5 Year Old Suddenly Having Nighttime Potty Accidents

I have been having the same problem with my daughter and she is in 1st grade now. I dont know what to do. I have tried cutting back liquids and everything. She is going to be 7 at the end of this month. Sometimes she will go for 1 week start and nothing then all of a sudden back to every night. She tells me everything is fine at school and OH I dont know what to say. I am at the point where I am ready to buy her pullups then I think well no cause then she may think it is fine. I am glad thought that I am not the only one going through this. Hers started when she started Kindergarten as well.

My son was the same much with a few accidents here and there at night through out the years. I think that due to starting a new schedule and not having the option to take a nap during the day, they are sleeping heavier. I have cut off fluid intake after 7:30 since I want him in bed by 8:30,9 at the latest. It has helped some. I also had to take into account that he may have inherited it from my father's side-all the males tended to have bedwetting issues.

hope this helps you

Hi M.

Maybe you should cut off her liquid at at certain time of the day. And before she go to sleep she uses the bathroom. Also in the middle of the night wake her up to use the bathroom. She will go back to sleep.

I agree with what another mom said about maybe she is more tired now and sleeping deeper since she started kindergarten. Also, I have heard something about when a child goes through a growth spurt sometimes there bladder has to play catchup? Sometimes this explains sudden bedwetting in older already potty trained children.

I had a similar problem with my 5yr old daughter. She would have accidents through out the day. This all started this past summer when school let out. We took her to the doctor for some advise. they ran test to make sure things inside were fine. We came to the final conclusion, that she just wanted more attention. To help with this we made up a chart. There are 5 certain times a day a child has to go potty, each time she went potty when she was supposed to she put a sticker on the chart. At the end of each week, if she had no accidents she got a suprise. It worked well we did it about a month and it cured things. The main thing with this is to reward your child really good when she goes potty, but when she has an accident dont scold her, just talk to her about making sure she gets to the potty before she has the accident.

It could be added stress of the change in schedules or things going on at school or anything. Unfortunately it could also be some underlying cause to a medical condition. For safety and health reasons I would check it out with your doctor. It could be nothing, but it's much better to be safe than sorry.

Chacnges have alot to do with things like this. My daughter and I had the same problem. The potty training went very well then we had an unexpected change in our living situation as well as my work situation and I was gone alot at work and it was only when we got back to a normal living situation and I got back to normal business hours that it stopped. I concluded it was all the change and me not being home with her was the reason she was having accidents. Try getting on a regular rutine if you can (I know thats very hard being a single mom) and continue with restricting the liquids and you might see a chamge.

I would definatly not just let this go and hope she stops. besides all the things that you can do, low amounts of fluid 2 hours before bed time, always always potty just before crawling into bed...NO EXCUSES! etc. I would talk to her about how school is going. She may be having a difficult time with someone or something at school and that can effect a childs voluntary and involuntary behaviors. When you are in kindergarten they require the kids to potty 2 time while there. This alone scared my daughter because she felt like she had to hurry and what if she could not go??? It stressed her out a bit. Your daughter could be worrying about that or even having bad dreams about it.

On occasion I will "play school" with my daughter just to find out what school is like in her eyes. I often learn a lot of things that I did not know before such as "kevin is always knocking down my blocks" then I ask her "well what happens then" and she will go on and on to tell me everything. Playing school gives them a chance to rethink their day and if something is wrong it will come out.

Good luck to you,
D.

Hi,

I am a medical student and we actually just talked about this in class. Was there any changes that just recently happened? Like Did you move as well? It could be Kindergarten if she just started school or it could be the new baby. Besides restricting fluids, You can also wake them up in the middle of the night and make them walk to the bathroom. This is especially true if you just moved because they are unsure where the bathroom is when they are still asleep so they subconsiously wet the bed. Most importantly just be patient with her and find whats going on.