daytime wetting

[munepuppy]

I have a ten year old step daughter. She has a BIG problem wetting her pants during the day. I am married to her father and neither him nor her mother seemed concerned with her wetting her pants.  Her parents were concerned at one time with it. I went with her father to the doctor one day. She doesn’t have a Urinary Tract Infection. She doesn’t have any Bowl Problems. They've done ultrasounds and checked all problems associated with Wetting during the day. No consitpation, nothing. They said she has a perfectly healthy digestive system and nothing pointing as to why she keeps wetting herself. She was on medicine for wetting the bed. When I went to the doctor with her and her father, I told him that she didn’t have an issue wetting the bed, it was during the day that it always happened.  I asked her one day why she always wet herself and she plainly told me that she liked the attention and didn’t want to stop what she was doing to use the toilet. Now, she's on the Detrol, NOTHING has changed. I took her outside one day and we were talking and I asked her what she thought her medicine was was suppose to do for her and she told me that it was suppose to keep her from wetting her pants. I then told her that it doesn’t keep her from wetting her pants, that it keeps her from having the 'urge' to go quickly. She NEVER goes to the bathroom, unless you tell her to. I've NEVER yelled at her for wetting herself and I've never directly told her she stinks. I've had her father address the situation since I'm only a step mom. But now, hes getting so much push back from HER mom that he wont even address the issue of her wetting herself and I have to live with the stink and the wet furniture. He says that since she doesn’t live with us he cant stop her. But I've tried to make him understand that when she is at his house he has the rules. By him letting her wet herself for the reason that she's just too lazy to go is going to make things harder for her as she gets older. She doesn’t EVER act like she has to go…no 'potty dance' no twisting her legs or acting uncomfortable….she just sits or stands there like nothing is going on and wets herself. She doesnt even act embarassed when you address it and ask her..she just lies about it. When this was first happening, I'd put her in a corner and then, my husband put a stop to that because his xwife told him that I was being mean to her by punishing her because her mom says that she 'cant feel when she has to pee". Is that even possible? I'd ask her if she wet herself and she'd say no, so I'd tell her that I'm gonna check her panties and then she'd say 'oh well, I did a little bit ago…" and admit it to me which shows that she knows when she does it and then lies about it. I'd ask her why she never attempted to run to the toilet or try to go and she would just sit there and look at me like i was crazy. One day when she was at our house for the night and we were talking with her about it, I made the comment (stupid me) about how she NEVER wets the bed. How proud I was at her for not doing that. The next morning I woke up and I saw her coming up the stairs. Me nor my husband were dressed, so I told her to go back downstairs. No more than 5 min later we came down stairs and she was on the floor (she had gone to bed on the couch). She acted like she was asleep and my husband sat down on the couch where she was sleeping earlier and it was soaked, all the way thru to the frame of the couch. She said that she never felt that she wet herself and that she never woke up until she found herself on the floor once my husband woke her up (again, lying because she was walking up the stairs 5 min before we felt the couch). Her father doesn’t yell at her, nor punish her for the lying. She doesn’t change her panties when she wets herself and now if I mention ANYTHING about it to him about her stinking, tell her to go to the bathroom, or make her change her panties, I get yelled at by my husband because I'm not being sensitive. I am getting to the point where I don’t want her to come over because I am worried that she's going to wet on my furniture and in my car. I have to fight my husband to put something down on the seats in the car. For a while he had wrapped the couch cushins in trashbags so it wouldn’t soak thru during the night and had one on the van seat so when she wet herself it couldn’t permeate my seats but now my husband refuses to do it because she goes home and tells her mom it hurts her feelings. he wont make her wear an adult diaper during the day and doesnt make her use the toliet. I have worked hard for what I own and I seem to be the only one who was trying to help her. My husband says 'see it from her view, she thinks youre being mean to her ".  She has been teased at school because she has pee stains on her pants. If she was trying to go to the bathroom and didn’t make it, that would be one thing but she NEVER goes. I asked her if she liked being teased and all she would do is yell at me "I’M NOT ANSWERING YOU!!" I refuse to be alone with her because I have been given no authority to help her with this issue. I have told my husband that the older she gets, the more shes gonna wet and its going to get to the point where she really has NO control of her bladder because shes let herself mess herself so much that she really wont be able to hold it. She'll end up getting depressed because she'll have no friends because no one wants to be around her. But he doesn’t see that. He only sees me, as a step mom, punishing her (putting her in the corner) for wetting herself and lying about it. She never appears to be embarassed about it. When she wets herself she doesn’t run to the bathroom. I have to smell it all day long. She has stolen from me (my wedding band, my glasses, ect) and NEVER gotten in trouble for it. NEVER.  One day she went to her cousins house and they told her that if she went to the bathroom all day, she'd get a prize at the end of the day…guess what? She went to the bathroom on her own and didn’t wet herself. I've tried that, but as soon as I stopped giving her rewards, she'd start wetting herself again. Me and her dad have been married for almost 4 years and we have a 21 mo onld little boy. Do you think its to get attention because she's jealous of him? Do you think she's upset that me and her dad are married? Her parents have been divorced for over 6 years (her mom married 3 times since then). Do you think its just me that she's trying to upset? She didn’t start wetting herself until about 3 years ago. She hasn’t had any physical trama and we've seemed to rule everything out with the doctor. If its not attention, what could it be since the doctor exhausted all the possibilities he knows? If it is attention, what can I do? The more attention i give her the more she does it and then lies to me about it. its not until i call her out that i get an honest answer. Am I wrong for wanting her punished for lying about wetting herself? Am I wrong for wanting to protect my furniture? I hate to ignore the issue but I'm being forced to and am unable to say ANYTHING or I'll end up in a fight with my husband because his xwife will call and yell at him. She called one day and fussed because we made her sit on a jacket on the way home because she had peed all thru her pants and I put up a fight not wanting her to sit on the seat and her mom called and said that we hurt her feelings so bad that she got sick to her stomach that night and couldn’t go to school the next day because she was so upset. What can I do???? Don’t you think NOT doing anything is hurting her more?? Please help.

