Daytime incontinence

Our son Alexander is 10 years old and has severe incontinence problems. He wears cloth diapers and plastic pants to bed and it is no big problem for him. However he suffers from daytime bladder and bowel incontinence too which is a much bigger problem for him. To cope with his daytime problem he wears diapers during shopping trips and car trips, to family and birthday parties, to the cinema etc. - but also under his snowsuit when he is out playing. When he is not in diapers he wears training pants as a just-in-case protection. He is not happy about being in diapers during the day but he has accepted it as necessary as long as he has wetting and messing accidents.

Recently he has started to have more accidents in his training pants and we have discussed to put him in diapers full time - however we are not sure whether it will be a good idea because it may not encourage him to try to use the toilet. Futhermore he will not be happy about being in diapers all the time - sometimes he is a little embarrased about being in diapers and he feels that training pants are more like underpants. On the other hand diapers are a much better solution for him as long as he has more accidents in his pants than times where he reaches the toilet. Although training pants offers more protection than normal underpants they cannot cope with big wetting or messing accidents and often they leak a lot. Of cause Alexander is not happy about that and often he cries when it happens. Diapers on the other hand offer him full protection and they are much more comfortable for him when he wets or messes.

/Anna