bathroom immediately, and the floodgates open. For ideas how to
work around this, see chapter 19, “Random Tips and Questions.”
If your child starts having a lot of accidents out of the blue and
there aren’t any obvious stressors at home, you might want to look in
other places. Is there a new teacher at day care? Is your child being
bullied at day care? Has his diet changed drastically? Is there
something bothering her? Oftentimes, you can just ask your child and
she’ll tell you. Gentle questioning and being really aware of all
aspects of your child’s life will go a long way. Sometimes, something
we think is trivial is huge in a toddler’s life (sometimes???).
I’ll use the example of my own son. He was fully trained and then
suddenly started having a couple of nighttime accidents a week. At
that point, I wasn’t even monitoring his fluid intake before bed. He’d
wake up to pee if he had to. So this was odd, and I started watching
him carefully. I eventually figured out the accidents stemmed from
the fact that he had switched day cares. The switch wasn’t a big deal
to him in and of itself, but the new day care was more structured than
his previous one. The kids drank fluids only at snack/mealtime, and
even then, only a Dixie cup-full. My son didn’t know he could ask for
more. Instead, he came home and downed five huge glasses of water.
Even potty training all-stars can’t handle that kind of fluid intake so
late in the day. Once I told him he could ask for water at day care
whenever he was thirsty, he came home and drank a normal amount,
and the problem was solved. I thought it would be obvious to him to
ask for more if he was thirsty, but it wasn’t. (Funny enough, he has no
problem demanding more at home.)
One final thought on accidents: do not put a diaper back on your
child! I cannot state this enough. Once she is potty training, even in
barry
(Barry)
#1