Help! Toilet training going further and further backwards (DD aged 3.2)

[ceebie]

In case it is relevant, DS was born in March. Around May, DD (aged 2.8) had a sore bottom so we let her run around the garden with no nappy and left a potty out - she managed to use the potty successfully all day. So we kept going and she used the potty for wee's and poo's for the next month or two with hardly any accidents. Then she started having slight leaks in her pants before she realised that she needed a wee. Sometimes she would tell us, sometimes she would hold on for longer until we realised her pants were damp. Then she started having a few wee accidents. Then, beginning of November, she started doing poos in her pants for about 5 days in a row, as well as some wee accidents. She has since been very on/off with accidents - this week she had poo accidents on Monday, Saturday and today (Sunday), also puddles with a similar frequency. I should point out that she moved from potty to toilet quite some time ago.

I am so fed up with it... we seem to be going so far backwards. I am doing my best to remain calm and not show stress or annoyance at the accidents.

I am not a big fan of rewards - they only interest her for a short space of time anyway, and I rather feel that she needs to 'get' it for herself when she's ready. That's just it though... how long am i going to have to wait, as I'm running out of patience. I am sorely tempted to go back to nappies... although then we're right back to 6 months ago!

My DD didnt train until she had turned 3. It was sheer stubbornness with her.....

Once she started preschool and saw all the other kids using the toilet and realised that she was different, she soon started to use the toilet. Then because of her age, she picked it up really quickly and we only had 1 pooed pants when she was too busy playing to go, and a couple of wet accidents. She has never wet the bed either.

We did have a reward chart with stickers on and when she had 5 stickers she got a sweet.... could you work towards a bigger reward, like some sort of toy or day out if she achieves a week of using the toilet?

we just kept reminding her to go and got the preschool to do the same..

DD has had pooed pants again at school a couple of times recently.... age 4.8, and when I talked to her, she just said that she was too busy to go as she had eaten her dinner and just wanted to go outside and play....

does your DD go to preschool?

DD is in nursey 2 days a week, and will be going back to 4 days a week in January when my maternity leave finishes.

We do remind her to go to the toilet but we find that the more we try to force the issue, the more resistant she gets and the more negative the whole toilet experience becomes.

I understand that. DD would sit on the potty for ages, then get up and poo on the floor beside it.... just because she could, really, no other explanation for it.....

Maybe being at nursery 4 days a week will help. Could you have a little chat with her and nicely say that she is a big girl now and that big girls must use the toilet and make her feel really big and important about it?

What do the nursery say about it? Are they helpful?