3 years old all the sudden having accidents

WannaBAmama

Hi. I've never posted on this board before but I have some questions and thought this would be a good place to ask. Let me give you some back story- i just had my second baby on August 2nd and he's a preemie so my husband and I have been spending a lot of time at the hospital visiting him. Ds1 hasn't seen his baby brother yet because he's too young to go into the nicu. We talk about baby brother to ds1 often but he has won't meet him until ds2 is ready to come home from the hospital. 

 Ds1 has been potty trained since around february. He never ever has accidents. Sometimes when busy playing he'll have a close call every once in a while where he grabs himself and goes running to the bathroom because he was too busy playing to stop and pee, but even in those situations he always makes it to the bathroom before an accident.

So the past 24 hours my son has had 4 accidents.... Totally out of character for him!!! Two of them were in his sleep, once last night and once tonight and two of them were those situations like he was busy playing and waited until the last minute and didn't make it to the bathroom in time.

I don't know what to think about the situation. I know some kids regress when a new baby comes along  but he isnt acting any different, more emotional,  or anything like that. As I said, he hasn't even met his baby brother yet. Could it be that this is happening because of this big change in his life or do you think it could be some sort of uti or bladder infection??? Im seriously stumped. I could understand it it being stress or the new normal for us being at the hospital that could stress him out but he isn't acting stressed out or jealous.  I don't know where this is coming from. Any advice or thoughts??. 

jlw2505

Only a doc can rule out an infection but with no other information (fever, other illness, etc) I would bet money on the life changes of the new baby and you and your DH being at the hospital.  This could be his way of showing his stress as he doesn't have the words or knowledge of expressing how he is feeling )scared, stressed, sad, etc).  Having a new baby is hard on a little kid but when they new baby is born but they can't see the baby and mom and dad are suddening gone a lot, that is just plan very hard for a little kid to understand.  When my older DD was born and was in the NICU (not a preemie but had other issues), it was very hard for my niece to understand and she was 5 and saw my DD before she was transfered to the NICU through the windows of the special care nursery.  Kids just don't get it so I would bet money this is it and try to help him understand what is going on, have one of you home with him, try to keep his life as normal as possible,  Show him as many pics/video of his new sib as possible.