Hello. I have a 6 yr old daughter who struggles with impulse control and has a history of wetting herself during the day. We started her on Ritalin (for many reasons) and we saw a decrease in daytime accidents. However, over the past three weeks, she's started having them again. I know it's embarrassing for her and as a result, she will not tell anyone that she's had an accident which leads to her staying in her clothes all day.
My question-- does anyone else have similar experiences? If so, what helped your kiddo overcome this?
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CrangisMcBasketball
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I'm sorry to hear that - it must be really embarassing for her.
Has her doctor assessed for this? It could be ADHD related - children with ADHD are prone to struggle with bladder control, but I would want to rule out anything else that might be going on, like urinary track infection.
At that age my daughter had this problem to a lesser degree. It just took frequent reminders and time. Her issue was waiting too long and not getting to the toilet quick enough. Now we are trying to figure out what to do at night. She sleeps so soundly that she never stays dry. I have tried waking her up, buzzers, drinking less before bed and nothing works.
My son definitely struggled with night time wetness. At age 7, we still occasionally have flare ups (usually when he’s sick or having a growth spurt.)
I feel of all the things we tried, just waiting it out until his brain / body matured was really the best we could do. I put down a layer of waterproof mattress protector & sheets, followed by a second layer of waterproof mattress protector & sheets, that way with night wake ups we could just quickly take off the top layers & get back to sleep and deal with the rest in the morning.
The only other thing I feel that helped was to stop using nighttime pull ups (or whatever they call them for 6 year olds), that way his body could feel the wetness & start registering something was going on. It took a few weeks (& lots of night wake ups w/ wet sheets), but I feel that’s when we finally started to slowly see improvement.
It also seemed to be worse if he was constipated (some thing else we really struggle with), so keeping him “regular” helped a bit.
Vibes lite potty watch. My daughter who is not ADHD struggled with wetting at night and we ended up finding out Her bladder was stretched. Urologist put her on a schedule to go to the bathroom every two hours. We bought her the watch, which are a little pricey, but it allowed us to set vibrating alarms every two hours to remind her to go to the bathroom. We started the watch in kindergarten and she used it for about a year.
Sometimes the explanation is the simple one. Obviously, constipation issues will cause wetting accidents which, if not the case, no need to go into why this is. I have found with a couple of girls with ADHD that are approximately 8 to 9 years old, that they simply have trouble with transitions and finding the time to go to the restroom can be absolutely boring and they just simply don’t want to. I know this is distressing but, if there is no other issue, they will grow out of this. However, hygiene issues can persist with children with ADHD for the same reason as they get older. Toothbrushing comes to mind.
My teenage grandson had bladder problems when he was young. The doctor wasn't worried about it, everything else checked out fine, and he eventually outgrew it. But he wore nighttime pull ups at until he was 8.
If everything else has checked out OK does she wear pull ups at school?
Our pediatrician said we just had to wait for the bladder to mature.
Sorry about your situation. We’ve been there. Unfortunately, you may be in this for awhile, but I hope not. Our son just stopped wearing nighttime pull-ups at age 13. He still has a rare leak. I think some kids just aren’t as “clued in” to their bodies’ signals. Hang in there.
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