3& half year old still wetting herself

[Michabhave]

My daughter is still wetting her pants and trousers despite being asked or taken to the toilet. Today she was at nursery and wet herself on purpose. I have tried talking to her about it. We have been potty training for 9 months now and I really do not what I am doing wrong. I have tried reward charts which she wasn't interested in, I've tried asking and taking her to the toilet and she fights with me that she doesn't want to go. I have even removed treats. Could it be something more such as autism???

Could it be something more such as autism???

Well there's a chance it could be but there are also other things that could be going on.

Is there a reason that ASD has spring to mind? Does she have any other traits or have Nursery said anything?

With hindsight the best advice I was given was 'Don't worry - she won't still be wetting herself at 11'! That's not to minimise it - I've been there and I know how important it can seem BUT I really wish I hadn't got so cross and worried about it.
In terms of practical stuff, firstly, it's not all that uncommon. You don't hear about it because parents don't like talking about it, so all you hear is 'oh mine was trained at 12 months' 🙄. If you do think it's outside the normal spectrum (ask the nursery their view), find out whether there is a continence clinic anywhere near you. If not, see whether there is some online offering (perhaps via GP/health visitors). You may well find that they don't deal with children that young because it's pretty common and you'll immediately feel better.
Don't know about autism, but incontinence is correlated to an extent with ADHD. But maturity in different things happens at different times without adhd. If there is an executive function issue (like ADHD) charts etc are unlikely to work and it may well be a case of constant reminders or even better, insistence on going to the loo at certain specific times.

We had this with my daughter. In the end the doctors gave her some medication to help with her muscles control. It really wasn’t her fault or something she could have done anything about, but thankfully we never took the approach that it was. Now she’s older it’s become apparent she is probably hyper-mobile which is linked with poor bladder and bowel control. This is just one example there are literally loads of reasons why your dd might be struggling with toilet training.

Mine was scared of the toilet. She was physically ready but petrified. We had to get toilet seats with the additional smaller seat so she didn't feel like she might fall in, plus lots and lots of praise and rewards at nursery and at home.

I had a similar issue, for almost 2 years after training. As above, I think it’s really common but other parents don’t necessarily say - chatting to a colleague about it who works in EYFS and she said ‘oh don’t worry, it happens all the time in preschool/reception’.

I did feel my daughter was doing it by choice though for various reasons. One day I told her there’d be no treats for the rest of the day if it happened and followed through. We then had about 4 months without a single accident!!

What do you mean by 'on purpose'?

If you over stress about this you risk making it more of an issue.

My DD was like this, took such a long time to potty train fully, we started at around 2.5 and it was up and down but she wasn’t really properly dry until she was almost 4. Weirdly she was pretty much dry overnight from the start so I don’t think it was a physical thing.

I’m not quite sure why it took her so long to get it but I wonder if we just started too early maybe. DS was also born during that time so I wasn’t able to properly focus on it. I spoke with nursery about it at the time and they were pretty unconcerned and said lots are like that and not to worry about it. In hindsight, she only really properly got it when we relaxed. If she ever had an accident and one of us was visibly stressed out about it she would massively regress.