4.5yo girl daily accidents

Hi everyone. My daughter goes to pre-k and has 1-3 accidents daily. She always has 1 right before I pick her up around 5:30, she's usually fine before then because her daytime teacher has been incredibly accommodating and makes her go once an hour, the evening teacher has to deal with a group of kids of varying ages until they're picked up so she doesn't always catch it. She has been in underwear since she was 2.5ish, she does not care about the wet feeling, when she has poop accidents and they're too bad to recover the underwear she gets sad but it doesn't fix anything in the long run.

My kid usually says it's because she's too busy playing and forgets, but she doesn't tell anyone about it until I get there and I'm really worried she's going to get a rash. At home, there's not nearly as many accidents, but it's mostly because I'm basically helicoptering because it stresses me out so much.

For family history, I believe I finished potty training around 4 but my brother had much longer struggles with it and I dont think he potty trained fully until we'll into his school years.

What I have already tried: the Oh Crap method when she was younger. Many talks about how she could get rashes, the poop and pee want to go in the potty, her clothes get yucky, it's bad for her body, I'm proud of her when she uses the potty, etc. The naked week. Various reward systems. Having her wear pull-ups if she has more than 2 in a day. Removing the pressure entirely and leaving it up to her. Reasonable (I think) punishments like her not being allowed to play alone in her room, no sweets for the day, or she has to wash out the underwear (for poop accidents). Right now, I'm at an total loss for what to do so I just have her teachers keep up with the making her go once an hour, I remind her every morning that she needs to pay attention to her body signs, stop what she's doing, and go, and let her know that I am disappointed when she has the accidents and give her a ton of praise everytime she successfully uses the potty. I have spoken to her doctor, there is no physical issue behind it. All of these methods were tried for over a week, generally about a month, so she would have time to adjust to them.

Does anyone who has had similar issues have any advice? Am I doing something wrong that I'm not noticing? What do I do?

It's so stressful, exhausting, and makes me feel like I'm doing a bad job parenting. I'm so worried about how to manage this when she gets to kindergarten.

Posted Jan 10, 2026, 12:27 AM UTC

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