Mayflower primary school - nappy changing facilities for school aged children

Yes, I think probably they waited too long.

But that is the kind of thinking that has come out from the AP movement as far as I can see - they take the same approach to sleep issues.

The idea is that when kids are "ready" they will easily and naturally toilet train, sleep through the night, etc. So parents try, it's hard, and they give up thinking the child isn't developmentally ready yet. A lot are also being told that a child can't train until at least 3.

I think routine is a big deal as well, it's very difficult to pay attention enough when you only have a few hours together and it's during the morning and evening routine, and weekends. It's just not enough time for many children, and some nurseries will not really help.

Once they are as old as 4 they are used to having a diaper and don't much care, and are more able to be oppositional.

Are you a teacher. I ask because you’ve perfectly articulated my head teacher BIL’s take on the current situation.

A girl in DDs class came for a play date and was in a nappy. Mum didn’t tell me and to be honest I don’t want to change someone else’s child. I’ll be honest, it never occurred to me until then how common it has become. In part it’s definitely SEN kids in mainstream school, but partly it’s just parents who don’t know how or in some cases can’t be arsed. I have a large family so I’ve been around nieces and nephews potty training, so I could go to my family for advice, support and help, lots of people don’t have that. I think reading online forums and advice is great, but advice and support from real people (family or professionals in the community) is better and there’s less of a barrier.

I was chatting with my primary school head teacher brother in law recently. He said since Covid there are many parents who just can’t be bothered parenting as well as children to have got over the isolation of lockdown during those vital months of child development. He has children starting school who are in nappies, can’t hold a pen, can’t write their name, don’t respond to their names. Also children who don’t have the core strength to sit for periods of time and are unable to change themselves for PE.

“they are not ready”

'Gentle' parenting approaches aim to avoid conflict or frustration, which can lead to fewer clear boundaries and routines. This, in turn, can delay the development of independence and self-regulation.

So, some parents believe their child isn’t ready for toilet training, but children don’t always become ready on their own. Like learning to walk or ride a bike, using the toilet is a skill that requires patience, encouragement, routine, and consistent practice. Equally, some parents delay starting because they worry about resistance, mess, or stress. Modern conveniences like pull-ups and wipes can also make it feel easier to postpone training, even when a child is capable of learning.

Waiting too long can make the process more difficult, especially if the child becomes comfortable and reliant on nappies.

Excessive screen time means today’s children are growing up surrounded by smartphones, tablets, and streaming content from a very young age. This constant digital stimulation reduces their tolerance for boredom, shortens attention spans, and limits their ability to engage in independent or imaginative play. It can also interfere with body awareness, when children spend long periods focused on screens, they may become less attuned to physical signals like needing the toilet.

Many 6 and 7 year-olds are unable to sit still, follow instructions, or engage appropriately in the classroom. Too many children have not been properly socialised during their early years and, as a result, they are simply not ready for the structure and expectations of school life. This is made worse by permissive parenting styles, where boundaries are not clearly defined, and by excessive screen time, which impacts attention span, emotional regulation, and social development. The result is a growing number of children starting school without the basic skills they need to succeed.

This shift places enormous pressure on teachers and schools diverting resources away from learning and toward behaviour management and basic care.

This ultimately costs society as a whole, both financially and in terms of human potential. But as long as we can all numb ourselves with screens, instant gratification, and endless on-demand content, it seems easier to ignore the long-term consequences.

^ Great post.

But re. "Massive increase in the number of children with special needs", why is this? Is there an actual increase in the number of children with special needs, or did these children previously attend alternative provision that doesn't exist anymore? I know it's been discussed here on MN before, but I'd love a definitive answer as it's clearly an issue for school staff (my friend is a TA).

Re. not being toilet trained until 3-4 (if not special needs, obviously). I have no words, this beggars belief. What on earth is going on?

My MIL - who passed away recently, aged 90 - was a 3lb baby and regarded as a miracle.

Re potty training, my DS was pretty good with that but he was so tiny that the EYFS requirement to zip up coat and undo/do up buttons was a challenge

Different parenting style? I read something yesterday 2here a mother scolded her own mother for wiping her gd’s face while eating. Aparently, it’s de rigeur to ‘let her explore her food’. Crazy-I taught my kids from early on to have table manners and use cutlery. It’s very child led now, same with changing to pants. Kids don’t have uncomfortable nappies anymore so why should they lead? It was completely normal when mine were young for them to use a potty/toilet from around 2-2 and a half. I’m talking the majority of kids here, not ones who need extra support.

There have been click bait newspaper articles about this since I started teaching (2003) snd in ten years it will be more of the same.

Some of the children will have SEN, diagnosed or otherwise, and need support in accessing what’s available.

