4.5 yr old keeps having accidents

[PeggySueOooOo]

My DD is 4 and a half years old and supposedly fully potty trained. She takes herself, wipes and washes her hands and can do so unprompted. That is she was until she started school.

Now it is far more hit and miss and she seems to be playing a "how long can I hold it in" game. School have asked me to "talk" to her as she is regularly having accidents at school. Which I have done until I am blue in the face. We are doing toy rewards. It is so obvious when she needs to go. We have tried nagging her to go, we have tried not saying anything and seeing if she will herself. She will go herself but so last minute.

The accidents she is having aren't full accidents. And always as she is running to the toilet. But they are bad enough to require a knickers change at least.

Does anyone have any suggestions of things to try? Is this just a stage? Sometimes she is so sad and other times she laughs.

I couldn't really say if it is a stage but I just wanted to say my son was the same at 4.5

He is now 6 and it is somewhat better but happens in phases and currently we have on average 1x wet pants a day (never a full on accident just holding on too long)

My advice is breath and thank the lord for washing machines

The school should know that this actually isn't that abnormal, it does happen to some children, just people don't like talking about it. I don't think they should be asking you to talk to her, they should be coming up with suggestions for encouragement for her. Sadly none of these have worked on my son so far. I think pretty soon (or almost now) he'll be at the age where others notice and tease and then it will stop. Paediatrician is confident that there is no medical issue and he has had checks/tests

My daughter is 4 years 3 mths and is exactly the same with toilet accidents, with her I think she's lazy or leaves it too late, we get wet pants often and I wish she would stop. School do a reward chart and we do too but we have to always remind her to go xx

I am glad I am not alone in this. But it is really frustrating. I think I will just have to continue with the reward system and hope it improves.

Dd2 did exactly this right up till she started school (she was old for her year so up to 4.5)

She grew out of it fairly suddenly when she started school (it may or may not have been coincidence) and only did it a couple of times after that. I think there was/is some element of sensitive bladder plus she is a highly 'resistant' personality. She still wees quite frequently though I think (she's 8).

But you're not alone she'd been out of nappies since 2 3/4 🤦🏻‍♀️🙄

In terms of rewards I wonder if actually you'd be better off totally ignoring it. As it started when she started school it may be about attention possibly.

My ds did that. It started when he had a very shorty stressed teacher in reception. It was like he was challenging himself to see how long he could hold it. Or he didn’t want to miss whatever was going on. He just grew out of it in the end.
I made sure he always had spare pants in his bag, and didn’t pressure him.

My daughter has had 3 wee accidents at school today and 2 more since getting home - why oh why I've no idea and she says she doesnt know herself. Feel like I'm banging my head against a brick wall. Some days she has no accidents but others several, there's no pattern to it. We can't help but get cross although they say don't make a fuss but I find that very hard to do. Any ideas?