Potty regression

[turtledove]

X-posted with Butts, but there is so little traffic there...

My 3yo DD is driving me crazy! She has been potty trained for about 5 months. We have had our ups and downs as far as accidents go, but she was doing quite well for a couple of months. Recently, she has started having accidents again - but only during the day. She will wake up in the middle of the night and go (or call for help). She has not had an accident at night since the first two weeks of PT. I know she can do it - obviously if she is waking up from a sound sleep to go to the bathroom, she knows the cues and has some control. During the past week or so, we have had to change underwear 3 or so times during the day. Inevitably, I will have just asked her if she had to pee a couple of minutes or less than when she has an accident (thankfully, only pee accidents, never poop). She just doesn't want to stop what she is doing to pee. I have made her sit on the potty, but this makes her scream and cry, and I wonder if it has made it worse. She looks at me and tells me she is sorry, but nothing is changing. Any advice?

TIA!

[turtledove]

bump - anyone?

[o_mom]

It is very common for this age. We spent almost a year with DS1 doing this and about lost our minds. We ruled out a physical problem, tried sticker charts, rewards, even medication. None of it worked. What worked in the end was for us to have him stop what he was doing immediately when we noticed any wet pants. We sent him upstairs to change and he had to put his wet clothes in the laundry. No punishment, no getting upset, all just very matter of fact. When we backed off, he eventually realized that it was taking more time to go change his pants every time (multiple time a day) than if he would just go when he needed to. There were a few meltdowns the first few times where we had to 'help' him through getting changed, but once he realized it was not negotiable and he was going to change them they tapered off.

We also did several potty breaks during the day where I said "It's time to potty" and we went. I never asked because that just set up his natural defensive reaction and turned it into a power struggle. Again with the calmly (on the outside) waiting it out that he needed to go potty before he went back to playing or whatever we were going to do next.