3 yo potty training — need help desperately!

Hi moms. I’m at a loss, so I’m turning to this subreddit for help.

My child is 3.5 years old. We began potty training her at the very start of this year (literally, on January 1st). We did the method of setting a timer every 20 minutes, sitting her on the potty, and rewarding her with a treat (a chocolate chip) if she went. It went pretty great while we did that routine — not many accidents and didn’t resist us. She even went quite a few times without us having to tell her. We did that for about 10 days while we were visiting my parents. We thought she was doing great!

We continued with the same routine once we got home, but spaced them out since every 20-30 minutes was getting monotonous. We still continued to ask her often and had a potty in each room so it was easily accessible to her. She goes to daycare, and has done quite well there. She has an accident every once in a while, but for the most part she comes home accident free. I think it’s because they have a routine there of asking the kids at specific intervals.

Well, it’s been four months and we are struggling. We have regressed over the past couple months. She has accidents all day long and only goes on the potty after we ask her to, and even then it is usually a fight. She wears undies all day except for at night (she sleeps with a pull-up). She will not go to the potty on her own when she knows she has to go. We remind her often and ask her to go, she says she doesn’t have to, but then pees/poops her pants right after. She heard to wake up consistently with a dry pull-up, now it’s wet every morning. Please don’t judge — but we even bribe her with potty treats and sometimes that’s the only way we can get her to so much as sit on it. I try very hard during the day to consistently remind her to go but I solo parent alone during the day with her and a baby, so when I get busy with the baby, often times she has accidents because I’m too distracted to remind her.

My husband and I are at a loss. We don’t know what approach to take from here. This is the first child we’ve had to potty train so we don’t have any other experience. We are getting so frustrated with the accidents (not at her) because we know she knows better. She was in the habit of going half on her own and half when we asked her to. She has done a 180 regression. I do think she somewhat understands that it’s wrong because she tries to hide the dirty accidents and gets defensive when we try to talk to her about it. We can’t sign her up for pre-school or extracurricular activities until she’s potty trained. She is also the oldest in her group at daycare because she hasn’t been able to move to the older group with her friends because she is the only one her age not potty trained.

I know this is a phase, and she will catch on at some point, but right now I just don’t know what to do. Can anyone help me out with suggestions or tactics going forward with this? I’m desperate.

Thank you so much.