How to Coax to Children to Go to the Bathroom

Do your children tend to hold in their urine too long? Find out what can happen by holding it in, and learn how to coax them to go to the bathroom.

How to Coax to Children to Go to the Bathroom Dr. Travis Stork: Before the break we’ve heard from Gloria her concern about her daughter and the consequences of holding in urine, so Gloria welcome. Gloria: Thank You. Dr. Travis Stork: And your daughter isn’t the only one who holds in urine, even us adults, we do it sometimes. My teacher always used to tell me if I held it in, my bladder was going to burst. Dr. Jim Sears: Explode, right. I was worried about that when I was a kid too. Dr. Travis Stork: So do I need to worry about that or does Gloria to worry about that? Dr. Jim Sears: Have you ever heard about that happening. Dr. Travis Stork: In a car accident, yes. In a car accident absolutely, with that lap belt. Dr. Jim Sears: But I think nobody can hold their own urine long enough to actually cause it—you would just wet yourself eventually. Brooke Burke: I think one of the biggest problems and tell if you agree but as Moms as if your child is holding it besides from the medical issues sometimes there’s just not an option, if your child tells you right then and there, “Mommy I need to go potty” and you’re in the car you’re in—so I sort to have a rule in our house you’ve have to let me know when you think you have to go or even if you don’t think you have to go we’re going to try to go. Dr. Jim Sears: And that’s one of the problems is, many times the child’s brain doesn’t get the signals from their bladder and tell their very full. Sometimes it’s just after 50 milliliters of urine sometimes it’s 500 milliliters half a Liter so there’s a huge variation on when the brain gets a signal that it’s time to go. Brooke Burke: As my 3-year old does that a lot “Mommy I don’t have to go” and so what I do now is I just say “Its okay if you think you don’t have to go, we’re still going to sit down and we’re going to try to go” and you know what, she goes. So she doesn’t think she has to go and she doesn’t want to go but physically, she has to go. Dr. Jim Sears: What can happen if kids just hold it whether because they’re busy playing, they just don’t want to go and they’ll don’t think about it, the bladder gets fuller, and fuller, and fuller and I kind of tell the parents it’s kind of like a big water balloon, eventually if it’s always stretched out so much you can’t kind of lose some of that elasticity so then when it does empty, it won’t push all the urine out so every time there’s always a little bit of urine sitting in there and there’s usually a little bacteria in there and it’s not a problem if you’re always flushing it out but if there’s always some staying in there, it can proliferate actually lead to a bladder infection. Brooke Burke: How do we know if the child has a bladder infection because they can’t really describe to us the symptoms? Dr. Jim Sears: Sometimes they might just be a tummy ache or most kids will have the pain when they urinate and I’m going to show what can happen with the bladder infection; you see there’s the kidneys making urine, going down into the bladder, it’s filling up and if a little bacteria gets in there the bladder can get inflamed and actually the bacteria can ascend up in to the kidneys and causing a kidney infection that can actually be very serious. Dr. Travis Stork: You want to know the most common symptom in a child who’s really young it’s the fever with no other symptoms so the child comes in and they don’t have the sniffles, there’s no cold, there’s no other obvious cause, no ear infection and they’ve have fever, often time it’s Urinary Tract Infection. Dr. Jim Sears: That’s what happen to my sister’s youngest little newborn, he had a fever and nothing else and turned out to be a bladder infection. So what to do about this, if your child pretty resistant and just won’t listen to you “I don’t need to go, I don’t want to go” then shift the authority to something else like the oven-timer, I’d love the oven-timer in my house because it goes “ding” and the child goes “Oh! It’s time” I set it for every 2-hours and then your child’s bladder won’t ever get that full and actually helps maintain some of that elasticity. If your child is really resistant because they’re playing, they don’t want to stop playing, one of my favorite trick is, if they take a time-out from playing to go, use the potty then they earn extra playtime so they kind of a reward that they like. Brooke Burke: Manipulate and incentivice. Dr. Drew Ordon: And like Jim said you want to nip this in the bud, you want to do listen if there were tips you don’t want this to be a chronic problem, a social issue at school because like Jim said potentially it can affect the bladder long term. Dr. Travis Stork: Thank you so much Gloria. Gloria: Thank you.