5 yrs old daughters with toilet anxiety at nighttime.

[DesperateDad]

My 5 year old daughter is going through a peeing toilet issue that has been happening for approximately 9 months now but has reached an extreme level in the past 5 weeks.  When its time for bedtime we do bath time, brush teeth, comb hair, story time, but the last thing we do is go potty before bed and then it starts.  After peeing the anxiety will start to build.  For some reason after she finishes peeing she says she has to still go.  She will do this for 30 to 40 minutes crying and throwing a fit. She has been seen the Doctor just in case she had a urinary track infection but she was fine, plus she only does it at night.  We try to help and calm her down but trying to help adds fuel to the fire.  If we do leave her alone she still starts screaming.  At the end we have to force her off by picking her up while shes kicking and screaming and carry her to bed.  When this happens she keeps saying "I gotta pee, I gotta pee" quickly and repeatingly even though we told her that she does not need to.  This has been happening every night and after finally getting her to sleep at night she will wake up around 4 to 5 hours later, come wake us up saying I need help because she has to pee again and then it starts all over again.  We have tried many things to help.  We are currently seeing a counselor regarding this problem but its not helping yet.  Weve done everything from being extremely hard and spanking her to being nice and giving love and what she wants.  Regardless of our ideas nothing is working.  She definately does not like throwing these fits as she has told us throughout the day.  She says she is going to be good and not throw fits.  But it always happens.  Like I had said before, during the day she is a total sweetheart, pees and poops fine.  She also is trying to poop everytime she pees at night even if she has just gone.  We are trying to setup to see a Child Psycologist, but they are either taking no more patients or book 3 - 6 month out. We at our wits end.  I'm getting only 4-5 hours sleep at night for the last 3 weeks and its taking its toll on us.  Any ideas and help would be great.
Thx.

[DesperateDad]

I agree with your comments on her prolonging the bedtime thing for what ever reason shes doing it all of a sudden.  We will attempt to do the peeing prior to stories, but the reason we run this schedule is because she feels that peeing right before sleep time will help her with keeping from having to wake up at night to pee.  I think we have to keep reassuring her that she doesnt have to go when she has just gone, but this is something we have done religiously in the past few weeks.  For the first time in 2 weeks she actually slept through the night.  The bedtime fit still occured before, but at least she didnt wake us up at night and do it again.

[megochick101]

I agree with jdtm, if she is only doing this before bedtime, then I think she is just either trying to prolong going to bed or maybe she is afraid of sleeping in her room for some reason.

Have you ever tried changing her bedtime routine? For example instead of doing story time before peeing, have her pee first and then have story time. That way after she's done peeing, she has story time to look forward too. And then if she still insists on causing a fit after she pees you can tell her if she doesn't behave, she will lose her story time. This may help her calm down and then you can all relax together(lying on the bed) during story time, that way she has time to wind down. Plus she will already be all comfy in her bed so she may be able to fall asleep easier after the book.

I don't know if any of this will help but i hope it does and Good Luck! :)

[jdtm]

Is she scared of going to bed alone?  Could it be the bathroom issue is just prolonging the task of going to bed?  Just wondering ....