Some of the children will be from chaotic and struggling households and they will also need support.

There will be some crossover in the above.

And it was ever thus.

I'm sure it's a range of things:

• some people struggling with teaching their children things like you suggest
• more children not being in a family environment for as long. Even if you are an excellent nursery or childminder, fully registered for children from 6 or 9 months, they won't get the same attention as they would have got at home with an adult one-to-one or one-to-two. Not knocking childcare settings or working parents, but a childcarer working towards the needs of several kids, can't prioritise getting one kid trained. Something like nose blowing - when one child needs it, you sit with them and help them until they get it, you can't do that while others need other things.
• More children with disabilities or difficulties going into mainstream who previously would have been in specialist settings, either due to lack of specialist provision available, or more positively because given that mainstream is able to meet most of their needs, they are able to go there and the toileting issues dealt with.
• Sounds a bit dramatic, but better health care meaning more children survive complicated births and then have disabilities that impact toilet training, instead of dying of their birth complications. (43 years ago I was a tiny baby at just 5 pounds and a month prem. 38 years later a friend's son was a tiny baby at 2 pounds something and 3 months prem. He would 99% have been a died at birth if he'd been born 38 years previous.)

We temporarily relocated to the US when DC was 2.5. As part of preparation to go DC needed to be potty trained to be in room allocated at US Montessori Kindergarden. At the time, very few children in DCs nursery were trained that early. Nursery were very helpful though and made the process work well. There was one awful week of wet clothing when UK nursery said 'don't give up' and it was good advice. Once we arrived in the US, DC was one of the younger ones in the room. I was there for the first morning and almost the first thing I saw was one of older ones (circa 3:5) leaning on the water play table obvs making a poo face 🤣.

School starts later in the US, but I don't recall many kids having accidents in school. In pre school there were a few, in the kindergarden room it wasn't uncommon.

Contemporaries whose children started reception in the UK at 4 seemed to have their kids toilet trained but some still had accidents.

This was 15 years ago when the average age for potty training seemed to be 3-3.5 in the UK. I don't think that I've ever encountered a child in primary school with a nappy or training pants here or US. Times must have changed.

I'm 60 and I was potty trained at around 16 months. No idea what the science for that was but the practicalities would have had something to do with cloth nappies or the high cost of the then quite new fangled disposibles.

This is absolutely a change. In the past it's been rare to need these kinds of facilities on a regular basis.

I think the most basic reason is that in the past the general view would be that if a child's toileting could not be managed within the regular facilities a school had, they are not ready for mainstream school. Now schools are viewed as a kind of childcare that needs to meet the needs of all students in the same setting, no matter how disparate.

So people who had children who were just slow developers might wait an extra year or so to start them in school. In fact at one time where I grew up (not the UK) there was a "school readiness" checklist, which suggested that a child should normally have met certain milestones before beginning school. Being toilet trained was one.

People also used to really try and make sure children approaching school age had met certain milestones. Able to do up a coat, comfortable in the toilet without help, know their phone number and last name, that kind of thing. People no longer seem to do this as often (I see kids of 9 quite regularly in my job who do not know their phone number, more than half in a class typically!)

Children with special needs were often in other kinds of provision if they couldn't manage with a fairly standard school washroom set up. Not always specifically because of that issue, but also because they often had other additional needs that the school wasn't the best place to meet.

As far as kids with no special needs - I think there are a few reasons more are not trained when coming to school. To my mind it is a combination of FT working parents, childcare facilities run without adequate support to really meet children's needs when they are there for long hours, some very bad advice recommending that parents delay training past the optimal time which makes it harder later, and a belief by parents that they should not be in conflict with their children and things like toilet training should come easily.

There is the internet? Books? Loads and loads of free information on potty training, more than there would have been 10y ago. The HVs I’ve met are not who I’d go to for support with potty training unless I had done my own work and then needed referring on

Yes, bad enough for nursery staff but for teachers and TAs having to change a 5+ year old's nappy?I hope they can refuse but suspect they can't.

Yes, but:

1. It's far more common for children with special needs to be in mainstream schools than it was in the past (and the pros and cons of this are too much of a discussion to get in to here without derailing this thread)
2. Yes, in some cases it's the parent's "fault" - but where it is, it's not the children's fault, so they shouldn't miss out on education
3. And if you're thinking "oh, we should help the children but the parents should be investigated by social services", then what you'll do is add massive pressure onto parents of children who have special needs but are as yet undiagnosed

It’s a fact that more children aged 4 are in nappies. There are the same number of Sen schools as there were 30 years ago here, the difference is that there are far more children with Sen - some due to diagnostic criteria changing but that’s not the whole story. Why more children are getting to 4 without being school ready is a question that needs answering.

