Potty training "regression"/daily accidents 2.5 years

[Zimbah]

DD has been partially potty trained since around 18 months i.e. mainly in pull-ups since last spring, sometimes knickers, but often using the potty either with prompting or by her own volition.  In January we decided to bite the bullet and go to knickers full time (apart from at night). After about a week she started doing fantastically, only having an accident once or twice a week at most.  This lasted for maybe 2 months.  Now over the past month she's wetting herself probably once every day, sometimes twice a day.  There's no pattern - sometimes it's the morning, sometimes its in the evening.

I know she's still only little and this is probably normal but how should I handle this?  I've been trying to just clean her up, remind her calmly that wees go in the potty, or I ask her where to do her wee wee and she says "in the potty".  I probably act annoyed more often than not though, not a telling off but more of a sigh, "oh DD" kind of thing.  I'm constantly thinking that it's because I've trained her 'wrong' in some way or that she's not ready (although really I know she is ready as she's dry so much of the time).

Should I be reminding or insisting that she goes more often?  Sometimes she can easily go two or even 3 hours without needing to wee, then sometimes she'll have an accident only 1 hour after weeing, so I don't know how I could time reminders that would be helpful.  Also I don't want to keep banging on about it to her which I think will make her more resistant, sometimes she gets really annoyed if I try to make her go when she feels she doesn't need to.

It doesn't help that I'm 34 weeks pregnant and finding it very very hard to remain calm. I really hoped that she would be more or less dry by the time the baby arrived so at least I had a month or so of not cleaning up accidents, knowing that she might well regress anyway when the baby comes.  Should I just keep doing what I'm doing, will she stop wetting or should I try something different?  Help!

[Surfer Rosa]

DS was out of diapers at 20 months and with rare exceptions, was dry until a couple of months ago (he'll be three in August). We went through a phase like this recently: for a few weeks where he was having accidents daily (sometimes more than once), and there was no rhyme or reason to them, and like your DD, when questioned about where pee/poo goes, he'd answer "the potty". He did go through a huge developmental phase at the same time (he was not terribly chatty, and now is talking all the time) and matured in some other ways. I think that things like pottying/sleep regressions are pretty normal when they've got stuff like this going on (your DD may be thinking about the new baby?). I'd say keep doing what you're doing, and she'll go back to using the potty soon enough...We upped the reminders for a while (but it didn't seem to make a huge difference) but didn't want to turn it into an issue...we'd just change him and re-state where he should be peeing/pooing. With our son, it stopped as suddenly as it had begun...and we're back to normal. I hope the same for you!

[Zimbah]

Thanks for the encouragement.  I know realistically there's not a lot I can do about it other than clean her up, remind her where wee wee goes, and try not to get cross.  It's so hard to stay calm though!

[Spring Lily]

Funny, I have been thinking about starting a thread exactly like this.

My DD is 2.5 and has been out of diapers for about 5 months. In the last couple of weeks it's like she's sort of stopping trying. She will wet her pants repeatedly all day. After she peed on the couch two times in one day, I had enough and have put her back in (cloth) diapers. I have some pull-ups for emergencies when we're out, and she keeps asking for those instead of underwear. I don't want to use them because I don't want her to feel dry! she keeps getting annoyed that she's in a wet diaper, so maybe that will help.

It's very hard not to get frustrated. My only guess is that she wants to keep playing and is tired of stopping for the potty. I'm going to try taking her back out of diapers this weekend and keeping on top of physically taking her to the potty. I'm also keeping a potty chair in the room where she's playing, so it's not as much of an interruption to use it, and hopefully get back in the habit of going.

The only other thing I wanted to mention is that I wonder if your DD senses that things are about to change in the house, which is why she's regressing?

[StoriesInTheSoil]

Subbing.  DS has been potty trained since his 2nd birthday (full-time underwear) and we're on our second regression phase.  The first one was when DD was about a month old and almost certainly connected to her birth.  This regression seems to be connected to the fact that he is really getting deeply involved in his games and his world and he seems reluctant to tear himself away from that world to go potty.  I've been considering getting training pants even though he's never worn them before just to save his pants from getting wet when he doesn't quite make it. 

Nice to know others are dealing with this issue too!