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She's 5 and still can't make it to the toilet!?
My youngest sister starts kindergarten next week. She wets her pants several times a day and my parents don't do anything about it except yell at her, which doesn't seem to be working. They only have one bathroom in the house, so I can understand her wetting herself if the bathroom is occupied.. but, she can't even make it to the toilet when she's only a few feet away and there's no one in there. However, if we have her out at the mall or something, she can usually make it from one end to the other if we run her to the bathroom and repeatedly tell her not to pee her pants and to hold it just a tiny bit farther. She tends to wait until the last possible moment to run to the bathroom at home, though and she almost never makes it. My parents have a hard time finding her clean pants to wear after an accident because it's impossible to keep up with her laundry. I'm frustrated with the whole situation and I don't even live at home anymore. I'm expecting my first child in January and it's a boy. I've heard boys are harder to potty train than girls, but I don't want him peeing his pants until he's 5! I think that's a bit ridiculous. I guess what I'm getting at is, does anyone have any tips or secrets to help my sister make it to the toilet. How old were your children by the time they stopped wetting themselves and how did you potty train them?
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Re: She's 5 and still can't make it to the toilet!?
I completely agree with this. Get her to the Dr!! She could have a recurring bladder infection. I had one while I was pregnant, OMG. I wet myself nonstop. It was completely embarrassing. It felt like someone was using my bladder as a stress ball. Or she could have a kidney infection or UTI. I also second the sign of abuse. Recurrent UTIs and bladder infections are frequently seen in little girls who are abused. Or it just could be a subconscious bladder release. Either way, she needs to be seen by a Dr. Being yelled at by your parents won't help her at all.
Also, my 5 yo sometimes doesn't make it to the bathroom. It's not nearly as frequent as with your sister though. It only happens once every few weeks. With him it's because he gets so wrapped up in what he's doing, he doesn't want to step away to go to the bathroom, he's afraid he'll miss something. While I don't think this could be what's going on, I just thought I'd throw this out there. You never know.
GL! Hope things get better for your sister!
Not all abuse can be seen. No one knew my Dad was abusing me for 7 years.
I highly doubt that the age gap between her and the rest of the siblings would be cause of her bladder issues. There's gotta be something going on. Either health wise or psychologically. What she's doing is NOT normal behavior for a 5 year old, or even a 4 year old.
Sounds like UTI or bladder infection.
My SD is 5 and has an appointment to see a urologist on Sept. 3rd, however I think it is completely unwarranted. She had several accidents during the first week of kindergarten - most of them happened in the bathroom while she was trying to get her shorts down. DH and I think it was just the newness of it all; new teacher, new kids, new classroom, etc. and she was getting distracted and not wanting to leave to go to the bathroom.
BUT
I do think your sister needs to go to the doctor, at least. SD doesn't have accidents at home, and rarely wets the bed anymore. It sounds like your sister is having some issues, either medical or mental. If a doctor's visit reveals nothing medical, a counselor might be able to help. Good luck.
First of all, this is not a problem that is going to be solved by yelling. Your parents making your sister feel bad about what is happening isn't going to make her suddenly able to make it to the toilet.
It is possible that there is something else going on that is causing her bladder control issues. This is something that needs to be brought up with her pediatrician.
If your sister continues to wet her pants frequently while in school you can bet that the teacher will be bringing it up with your parents and will expect something to be done about it. I teach kindergarten and if I had a student wetting themselves multiple times a day I would think that something was wrong and would stay on top of it until the issue was resolved. If the parents did not put forth an effort to correct the problem then I would stop letting the student change clothes at school and would call the parents to come bring clothes each time because, sometimes, inconveniencing the parents is the only way to get your point across.
Perhaps try instituting some kind of reward system for your sister. Like, every day (or morning/afternoon or even shorter time frames if needed) she gets through with dry pants she gets a sticker on a chart. After she gets so many stickers she gets a reward.
BUT, I would still bring up this issue with her doctor just to make sure there isn't an underlying medical cause.