4yr old: attention seeking?

Question

My 4yr old keeps saying he needs the toilet to pee, he'll go and then 2 mins later want to go again. This will be the 3rd day he's been doing it, he goes back and fourth to the toilet/potty up 20 times in one day.

At first I was worried that he had an infection and took him to the GP but no infection was found.

He keeps saying he needs to pee and clutching himself like he is desperate, then he will try and nothing or only a few drips will pass.

I think he is just attention seeking because he slept the whole night without getting up for the toilet once, so I have just been ignoring it.

This will be the 3rd day that it's been going on.

We spend everyday together playing and talking, and spending time together generally so what could be causing him to attention seek? He and his baby bro (1yr) have been ill this week with viruses so he's not been to morning nursery, could this change in his routine be causing his behaviour? am I doing the right thing by ignoring it?

Answer 1

I don't have children, so I'm not very qualified to comment on your sons behaviour, but I will say that when I had a water infection a few years ago it didn't show up on thedoctors standard dipstick test.  I continued to have problems and had another test, which was sent away.  That showed an infection, treated with antibiotics.

Answer 2

Well your son does have a virus , so it is likely that your son might be experiencing discomfort.  I would make sure that your GP is accurate, so times GP can ignore or misread symptoms.

Answer 3

When you said that he's been sick, that rang a bell with me.  I'm 44 and when I take certain medications for colds and such, I feel like I have to got pee a lot.  It could be that.  When he is off the medication for a day or two he should be back to normal.  Just put up with it for now.

Answer 4

i no that when i get a cold i need to pee lots maybe the same with your son ..... if it smells different  then may be a problem but  all so cud be attention seeking but not likely  if not done this before

Answer 5

my neice did this when she was 3 and we thought she had an infection! but it turned out that she liked the independance of going the toilet and luckily after 3/4 months it was a phase that just passed. i would worry about it, if your gp has said hes fine then just dont pander to him and he will soon bored of going the toilet and move on to bigger and better things. good luck x

Answer 6

It might be best to start a reward chart for going to the toilet when he wants to do a "proper" wee, giving lots of praise and a small prize at the end of the day.

It goes against all our instincts to reward a child for not going to the loo, but so long as you keep an eye out it should fix this habit within a day or two.

I think it is attention seeking or maybe worry about not making it to the toilet on time.

If it carries on even with a treat in the offing, then there is definitely something physically wrong like an infection.

Answer 7

I have a 4 year old girl in my class who has been doing this for awhile. At first her Mom just said to go ahead and let her go whenever she wants, but I started noticing a pattern after awhile. I noticed that she was going to the toilet during transition times of the class or just out of boredom. I have seen this many, many times before with kids whether they admit it or not and usually will make the child wait a minute or two to see if their "sudden urge" suddenly goes away or not.

I started not allowing her to go to the bathroom anytime she wanted and she got really upset, then finally admitted that she didn't like certain activities or just liked to be alone sometimes. I told her that she needs to go to the bathroom during bathroom breaks only from now on and she was fine.  I think if a medical problem is ruled out completely, try asking the child to wait between intervals, if he cluches his privates, don't buy it. This could be a way of being manipulative or could become a habit. Ask him to wait and give him a minute or two, if he forgets about it then you know it wasn't for real.