My 3.5yo DS potty learned just after his third birthday (June 2010), and it took a few weeks, but he did really well learning to use the potty and went months without an accident. (He was never night or nap trained, but when he was awake he always went to the potty). Then at the beginning of November he had a UTI, which we treated with antibiotics. He has not complained of any pain on urination since then, but in the past several weeks he has had a number of accidents. It is hard to know what to make of all this.Â
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I think the reason for his UTI was that he does not drink enough fluids and holds his pee for a long time before he finally goes to the potty. We often have to tell him to go when we see him clutching himself or doing the pee-pee dance, and I have to push him to drink fluids. The accidents seem related to the same thing -- simply waiting too long, not wanting to stop what he's doing to use the potty. But then I wonder whether perhaps he has some urinary tract irregularity that is causing him to not be able to feel when he needs to go and maybe that is the cause of the accidents. Or maybe the UTI never completely went away.
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I know that I need to take him to the doctor at least for a urine culture, which I will do. I guess my question is, is it normal/common for a child who did great for several months to suddenly start having accidents? There has not been any new development in our lives that would cause him stress. I know the next step medically is a VCUG, which is an uncomfortable procedure that I'd hate for him to undergo unnecessarily. If this is behavioral and can be treated with more "structure" (e.g. potty sits every 2 hours) then I guess that's what we'll do. Both DH and I are highly annoyed about the regression, though -- he just had an accident a little while ago while I was in the bathroom upstairs and I have never heard DH yell so loud in my life. Which is probably not good and a whole other issue in and of itself.
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