Help...problem With 5 Yr Wetting Bed and Soiling Underwear

The same thing happend with my daughter. An ulrasound revealed compacted poop in her rectum and that would prevent the emptying of the bladder, so then when she slept, the bladder would trickle out all night long. The doctor put her on Miralax and a high fiber diet so she can poop better and not wet the bed anymore. We now use pull ups to sleep, travel, etc. Take him to the doctor and have an ultra sound done!

D.,
Assuming that he was once continent with a few accidents a month, I would say that you have a severely stressed child. I would not discuss the bedwetting, soiling with him, but discuss other issues. How is school? any stressors at home? Can he get to the BR in school? Is he afraid to go to the BR in school? What else is happening. Try and put it on a calendar (out of his view) and see if you see a pattern. Weekends only, school days only?
Also, check and see if he is constipated in which case adding fluids and some fruit should solve that problem.
Let us know what happened. If you don't see any improvement, I would call the pediatrician and ask for a referral to a therapist.
K.

I agree with Guille. My 6 year old son has similar symptoms to your son and the pediatrician has sent us to a pediatric urologist. As instructed by the doctor, we are giving him Miralax daily as well as following a high fiber diet. The pedi urologist discovered a physical cause and our son will be having an in-office surgical procedure. It is called "meatal stenosis" and occurs in 10% of circumcised males by age 8. I am certainly not diagnosing your son, but I do want to encourage you to get him to the pediatrician and ask for referral to a pediatric urologist. I now realize that my son cannot always control his bladder and bowel movements. I keep a change of clothes in his backpack. The pediatrician and also the pedi urologist have both given notes for the school to allow him to go to the restroom as often as necessary (5-6 times during school besides the class RR breaks). I hope it will be as simple as adding more fiber to your son's diet.

Hi D., I am a mother of three. 2 boys and a girl. One thing that I found helpful with my older son was getting him up about midnight or 1am to use the bathroom. This helped him during the night. Sometimes I had to get him up twice in the night depending on what he had to eat and drink that day. I hope this can help you. Of course it required me to sacrifice more sleep, but it was worth it.

Encropesis.

My daughter has it and you really should look it up. You need to get this under control before she gets older. Good luck.

Has he been afraid of the dark, if so put one of those push button lights so that he can have that. Put one also in the bathroom that comes on when the room is dark. Plastic cover for the bed. He may have been teased by others also find out if this is the case. Been through all of this with two. Good luck.

A friend had a similar situation with her daughter. My friend is a pediatric nurse Practitioner and her husband is a pediatric Nephrologist, so they would examine her themselves and couldn't find anything physically wrong. They put her on Miralax and tried putting her on a potty schedule but she still had to wear pullups to school in kinder and first grade and would end up soiling them almost every day. They took her to a psychiatrist, did family counseling, nothing helped. Finally when she was about 7 they took her to a Gastroenterologist and he did a digital rectal exam. The little girl did not like that one bit. The gastro guy didn't find anything wrong, but lo and behold the little girl started using the potty and stopped soiling her undies when her parents said they'd have to keep taking her back to the doctor if the problem continued. For another year or so, she would sometimes fall back into her old pattern of holding her poop in, but when her mom started noticing this (she would have stained undies), she would ask her daughter if it was time to make another doctor's appointment and the problem would resolve. She is now 12 and has no issues any more. I think some children just get a little lazy, and then they figure out that this gets them a LOT of attention (my friend's daugher has 2 older brothers and I think always felt that she didn't get her 'fair share' of attention from her parents). Of course, there could also be a physical problem with your son, so either way it is definitely a good idea to take him to see a gastroenterologist. Good luck!

I'd start at your doctor's office. My BIL had the same kind of things happen to him. Turned out one of his testicles hadn't dropped and there were all kinds of problems that were caused with his bladder.

You can also talk with his doc about how to help him not be wet anymore. I'm sure he DOESN'T know why he didn't go to toilet. At five, I don't think he's able to explain. And he's probably very sad that you're disappointed.

There are pull-ups for big kids, which will cut down on laundry for you.

I'd give him hugs and say "Oh that's okay. Let's get you cleaned up." and take some of the pressure off.

My daughter is seven and still has accidents at school, I understand how frustrated you are! When I backed off asking her all the questions and what happened etc. she started to do better.

it could be that his bladder is not mature or fully developed my lil bro wet the bed almost nightly until he was 12 and my father the same thing...my brother's doctor said it was that his bladder was not fully developed...i would check with your sons doctor because it may be a medical issue rather then he is just too afraid to go to the bathroom! Good luck and to save from change sheets i would put him a night time pull-up they make them for older children!

Since this just recently started, could your son be under some sort of stress??

I would take him to the pedi to rule out anything physical...while considering any major life changes, etc...that might be affecting him right now.

He's probably gone through a growth spurt recently. His bladder hasn't caught up yet. Make sure he goes before bedtime. If your bedtime is later than his, wake him and have him try before you go to bed. Limit drink intake right before bed. They have big boy night pull ups too. I put them on my son when he began having problems. I told him if he could go 3 nights in a row without wetting his pull ups than he could sleep in underwear. But, if he wet his underwear again, he would have to wear the pull ups again until 3 nights dry. It wasn't a punishment. I made sure he understood it was only so that he didn't wet himself of the bed too often. It worked like a charm. He hasn't wet the bed since. He occasionally still wets his underwear a bit. But, he wakes up and goes to the bathroom, throws his underwear in the bathtub, puts on clean ones (his pajamas aren't wet) and then goes back to bed all on his own.
***Prune juice or pear juice is a natural way to keep them regular regarding the bms. Figure out how much works for your son. We started with a cup of prune juice mixed with apple juice. Then, we weaned it down like medicine, 4 tbs of prune juice a day, then every other day. As long as he had regular bms. He doesn't need it much anymore. But, they can't hold it in very well when it is loose and determined to come out. Also, give it at night or afternoon - not morning before school.

There is an emotional underlying cause, have there been any life changes recently, has he been treated poorly by anyone, maybe that you don't even know about, at a friend's house or anywhere? He definitely doesn't want to do this, don't shame him for it. God bless, dig deeper and see how all his relationships are and what can be improved. Something is stressing him, and this is his body's way of letting him and you know. Of course that's not easy to look at and takes courage.

D.:

I haven't read the other responses but I had the same problem with both of my boys. We tried cutting out all liquids after a certain time, decreasing milk, waking them up twice a night... nothing worked and I was losing sleep.

I finally called my Pediatrician when I was at wits' end and totally sleep-deprived. He recommended a company called the Potty Pager. Their website is www.pottypager.com. It is a silent, wireless device that looks like the standard pager. It vibrates the second any fluid hits it and in doing so, trains the child to wake up before they go. I don't know how it works but it does. My children both used one last summer (where we usually had 3-4 nights a week each that they would wake up wet). To date, we haven't had any wet nights since then.

Each pager is about $75 and you'll probably go through an extra set of batteries but it's worth it. We noticed a significant difference in three weeks - and it was amazing how the boys felt better about themselves as well.

Best of luck to you from someone who's been there....