As we run a play group at work I do see the 0-4 year olds with parents and purely from observation I see that parents aren’t even attempting potty training before 3.5 or so and give up easily saying “they are not ready” whereas in my experience you have to persevere and it’s a messy process!!! I had a late trainer due to asd, it can take a long time, and it’s so much easier not to bother. Basically the reasons will differ on an individual basis but across a school, a lea, the country you can see trends and its kids are arriving at school commonly unable to do things that a generation ago it was rare for them to struggle with eg knife and fork, zips, buttons, in the 70’s you had to tie a proper tie and do shoelaces/bows at 4, my brother really struggled whereas I had the luxury of buckles (no Velcro then!)

Other than children with SEN, lack of parenting and/or parenting skills.

I don't think there is any one reason for it all, but a lot of contributing factors.

My DD is in reception year now, she was born a couple of months before we went into lockdown due to covid. Her school cohort has more children that started school (in reception year) in nappies than they've ever had before according to their reeption class teacher. The teacher puts it down to a lot of social failures during and after lockdown, where health visitors effectively abandoned families, social groups for parents and babies weren't able to meet, and parents weren't able to access wider family support. Add to that as others have noted, the increase in numbers of children with additional needs attending mainstream schools, and the eyewatering cost of childcare meaning that a lot of children are not going to nursery at all, where they might get nudged into potty training. As I said, lots of contributing factors.

I think this is just the latest moral panic to be honest. Yes there are more children who aren't toilet trained but there are so many news stories I'm convinced it's partly just people are now noticing it more.

Hardly. If children were arriving at school not toilet trained in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, then there schools would have noticed. It didn't happen.
Now it does happen, far too much.

The news stories might bring it to more members of the population at large, but schools are very, very aware it is the problem that has massively increased and not just that things are noticed that weren't noticed before.

It’s ‘increasing’ as the number of SEN kids in mainstream schools has increased as schools for students with SEN have been shut down or defunded/slimmed down. So, not really increasing as such, but the demographic of the student population has substantially changed.

This doesn’t add up. Children in nurseries are often toilet trained quickly and effectively, usually when they're in the room for 2-3 year olds. It’s also worth noting that once a child is eating a full adult diet, their bowel movements become more like those of adults, larger, smellier, and more difficult to manage in nappies.

For nursery staff, especially those earning minimum wage, changing nappies under those conditions is understandably unpleasant and something they'd prefer to avoid. That alone creates a strong incentive to support early toilet training and they do.

I think this is just the latest moral panic to be honest. Yes there are more children who aren't toilet trained but there are so many news stories I'm convinced it's partly just people are now noticing it more.

In the past children did a staggered start to school, more children were at home and not in childcare until school and they had to be toilet trained to attend a preschool. So either you didn't see non toilet trained children or they were toilet trained out of necessity.

People are weirdly sanctimonious about training early. I potty trained DS (some mild SEN maybe) at 3 and a half and he got it pretty quickly. Would have been a disaster at 2!

The other stuff like "blow their nose" is surely quite anecdotal? As for holding a pencil there are lots of studies that show boys in particular haven't developed the correct muscle skills at 4 to always be great at writing. We push kids into it far to soon in my opinion.

It's difficult to understand the logic here. If nappies become unaffordable, it stands to reason that more parents would prioritise potty training earlier. For families where both parents work, children are typically in nursery settings, and nurseries generally encourage potty training.

While a rise in children with SEN may explain some delays in toilet training, that doesn't account for the full picture. Unfortunately, some of this comes down to a lack of parenting knowledge and common sense. Increasingly, parents are not equipping their children with basic self-care skills, it's lazy and incompetent.

This puts an unfair burden on early years staff and teachers, who are often expected to change nappies for children well beyond the typical potty-training age. Unless a child has a disability that prevents it, not teaching them to use the toilet before pre-school is neglectful.

The population has changed massively!

We’re saving babies now at 22/23 weeks that would never have been saved previously. The majority of them have long term complex needs which we are just not set up to deal with. There aren’t enough Sen places for all these children so they get pushed into mainstream.

Considering the average reading age in this country is estimated at around age 9-11, there will be an awful lot of people who would struggle to understand instructions in a book or online forum. People with poor reading skills would very much benefit from a health visitor or sessions in a sure start centre to help.

Some children start school at just turned 4, so those children that take longer to get it might not be reliably trained. I had a friend who tried really hard to potty train her son, got all the help from the health visitor etc but he just didn't get it at all and then magically did just as he turned 4. As he was a late July born, she was really worried that she might be sending him into reception in pull ups. She certainly wasn't a lazy parent.