What to do when your toddler has accidents on purpose | Is it a true accident or a medical concern? - Certified Pediatric Sleep Consultant and Potty Training Coach

What to do when your toddler has accidents on purpose | Is it a true accident or a medical concern?

Your child was doing great with potty training and you thought that you were on the other side of it. But, suddenly your child is having accidents and you feel like they’re having pee accidents on purpose. If this sounds like what’s going on in your home then keep reading, because I’m going to tell you what you can do!

What to do when your toddler has accidents on purpose | Is it a true accident or a medical concern?

First things first, don’t always assume that because your child is doing well with potty training and now all of a sudden they’re having accidents, that they’re doing it on purpose. Because children that have pee accidents, after being potty trained for a while, can actually be caused by constipation. So the first thing that you really need to do is track your kid’s poop, and I know that it probably sounds a bit odd, but you need to make sure that your kid is pooping every day and you also need to check the consistency of their poop. If it is hard and little pebbles it is very likely that your child is constipated, and you may need to use some dietary supplements or different things in your child’s foods such as chia seeds.

If all of that checks out your child’s pooping every day, the consistency is soft and it is a good amount of poop, considering the amount of food that they’re taking in. Then one thing you want to look at is the timing of your child having these accidents, for example, is it when they’re watching a movie and zoned out or are they playing with toys that maybe they don’t want to put down and walk away from, because maybe they’re nervous that somebody else is going to take it? Because if this is the case, and you’re finding out that they’re just distracted, or they’re just really into what they’re doing, then I highly recommend getting a potty watch. Some potty watches that I recommend are ‘The Original Potty Watch’ and the ‘Potty Training Toilet Timer Watch’ that you can get off Amazon.

Another thing you can do, to encourage your child to stop having these accidents, is to give them a physical potty pass. It can be an index card that you decorate with your child that says “Susie’s potty pass” and then you can give it to your child, and tell them “when you need to go potty, give me this pass and I will hold your spot with whatever you’re doing.”

The other thing you can do is teach your child sign language signs for going to the bathroom. I teach all the signs that you can use within my potty training course, the POTTY PARTY GUIDE. If your child is shy or nervous about saying that they have to go to the bathroom, then teaching them the signs might help them gain a little bit of confidence so that they can communicate with you what they need to do.

The next thing I want you to consider is, are you giving your child prompts to go to the bathroom like every 20 minutes? If you are, your child is likely annoyed. They don’t need to go to the bathroom every 20 minutes, so maybe prompt your child once an hour or once every two hours.

Next, think about how you potty trained initially. Did you use pull ups? Did you go straight to underwear? What I highly encourage you to do is have your child go bottomless or commando, because they need to break the muscle memory of wearing a diaper.

My next tip is going to be to bring back your rewards, whatever you did to reward your child and encourage the potty behavior when you initially started potty training, bring that back and let your child know.

The next thing that I want you to consider is really a big one. Consider what your child is going through emotionally. Sometimes kids go through these regressions when something big is happening in their life. Did they move to a new house? Do they start preschool? Did they get a new sibling? If that’s the case, then I would completely ignore the accident and instead say “oh you had an accident. Let’s clean it up.” Don’t say it’s okay because it’s not okay, but don’t punish them either. Work through whatever they’re going through emotionally and then you’ll see that the accidents will stop naturally.

If all else fails, your child may not be ready for this big transition in their life, especially if they’re going through something very emotional, and children experience their emotions differently.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel! But if you’re still struggling, then feel free to reach out to me. To set up a free call with me, go to https://slumberandbloom.com/contact-slumber-and-bloom/, and we can see if we can work one on one together.