Why do people assume that those who potty train late are ‘lazy’ parents?

Why do you think potty training earlier than others makes parents feel superior? It’s not competitive, it’s about private personal hygiene and care. For parents who choose to potty train early, there are lots of reasons. Just because you can’t see the point, doesn’t mean others also feel that way and that’s fine.

You’re entitled to your opinion obviously but other opinions exist. In my opinion, wiping a bum of a child sat on the toilet is WAY better than wiping off smeared poo that’s squished in by a nappy!

How can you potty train too early? If they aren't ready then it wouldn't be possible to train them.

We did bare bum at home for the first few days, that's all that was needed. I don't see how he wasn't ready just because of that when he was fully potty trained by the end of the week.

not sure wiping the bum of a 2 year old is much nicer than changing a nappy frankly.

Ask any nursery staff, potty trained or not (or allegedly potty-trained but with accidents day and night..), 2 year old children do not wipe their own bottom.

I disagree

stay home and really nail it which is, in my experience, what they need at least for a few days.
when they are ready, there is no need to wait at home for a few days, that's the point.

Potty training too early might make some parents feel superior, but what's the actual point?

As an au pair I potty trained the 2.5 yo because her nappies were disgusting. Took about a week. Her parents were too lazy to bother with taking her to pee every couple of hours so put a nappy on her if I wasn’t there. She responded by taking her nappy off to use the potty.

There’s no right or wrong! I followed the cues from from my dd, and it was at 2yrs 10
months. She would not have been ready earlier and it was a dream, hardly any accidents, ignored the potty and straight on the loo with a little step and a toddler toilet seat. 6 months earlier there would have been accidents galore. After a few weeks of being dry in the day, we went for it and she was nappy free at night, and the kids from nursery group of around the same age, who were so ‘advanced’ and tried toilet training at a lot younger age were still wearing nappies at night and their mums were surprised she wasn’t’.

That’s your opinion and you’re completely entitled to it. But others find babies sitting in pooy nappies any longer than needed really disgusting. I think that’s why it’s an emotive topic. For me, potty training by age 2 was important because I feel there’s a clear benefit to their skin and wellbeing of coming out of nappies as soon as possible. I also hated changing pooy nappies myself, it’s a horrid chore that I wanted to be rid of as soon as possible. You say it isn’t gross and disgusting but that’s your opinion, others have different opinions and that’s also fine.

Oh bore off. Lack of effort? Life is hard enough, it's not a competition 😂 working full time and running a home, kids in multiple activities is BUSY. Children need consistency and if you aren't the one doing all the 121 work, it's hard. Timing it right is important, not getting in early.

I think trying earlier but then it not working out and trying again later, especially before 3 is fair enough. Not trying at all until 3 does feel a bit on the lazier side though I'd never actually comment.

Mine didn't have a ton of accidents and I didn't have to 'chase him around' with a potty either. I took a week off work, told him that wee and poo go in the potty, did bare bum for the first few days, then underpants, then trousers and he was potty trained by the end of the week. Lots of drinks and chocolate buttons. Minimal accidents.

My twins turn 18 months in a few months and I plan to do the same with them.

I think there's a difference between trying it, realising that the child doesn't seem ready and then leaving it for a few months and just not bothering until they are 3.5/4. My DC are pre-teen/teen so not that old and I tried potty training them both just after they turned two. They both got it within a day or two. If they hadn't I'm sure I would have left it longer to try again. I think some people just assume their DC won't be ready until after 3 so don't give it a go. Not having to keep buying nappies was certainly an advantage.

I did try earlier, but it didn’t go well, so I didn’t keep pushing. Just waited another little while and then it was really easy.

It’s great yours took to it super young, I mostly hear that at that age there are a ton of ‘accidents’ over an extended period of time. But they’re all different. Just like being dry at night seems to vary hugely, with the variation being in years, rather than months. They’re not going to be dry at night until they produce the hormone necessary. Surely the key is to do it at the right time for each child.

Absolutely. Regardless of what age you potty-train your child, the most important thing imo is to minimise stress and avoid shame. Otherwise, you're storing up a whole host of problems for yourself.

The one piece of advice I'd give to parents potty-training is this - if you're going somewhere or you're in a situation where it would be disastrous if your child had an accident, put a pull-up on them until they're reliably trained (either by itself, or over pants if you're worried about confusing them). A bit of "confusion" is infinitely preferable to stressing yourself and your child out. My child wore a pull up on long car journeys and plane trips long after they were potty-trained.

Between FT work, nursery, other dc commitments it is hard to find the time to stay home and really nail it.

Sorry but this is a cop-out. Toilet training is basic parenting.
'Other DC commitments!?' Surely the biggest commitment is to make sure your child isn't wetting/soiling themselves?

No one wants to be called lazy - but the above does suggest a distinct lack of effort.

my now 19yo DS still can't tie shoelaces, but his Dyspraxia was rated severe on all counts.

You can still get velcro shoes, he's a mens size 10 and we haven't had to stray from the trainers/smart boots shelves in most shoe stores yet.

Of course, persevere.. DD is also dyspraxic and finally got it aged 14, but don't despair if they don't!

I think it’s too late to wait to try, bjt if tried and child not ready I don’t see it as lazy. As mine are close in age my youngest wanted to use the potty early so we let her and she pretty much trained herself. We went against common advice and put her in pull
ups very young so she could use the potty. I asked her if she wanted to go and she normally
sat on it before going out etc and I took her to the loo when my eldest went and within a very short time her nappy was always dry. We left her in it so we didn’t have to stress (she was young) and never had any accidents. She was obviously self motivated but if I’d had a third, I would have done to the same way and trained while using pull ups!

