I needed advice about the boy I'm watching.
So I watch the kids all morning and put them down for their afternoon nap. One
of the kids is a barely three year old boy and has been potty trained for about
3 months. I still have him napping at least 2 hours, usually more. He insists on
not wearing a diaper for nap (despite wearing pull ups at night). So one day in
February I gave in, and he stayed dry so we tried again, and this continued
dryly for a few weeks.
Now for about a month or so, he's been wetting the bed 3/4 times out of 5. I've
limited water with lunch and force bathroom breaks before nap. I can't ask the
parents because he doesn't nap with them on weekends and they'll suggest a
diaper. I've stared to notice a pattern, I'll peek in his room and he'll be
starting to wake up (dry) so I go attend to the others and come back within 10
minutes and he'll be wet. I have a feeling this is simply his laziness in that
he's awake but chooses not get up. He is only ever wet on the top of his jeans.
I hate to say that because I don't want to hurt his feelings but he is getting
his sheets washed daily and quite frankly, I'm sick of it. I know I could go in
and force him to get up but on some occasions, he tosses and turns mid nap and
goes back down.
He sleeps in a toddler bed, I leave his door cracked, bathroom light on across
the hall, I sit right at the bottom of the stairs. He goes to the bathroom by
himself when awake, he is usually extremely responsible. I've only had one awake
accident including while he trained.
It's getting frustrated to be greeted by "I had a accident." And then spend 20
minutes fixing the bed and getting him dressed. The whole time he says accidents
happen, it's okay. For a long time, I said the same thing which is what mom and
dad tell him (accidents have been more frequent with them). Now I've started to
say "Accidents happen but we really need to practice getting up and going potty
if we are awake in bed." ...to which he usually cries (I think more because he's
just woken up and I of course say it in the same soothing tone) and I feel bad
because I don't want to discourage his usually great potty behavior, but I
think it's important for him to distinguish between accidents and preventable
accidents.
He is such a smart little guy, and I know he can do this (since he has before)
and I don't want to go back to diapers and erase our progress. So I'm torn. Do
you guys have any advice how I can help him move past this? How I can not
discipline him for his laziness but still confront it?
I know there's no other reason for it. He isn't having any changes at home,
definitely no fears or abuse of any sort. He doesn't go to school or anything so
I know he's not being picked on or anything.
10 comments:
It sounds as if it's just laziness. There are no consequences to him wetting his bed, if it's just ten minutes before he gets up, he doesn't even get cold. He has no reason not to do it.
Here's something. Who takes care of the sheets? If it's you, teach him to do it. Not as a form of punishment, but because it's necessary.
My then-8-year-old little sister still wet the bed every night because she's a deep-sleeper and wasn't waking up when she needed to go. My mom finally fixed the problem by getting her up to go in the middle of the night (parents' responsibility, not yours, of course) and it trained her body to wake up when she needed to go. Didn't even take that long, maybe 2 or 3 weeks. You should STRONGLY SUGGEST it to the parents.
I think Siriusly_James (great name btw) has a good idea, having the child learn to wash the sheets. I have a nanny friend who is going through the same thing with her charge, except now she's almost 4. Completely potty trained, dry when she wakes up, and goes to the bathroom in her pull-up once she's awake because she doesn't feel like walking to the bathroom. Getting him to realize that it's MORE work to pee in his bed could help prevent the "accidents".
Thank you, VA Nanny :) (And yeah, it's my name all over the internet. It's never taken)
That's exactly what it meant - it should be MORE work for him to wet his bed than to get up and go to the bathroom.
You don't know for sure that he wets the bed out of laziness. Thinking he is lazy does not help you address the issue in a positive light. I also think you should get him involved with
washing the bedding and changing the bed, not as a punishment, but more as a way to control his behavior. Plus, you will feel less grumpy about it!
Good luck
Some kids are very deep sleepers and their brain doesn't make the connection that they have to use the bathroom in a deep sleep. My four year old nanny child would do great during the day being dry but naps and overnight the pullup was wet. We all tries different things, but ultimately when the child was ready he started to ask to wear underwear at night. We did a reward chart for every ten times he was dry in the morning and peed in the potty. We put him in underwear and then a pullup over it so he could feel the wet sensation. We had him help change the sheets in the middle of the day and night. When he had an accident it would be this huge ordeal and have to bathe him also. We just never lost our cool no matter how frustrating it was. The minute you let the child know you are upset they will regress. We always let them know accidents happen and it is okay. It is also common for a three year old to do great and then start having accidents again. Are there any major changes going on in that child's life? I have learned that the minute the child wakes up the trick is to get them to the potty ASAP. They will be lazy and the pullup or diaper at nap or night is easy for them. Make it a game or do a reward system. The best advice I got was from the pediatrician that if the child starts having accidents again, use the pullup for a couple of weeks more at sleeping time and retry underwear at a neat later date. We would try every two months and when the pullup was dry for every morning for three weeks we decided to try underwear again and finally it worked. Just have patience. You are doing great!!!
I had a 4 year old who had this problem and like you I was pretty sure he did it out of laziness. The way I figured this out is if he was just waking up he could make it to the toilet and the bed would be dry. But if he would lie in bed for a little while after waking, he would wet the bed. I don't know if these children do it on purpose or if they really don't think about it, either way I guess the result is the same. What I did with my charge is wake him after an hour and make him go to the bathroom. Then I would give him the choice of returning to bed or staying up. He would often return to bed because he was still tired, many times it was a bit of a fight to get him up and in the bathroom. I also like the PP's ideas of having him help with the laundry. It makes the thought of wetting the bed more concrete.
Siriusly people ABUSING a 3 year old into doing the lazy nanny's job is a good reason to FIRE her. If you don't want to do your job tell the parents you're too lazy and to fire you on the spot. 3 year olds have accidents they do NOT do nanny's work for them. Put him in pull ups for naps if he's having accidents PERIOD and start changing sheets if you don't. Your job isn't to make the kid do it.
Just let him wear diapers for naps. My 4yo charge is completely potty-trained, but he needs diapers for naps and bedtime. No big deal. Or if he isn't bothered by his accidents, just have him help get the laundry started afterwards. I seriously doubt it is laziness - lying in wet sheets is cold and uncomfortable - but even if it is, you should be giving him the benefit of the doubt here. I'm disturbed, in fact, that you aren't, and that so many others have echoed this sentiment of laziness. Encourage bathroom use before his nap, wake him up after an hour to use the toilet if you want, and celebrate a dry post-nap diaper, but don't think this is any different from any OTHER kind of accident - it isn't. Accidents are accidents are accidents. Have some compassion here, this has nothing to do with how smart he is it is just a thing kids have to grow into - their brains are constantly changing so even if YOU don't think there's anything going on in his life, there is a lot happening in his internal world. Lord, this post alone is going to scare me away from ISYN again... I thought you people here were supposed to be nicer than the DCUM nannies. Yikes.
Potty training can be 'two steps forward and 1 step back.
Have the little guy use pull-ups for naptime again until he is consistently dry when he gets up.
If you make a big deal out of it, he may become resistant. He's still little, let him take his time.
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