urinating on bedroom floor

[brooketrout]

my son who wiil be 4 in january,and has been potty trained for about a year is urinating in his room veery day,usually in the morning or when he is up there playing.I also have a 11 month old baby who sleeps in the room the rug is ruined and the smell is dis gusting and I don't want to put in a new rug until this stops.My husband suffers from adhd and I wonder if there is something wrong with my son?

[Kevin Kennedy, Ph.D.]

It is likely that this behavior is more a matter of convenience than anything else. It's OK to approach it from a behavior management perspective. You can establish a simple reward for days on which your son refrains from this behavior and uses the toilet, and you can utilize time out (for approx. five quiet minutes) if he does display the behavior. Now, some of the time, at night or early in the morning, when young children wake up and have to use the bathroom, they are scared and so urinate in their room instaed. You might ask your son about that. If that is the case, tell him to come and wake you up so you can accompany him to the bathroom.

[VH-Mr.Mom]

A related discussion, Can't explain why? was started.

[888mom]

In addition to the potty chair in the room, you could try also putting him in training pants overnight, like pullups or something.  My sister does that for her daughter who is 4, since she doesn't always make it through the night.

As for the urine in the carpet, I know enzyme treatments can get cat urine out of carpets (when I rented once years ago I asked the owners to do that before I moved in since previous owners had cats and the carpets smelled horrible before the treatment and couldn't tell afterwards except for some residual stains that wouldn't come out).  At least for cat urine, enzyme treatments and thorough professional carpet cleaning can get the smell and bacteria out.  If you can't afford a professional carpet cleaner who does enzyme treatments, I believe you can buy carpet cleaners that have enzyme treatments in the store.  You might want to google carpet cleaning enzyme treatment or something like that.  See what comes up.  If you don't want to tell the professional cleaners the urine was from your son, tell them it was from a pet.  I guess that's lying, but you aren't doing it to deceive someone, you are doing it to protect your son's self esteem.  Children can be pets, right?  Anyways, hope you can get the urine smell out of the carpet.  

[mum2beagain]

It may also be worth putting a potty chair in his room. Maybe early in the morning of when he is distracted playing he can't get to the bathroom in time.