of things.
First, anytime she wanted to do a different activity, the rule was "Potty first." You want to color now, potty first. You want a drink now? POtty first. You want to go watch a movie? Potty first. The reason they want to get up and do something different is because they need to potty and don't want to take the time to do it - so if they get up and move around, they're hoping to prolong going potty, which only results in accident's.

The second thing was: If we noticed it had been about 30 minutes since the last time she went potty, we'd tell her, "Okay before you do anything else, I need you to go potty."

The last thing we did was to quit buying the larger sizes of pull-ups to fit her. When she started "outgrowing" it, she would complain that they were uncomfortable. We'd explain to her that she could wear her "big girl panties" - but that meant she was going to have to be a big girl and use the potty all the time like she knows how. And that also meant if she wakes up in night and has to go potty, then she needs to use the potty. She said, "I use YOUR potty..." as if that was a requirement. I told her I didn't care which potty she used, as long as she used one.

After doing that consistantly, we haven't had any issues.

I do remember one night she had had a particularly busy day, and had wet her bed. She woke up, came in and went potty (but after she had wet the bed), then told me her pajamas were all wet. I asked her how they got wet, and she started getting really upset. I calmed her down, told her there was nothing to be upset about - we went into her room, and the bed was wet. I just said, "Okay - we're going to have to change your sheets." She looked surprised and said, "You're not mad??" I told her I wasn't mad, but I wasn't happy either - I knew it was an accident. That was another thing - Once she realized that I wasn't going to tear into her about it, she's done much better too.

Good luck!

I think what the other ladies have said about talking to the doctor is a good idea, but if her bladder in under developed and there is nothing they can do then I have seen the pull-ups that look like underwear that maybe she could wear to school. Explain to the school her problem and they could keep extras in the nurses office. Then if she had an accident at school she would have an extra pull-up there and maybe she would feel more comfortable. My son never had accidents during the day but he wet the bed until he was 5. We used pull-ups and they worked well. Good Luck!

Go see a specialist. It sounds like encopresis. It's more common in boys than girls but it's still alot more common than most people think. With boys, it mostly means uncontrollable poop (it leaks out). With girls, due to the difference in anatomy, it means more pee accidents because of the pressure the impacted stool has on the bladder. Many kids are constipated/impacted (thanks to the horrible typical American diet) but the parents have no clue because they can continue to have daily (often more than once a day) poops that look normal.