30 months old, now accidents/wetting.. regression?

[stelly]

My daughter has been using the toilet reliably (and diaper free when awake) since she was 22 months old, thanks to our own family version of EC.

She has pooped only on the toilet since she was about 16 months old.

Now, 8 months later we've started to have issues. She will say "I need toilet!" and then when we get her there her panties are wet, not soaking, but wet enough to be changed. This then moved on into her never alerting us to needing to pee any more (rather, relying on us making her go every 2 to 3 hours), and then to throwing tantrums when we try to make her go and pee.

This was all only at our house, at the childminder's (3 days a week) she was fine. Until the last week. She has had an accident each day, and then today she came home, sat on the couch with me, I asked her 5 times if she needed to go to the toilet "no thanks", then before dinner I asked her to go in, went to help her undo her clothing and found that she'd peed over her panties and shorts.

I'm not having a problem with poos, just the peeing. Has anyone got advice? I'm really not impressed and getting quite angry about it. I just can't understand how she can actually be getting worse at it after 8 months, rather than better. Plus I'm supposed to be flying with her next month and now I'm worried about how that would work if she's going to be peeing all over herself?

[emmaegbert]

not to be a scaremonger, but is it possible she has some medical reason, like a UTI or food allergy or something? I'm no expert, but it does sounds strange to me after such a long time, and IRL anyway, I've not heard of anything like that except with the birth of a new sib or some other major life event. Good luck. Try not to let it get you angry- she's not doing it TO you, just you have to suffer the consequences, which is different. Can you go back to pullups or cloth diapers if that would help with your frustration?

[stelly]

I don't know what to do. It's getting worse. Today she wet herself 3 times. Once only an hour after putting her on the toilet. I'm going to take her to the Doctors this week, but after 9 months of being toilet trained I'm super reluctant to go backwards by putting her in diapers or pullups again...

Anyone else had this experience?

[Paigekitten]

That's what my DD does when she's eaten something she' sensitive to. Right now she is in a diaper because I don't know what she ate. She doesn't mind being in a diaper and it gives me a chance to catch up on the laundry after all the pee misses.

[heatherr30]

If the accidents are causing you and her extra stress, I would use a diaper until you can get to the root of the problem. I went back to night time diapers for a few weeks at around 30 months because no one (not me, DH, or DD) was prepared to deal with getting up to change the sheets. Not only that, it was upsetting for DD to wake up in a wet bed. I think she was actually relieved when I suggested a diaper.
At the time I also felt it was a step backwards, but a few weeks later the problem resolved itself. In retrospect, I had terrible morning sickness and was not giving her much attention during the day--DH had taken over pretty much all day and night time responsibilities when he was at home. It must have been that causing the bedwetting because she hasn't done it since my MS got better. Hopefully your doctor will be able to help.

[stelly]

I took her to the Doctor where they made me get a urine sample from her then and there. Between wiping her, asking her to pee and then stop and then pee again (with cup below) the poor child was totally confused and I only caught a dribble which they later called to tell me was "contaminated"

BUT, we had a long talk early this week about keeping our panties dry, and whether this makes Mummy sad or not. I have a feeling holding responsibility for my happiness was a heavy weight for a 2.5 year old to bear. I explained that Mummy is super happy when her panties are dry, but I love her and am happy with her all the time. This combined with me promising to spend more time with her doing fun stuff rather than on my laptop working, or lying on the couch feeling horrible (all day morning sickness) seems to have helped. She's still not really saying that she needs to pee, but has had 4 days of dry daytimes (she still wears diapers at night, I can't see getting past that for a while - they are SOAKED in the mornings).

So thanks for the advice and replies, hopefully I have a way through the problem.