Treg has had more accidents both at home and at school since school started a month ago. I gave some grace due to the new schedule/routine but it has been a month now. He’s having 2 or 3 pee accidents per week at school and has pee accidents at home, particularly first thing in the morning and even a couple of times in the night now. We have him go at least every 2 hours at home. He does drink milk right before bed (around 7:30/7:45) and juice at dinner (around 6:30) but he did that previously and didn’t have as many accidents. He’s also drinking some juice around 5, once he’s settled after returning home.
They’re taking him every 90 min. at school and are going to add an extra trip around noon since he seems to have accidents around that time. He is cooperative with going and will always try. Sometimes he won’t go and says he doesn’t have to. Then they take him every 30 min. until he goes.
He only gets rewarded for pooping in the potty (currently an extra story read aloud on YouTube). He usually gets 2 stories before bed so gets 3 if he pooped in the potty (usually happens before bed). He gets songs taken away if he had a pee accident that day or if he repeatedly doesn’t listen to us that day.
Occasionally he’ll initiate going but usually we ask him to go. We have been at this since late July 2023. He has come a long way but I feel like he should have more automaticity by now. He often says he doesn’t want to go to school in the morning (but he likes certain aspects of it) so maybe it’s behavioral. Any insight or advice?
Answer:
Thank you for your question! Starting a new school is a big transition for Treg with new teachers and new routines so it is common to see a slight regression in things like toileting. He will start to feel more comfortable and get the hang of it back, but there is still plenty we can do to help him get there. The timed schedule is great, but like school is doing with dropping it from 2 hours to 90 minutes, you may want to do the same thing at home. Once he is staying dry all day you can increase the duration back to 2 hours. Even if Treg says he does not have to go to the bathroom at the 2 hours, he should still try to go! I would also recommend ramping up the reinforcement for Treg requesting the bathroom since you said he does not initiate often. Choose something special for him to earn for initiating the bathroom and have it isolated for that. And make sure he is getting the same or at least similar reinforcement for going to the bathroom at school! If he is still having accidents at school with the 90 minutes then they may want to decrease that duration to 1:15 or even an hour for a week or so until he is back to staying dry! Remind Treg how important it is to use his words and ask for the bathroom and of course increase reinforcement for doing so and staying dry! Try all this for a week or two and let us know how it goes!
Thank you for your question! Starting a new school is a big transition for Treg with new teachers and new routines so it is common to see a slight regression in things like toileting. He will start to feel more comfortable and get the hang of it back, but there is still plenty we can do to help him get there. The timed schedule is great, but like school is doing with dropping it from 2 hours to 90 minutes, you may want to do the same thing at home. Once he is staying dry all day you can increase the duration back to 2 hours. Even if Treg says he does not have to go to the bathroom at the 2 hours, he should still try to go! I would also recommend ramping up the reinforcement for Treg requesting the bathroom since you said he does not initiate often. Choose something special for him to earn for initiating the bathroom and have it isolated for that. And make sure he is getting the same or at least similar reinforcement for going to the bathroom at school! If he is still having accidents at school with the 90 minutes then they may want to decrease that duration to 1:15 or even an hour for a week or so until he is back to staying dry! Remind Treg how important it is to use his words and ask for the bathroom and of course increase reinforcement for doing so and staying dry! Try all this for a week or two and let us know how it goes!
Thank you, he had no accidents at school last week and has had minimal accidents at home. To minimize bed wetting we have been waking him up and taking him to the bathroom in the middle of the night. This has mostly been successful except for last night when he was already wet at 3am. I know we should cut off liquids earlier but it’s essential to get nourishment in him when he gets home from school, which includes a good quality juice and Fairlife milk. He drinks the juice at school too.
Oops, didn’t mean to hit send. Any ideas on how to reduce bed wetting or should we just keep taking him in the middle of the night? Will his body just naturally learn to wake up when he has to go? My friend’s son just stopped wetting the bed and he’s in fifth grade!
Hi Kimberly! Happy to hear Treg had no accidents at school last week! For bed wetting at night I would try to see if you can get him those essential liquids as soon as he gets home from school so that he can still get them. Ideally if he could be done drinking by 6pm if he goes to bed at 8pm. That give you 2 hours of going to the bathroom before bed. Also, 3am might be too late for taking him to the bathroom in the middle of the night. It sounds like he is usually dry at that time, but if he starts consistently being wet at that time I would definitely move the time up. From my experience, his body will either naturally learn to wake up when he has to go OR more likely his bladder control will get to the point that he can hold his urine until the morning. The other thing to do is if he is consistently dry at 3am for a week or two, I would push it to 3:30am and every week or two of dryness I would continue to push the time back until you get to a normal wake up time. That will help him with bladder control! Keep up the good work!
Thank you for the suggestions. I don’t think we can get 12 oz of juice and 8 oz of milk in him in just over an hour so we’ll work on strengthening his bladder control.