Sorry, interoception.

I mean the DO cause proprioception problems, but the word i wanted was Interoception.

I tried DS1 in the summer so he could go pants-free in the garden etc. He was 2.5, and did not have a clue. He couldn't talk in sentences- just pointed grunted and used minimal words to make his point. That was the summer of the "two word picnic" when he dragged a chair across the room, pocketed some boxes of rasins from the high cupboard, came to me, said "walk", we went for a walk, he led the way, said "sit" and shared the rasins for us to eat.

He wasn't at the theshold for SALT, that came a year later.

We tried again at 3 and he got using the toilet reliably within a few weeks.

The autism diagnosis came at 9, and with hindsight, he isn't great at managing intericeptive signals so no wonder 2.5 was too soon for him. But at the age of toilet training, his additional needs were not obvious although there were traits that were present and relevant.

I'm not sure that 18m of strapping him into a "potty-chair" like the one I was trained with would have been that productive, despite saving laundering 18m worth of food allergy reusable nappies (disposables were useless).
At least being 3, we got straight on to using the toilet and cut unnecessary transitions which with hindsight could have been awkward.

DS2 was ready before 2.5 and didn't want to wear nappies any more. The awkward bit was him deciding while camping abroad when it really wasn't practical! He was sorted in a couple of weeks. Much simpler than DS1 and he could communicate much more effectively too.

Shoelaces are an on-going work in progress for them both... and both have grown out of velcro shoes. (Dyspraxia, dyslexia)

it absolutely is pertinent and not a red herring.

Dyspraxia, ADHD, and Sensory Processing Disorder are all types of ND that result in proprioception issues in children and adults. That includes being able to read the bodies signals around having a full bladder and needing to pee/poo.

If a child is developmentally incapable of producing and recognising the correct signals to inform the brain that they need to pee/poo they will not be able to potty train.

ND is the underlying cause, but the problem is developmental delay.

Due to this delay, children with Autism/ADHD/Dyspraxia are on average more likely to be aged 4+ when they successfully potty train.

Most of these children are not diagnosed until older (my son was 7) and often the parents are called 'lazy' because of the delay in training, when its a very real physical disability that has caused the problem.

Meh, "potty training" is a wide concept.

Some will proudly have a very early potty trained child - with such regular "accidents' that it's clear he's not potty trained at all, and wasn't ready. Using the potty twice a day doesn't mean you're potty trained.

Some will do later and never have an "accident" ever, because the kid gets it, and was old enough.

No one actually cares how old was a child when he was potty trained, that never comes up from the time they start primary school 😂(as long as it's a reasonable age obviously)

This topic comes up at intervals on the AIBU/Parenting boards and personally there are three aspects of it which I find interesting (or at least, as interesting as anything relating to potty-training can be).

The first is that people have very polarised views on this and never the twain shall meet. Some people think that the vast majority of children should be capable of being trained around the 2 mark (and by extension, the vast majority of parents not doing so are lazy). Their advice to any parent struggling with potty training is to grimly keep going all all costs. Others advise parents "oh if they're not ready, give up and try again later". At the point at which the sofa is being scrubbed for the fourth time that day, all trips out are cancelled for the foreseeable future and two pairs of pooey pants have been binned that day, they say enough is enough, stop torturing yourself and stressing out your child, masochism is out of fashion.

I guess what it comes down to is that some people think potty training is a horrific ordeal that just has to be struggled through, while others think that when it becomes an ordeal, that's the point at which you shelve it and come back to it.

The second is that people don't talk enough about the opportunity cost of when potty-training becomes an ordeal. If you have a child who is constantly having accidents, then they're wasting a lot of time when they could be learning and playing being uncomfortable and being cleaned up, and you as a parent are wasting a lot of time when you could be enjoying and bonding with your child being (hopefully quietly) frustrated at the mess and the cleaning. And you may start to limit outings because of the stress of potential accidents, so you and your child miss out in that way. It's a cost-benefit analysis against the advantages of getting them trained at an early age.

Finally, there's the stress to the child. This is the only point on which I do actually have a strong view. It is never acceptable to communicate stress over toileting to your children. If you are the sort of parent who cannot view with calm and equanimity the prospect of your child having an accident on the bus or in the middle of a crowded zoo, but instead you're anxiously exhorting your 2yo "Please, please hold it sweetie, we'll find a loo in a minute, but YOU NEED TO HOLD IT" or you're losing your rag because they've had an accident in the car, then you need to rethink your approach to potty-training.

How do we know if they are ready if we don't try until they are going on 3 in the first place? I'm not sure that I agree with child led either, that's a reason why we are getting some children starting school in nappies who don't have special needs.

I potty trained DS at 18 months because it felt like a good time as I had some time off work and I thought he'd be much more agreeable than waiting until 2.5-3 and it worked like a charm.

2.5 is early training now.

I did potty training with all three of mine at approx 2y3m.... because they had signs they were ready. Asking to be changed, dry at night etc.
Well actually with my twins it was the girl being ready but I tried training with both as it was confusing otherwise, I was so worried to "put pressure" on my boy but actually the boy grasped it quicker. I read it somewhere give it 3 days and if they don't take they aren't ready and then pack it up and wait a while
All mine were ready at that age and I never had to night train. I wouldn't say I trained them early to suit myself. I trained when they showed signs of being ready.
Parental laziness is if they are showing signs and they don't bother.