almost 4 year old regularly wetting herself

[ndd]

My daughter is almost 4 ahd regularly wets herself. She doesn't do the whole wee in her pants, but starts it and is damp enough for her to need a change of pants. She's been toilet trained since she was 2 and a half but has always had phases where she's regressed. She seems to find going to the toilet a total inconvenience. I've tried everything! Star charts, rewarding her with a chocolate, getting angry, ignoring it and not saying anything! She goes to nursery two days a week and she often has accidents there too, I think she just puts it off as long as she can because she can't be bothered to go.

[jordylass]

Oh my, I feel for you, I've had 5 children and one of them did this until she was almost 10. My DP used to get extremely cross with her, I'm more laid back and always thought it would stop, and it did, but at the time it was very frustrating because we knew she knew she needed to go, but she is very intense and still if she is doing anything she is completely focused and finds it hard to drag herself away.
I hope it doesn't go on as long as it did for us.

[shrub]

could you take her pants off her and let her wear a dress/skirt while she is at home just to make her more aware? my ds1 was like this at the beginning - far too busy to think about such trivial matters! and regressed when ds2 was born so i let him run around with no pants and trousers when he was at home to get him back on track. my ds1 hops back and forth when he needs to go and i remind him then - does your dd give any signs?

[ndd]

Shrub - thanks for this advice, might try leaving pants off. I know when she wants to go - goes on her tip toes! Even if I notice that her trousers/skirt have a damp patch and I remind her to go she does not want to, saying that she doesn't need to go. I think she probably is attention seeking and think she has got worse since her sister was born 8 months ago. She's great at night, been dry for 10 months and only had about 3 accidents.

[KateandtheGirls]

My daughter was regularly having accidents until she was about 4 1/4. I think she was like yours because it would usually happen when she was caught up in playing a fun game. She would leave it to the last minute and then it would be too late and she'd wee while she was on her way to the loo. I don't know if anything actually "worked" in stopping it, or if it was just that she got that bit older. But what I did do (when I was pretty sure that it was because she couldn't be bothered to get to the toilet) was try to combine not giving it much attention and being very matter of fact with explaining to her that at her age it wasn't acceptable and she had to go to the toilet whenever she needed to even if she was doing something fun.

Good luck. I hope the phase doesn't last long.

[shrub]

i would try not to get too stressed out about it - if you think we trained them for the first 2-3 years to go in their nappies. i think when they regress that maybe they feel the elastic around them from the pants and relax?