[mandaxx25]

Reading this, I really think you have missed so much here. Do you realise she is a little girl and not a dog? It sounds as though this child is suffering something deeper and her wetting is a cry of help. You don't care about her, you're jealous and you like your furniture more! I have a 6 year old and my husband loves her as his own he wouldn't dream off treating her as you have this little one. You sound like a spoilt, sulky child yourself. Frustration is one thing but you need to find the deeper root of this. If I remarried 3 times like her mum did, I imagine my little ones would be messed up too!

[tschock]

There are soooo many possibilities. My son was doing strange things for awhile too. Stabbing furniture etc. We took him to a psychiatrist and they said he had seperation anxiety.He lives with his father and step-mother. That's where he chose to be,however he is free to live where he wants,and can visit at any time.
His psychiatrist says that he does these awful things because he's mad at us and wants us to be a family again. It was explained to him that it just wasn't going to happen and that he needs to focus on something positive. He is 14.

A friend of our's has a little girl that's 7 and she's doing the whole peeing her pants thing as well. They took her to an urologist and the Dr. said that there was nothing wrong with her physically. They took her to a psychiatrist and he said that it was possibly an attention getter/spite thing.
She waits until she's about a block away from home and then pees herself. So far the kids at school haven't teased her. The Dr. said that maybe if the kids DID tease her that she would stop.
Her teachers are tired of the urine smell and the parents have to bring a week's worth of clean clothes to the school every Monday.
Her parents have tried everything except the teasing. They have punished her,they have coddled her,they have taken her out for special activities (which only makes the other 3 children upset),they have told her that they will reward her if she doesn't pee on purpose,etc.
Neither of these children has been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD as of yet,but the little girl is still running through tests,so we'll see.