When's it going to end?

[Harmony96]

The pottying accidents, I mean. She's 3.5. She's been trained (in that she would go if I took her regularly) since around Thanksgiving. She's been trained (in that she will take herself) since February. I'm not concerned w/ night training b/c I know that could still take time.

But during the day, several times a week, she still has an accident of one type or another. I don't know what to do anymore. Today it was a #1 and two #2s. I really don't know what to do.

All I can say is it's a good thing I'm doing a little part-time EC w/ DS since apparently potty training/learning/whatever is rapidly turning into a 3-year process (I casually started w/ her when she was about 18 months).

[Letitia]

I hear all these stories about how so-and-so's kid decided they were done with diapers and was suddenly potty-trained. Well, that didn't happen here either. DD started wearing underpants at 23 months, and she's nearly 3-1/2 now. Accidents have slowly decreased, and it seems to wax and wane, but it still feels frequent. For her, it's really only urine. She gets very upset if she poops her pants, which is pretty rare, but she just doesn't care if she wets them. Just takes them off, leaves them, and moves on to whatever she wants to do next unless I see it happen (and then we clean it up together).

I think for her the biggest underlying factor is that although she obviously gets the whole potty thing, she just doesn't mind that much if she wets her pants. There's no natural negative for her as she doesn't seem to mind the cleaning part. For a while, we were trying to manipulate her motivation, but all that seemed to do was make her more aware that we cared about it, and she started peeing on the floor when she was angry or didn't get her way. She'd just squat and shriek "Tinkling!" Thankfully, trying to make our reaction as neutral as possible was effective in stopping that.

So I guess have nothing helpful for you at all, except some empathy. I keep hoping that a little social pressure will eventually give her the motivation that's not there naturally.