bum wiping. is it a case of trial and error???

[Whenisitmysleepytime]

ds is fab and independent at the potty but i wipe (only been doing this since august)
however at nursery what i thought were accidents were actually skid marks from ds wiping/ not himself. he just toddles off to the loo at nursery without telling anyone and sorts himself out. except he is not exactly thorough.

how do i do this without having skiddy pants all the time???

he's 2.5yo BTW so still pretty young for potty training etc.

[girlywhirly]

I think you need to encourage him to tell a staff member at nursery, so that they are aware he has gone to the loo and someone can check on him and wipe him. I doubt it has registered in his mind that he isn't wiping properly! Some children's arms just aren't long enough to reach in any case.

He is a bit young to be managing wiping by himself, so maybe you could mention it to the staff so that they will also encourage him to ask them.

You can help him learn by placing the loo roll in his hand, and guiding it to the right area to wipe, then teach him to wipe, fold over, wipe again, fold again etc until there is no mark on the loo roll. Explain he can use more if needed.

[storminateacup10]

thanks girlywhirly, good advice there!
sleepytime - have same problem with DD who is 3.5 and at FT nursery, where they don't help the kids to wipe their bums, but instead prefer to get them doing it themselves.
luckily she normally has a poo after breakfast when she is still at home, so I can wipe her with wipes, then get her to copy the same with toilet paper.
she came back reeking of poo last week when she had a freak poo mid-afternoon- she hadn't told her teachers she needed a hand and even if she had, I doubt they would actually do it for her.
she tends to wipe her front ok, but finds it hard to reach her bum...and sort of wipes the outside of one cheek or just the air around it!
argh, very frustrating..wish bloody nursery could give her a helping hand...surely kids this age too young to know how to do it properly?!

[Biscuitsandtea]

Oh my goodness, I just came on here to post about the exact same thing!!

DS is 3.1 and we started potty training him about a month ago. He's doing ok, still having an accident every other day or so, or maybe 2 accidents in 3 days on average but not doing too bad.

He's generally pretty good at nursery too, but I think they have this same sort of policy where they just wander off to the toilet and sort themselves out. So then he comes home and he still has poo on his bum.

I mean to be honest, I have no ideas how old he should be to start wiping his bum but as he's only been trained for such a short time, that was way down my list of priorities so although he wipes his own willy, I always wipe his bum for a poo. I guess I should start getting him to have a go, but I would be amazed (?) if many children could successfully wipe their own bottoms at 3?

Maybe I'm way off the mark there and it is just DS is behind the curve (I know he was relatively late training, so it's not incomprehensible that other children are better at bottom wiping than him!)

But I didn't want to say anything at nursery until I'd sort of got an idea as to what was 'normal'. I would have just thought that they would keep a bit more of an eye on them in terms of both bottom wiping and presumably hand washing. I mean DS does wash his own hands but it's a bit hit and miss. Sometimes great, sometimes pretty much just seems to wipe the soap all over the towel so just needs a bit of a reminder as to the general principles involved!

Does anyone know what the 'normal' age to expect to wipe your own bottom would be?

[PrincessOfWails]

And me, I came on here to post the exact same question!
DS is 3.5 and properly potty trained but I've been doing the wiping: he goes to nursery school in the morning. Today, he proudly announced that he had been to the toilet at school and done a wee and a poo (told us over lunch, he was ever so proud!). I suspect it was the first time. Along with praising, I asked whether he had asked Mr Taylor for help or just gone by himself - he said by himself (phew - at home, he clutches his bum and runs around shouting 'poo, poo!' ). He said he had wiped his own bum but, er, clearly not! Not at all...

Will take girlywhirly's advice here and do some teaching. Oh, bless, he was so proud of himself though!