Toilet training regression

[KitKat1985]

DD2 is 3.5. At the start of this year she was pretty much completely toilet trained in the day. There was the odd accident here or there, but in the main she was taking herself to the toilet to do all of her wees and poos in the potty. All good. However since about February the accidents had been becoming more frequent again, and for the past month she's making no effort whatsoever to go to the toilet and has just been wetting herself upteen times a day, and soiling herself as well. She's very stubborn and strong willed and it seems to be a 'I can't be bothered to go and I don't want to interrupt playing and you can't make me' type of behaviour. We tried to go back to taking her to the toilet regularly ourselves rather then letting her go herself, but she was screaming that she didn't want to go when we sat her on the potty and refused to do anything, even though this often resulting in her wetting herself a few minutes later. We've tried telling her off and taking her to the naughty corner for each accident, and on the flip side making it clear she would get chocolate buttons and lots of praise for using the toilet etc but we are getting nowhere. It's coincided with a particularly stressful time in our lives where the nursery has now closed down completely because of coronavirus and DH is having to try and do the near impossible task of working from home whilst simultaneously looking after DD2 and her older autistic sister DD1 whilst I'm also still working full-time as a nurse in the NHS, whilst trying to home-educate DD1 in-between shifts. As you can imagine, DD1 wetting herself and soaking the house in wee several times a day and having to be changed 10+ times a day wasn't making this any easier. Yesterday we just gave up and put DD2 back in pull ups. We didn't want to do this but can't go on like this either, as it's really testing our patience now. It's so frustrating when we know full well she knows how to use the toilet. Do we just give it a break for a few weeks for all of our sanity? Do we keep trying to force the issue? It's driving us both nuts!

Sorry, where I've written "As you can imagine, DD1 wetting herself and soaking the house in wee several times a day and having to be changed 10+ times a day wasn't making this any easier", is where I meant to write DD2 rather than DD1.

I could have written this myself!! DD has just turned three and was an absolute angel at potty training and was keen to learn and get rid of nappies when she turned two. We still used a nappy at night as insurance but 90% of the time they were dry and she used to get me up in the night if she needed to go most of the time. Over the last two weeks, she has been a nightmare, wetting herself twice a day (even the odd poop accident) and not even caring about it where before she would be distraught! PFor her, this coincides with all the changes happening (not going to nursery, not seeing grandparents, stuck at home) - her dad is also has a terminal illness, so it's been a, really rough time for her. I wonder if it's a stress reaction to what's going on in their lives right now? They know things are different and not right. I have no idea how to play this though. Hugs.

We had the same, but it was when the younger brother appeared in the picture. I will tell you one thing, it will pass, even if you think it will last forever.

We don't really know what did work. But we just took her to toilet every 1h and we would stay with her for 15 min, until she done pee or not.

It was dreadfull, we still have to remind her to go to toilet, but now I just tell her that if she will have an accident I will yell at her and that works.

Funny enough I think first time we had a correction of behaviour happened was when she on purpose tried to poo on a floor and my husband lost it big time. He yelled at her, like never before, and took her to toilet. I think it was the first time she realised that it is not ok and there are consequences.

I don't know about your kids, but my DD was unpunishable. No chocoloate, fine, no yougurt, bring it on, no tv, pfff no problem. Was driving me mad. And she laughed and sing on naughty step.... And chocolate for going to the toilet stopped working too.

Also removing nappy when she was going to bed helped. I was dreading it, but it only took a week. Since then she would get upset if she had accident in bed and usually it correlated with her peeing herself during day time. We told her that is why she peed herself and accident stopped day and night.

It's common for them to regress at times of change. My DD had a huge regression when she moved rooms in nursery.
We went back to removing knickers and putting a potty in the room she was playing in before gradually moving it back into the bathroom. I tried not to over prompt as that would make her dig her heels in and refuse the potty then wet herself seconds later. When she went on the potty herself I made a big fuss and over a few days she went back to using the loo herself. Hopefully it'll pass quickly.

Thank you for your replies. It's reassuring to hear we're not alone. I know deep down it's just a stage and it will pass but our patience is pretty stretched right now, and we're not coping well with all the recent CV related changes so it's just pushing our buttons right now. She almost seems to find being told off funny which is starting to make me wonder if she is doing it for the attention a bit, in addition to it being a battle of the wills. I think we might just stick to the pull ups for a few days to give us all a bit of a break from it and take the 'game' out of it for her, whilst still making it clear she will get rewards for using the toilet if she does choose to.