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

I can't believe that people bother getting judgey about this! Mine were both trained just before pre-school, so 2.5ish, with the help of chocolate buttons. I can't even remember when they became dry at night, I think when they told me they didnt need a nappy any more.

Was I lazy? Gross? Killing the planet? I don't care, I was basically surviving at that point in my life, and had to take lots of parenting shortcuts to keep going. I had to prioritise what was important for me and my kids and early potty training was far down the list.

Funny how it's a big no-no to judge women on how they gave birth or fed their babies, but apparently nappies are fair game given the number of pompous posts on this thread!

Sure, of course, it's all cultural isn't it? It was just as cultural in the past, when it was done on an earlier timeline you approve of!!

The early bedtimes for kids in the UK are cultural too. Other countries think we're nuts. I run counter-cultural in the UK on that, as DD is a night owl who didn't get the memo about going to bed super early and getting up at the crack of dawn. She never quite needs as much sleep as the books recommend, sadly, much as I would love her to meet the cultural norms and go to bed earlier, so I can watch more grown up telly.

I think potty training too early is unnecessary and pointless, basically. You should do it when your child is ready for it. For mine it was pretty easy. They were on the toilet before 3 but that's because they were both ready and receptive.

To me, being ready meant understanding what she needed to do and being able to do it, largely. Not being confused about what she need to do, and lacking the ability to hold a wee or poo for a (very) short period of time. Which is what happened when we tried at 2.5. At 2 years and 9 months we were done in a day.

The benefit was it was stress-free for DD, using the potty didn't become a big stressful deal, she didn't get anxious or start refusing to use it. For me, it saved a lot of stress too.

I'm really glad we didn't spend weeks and weeks of stress and accidents. If she'd been ready at 2.5 I'd have gone with it. But I wasn't going to stubbornly keep on for no benefit. Better to just hold off and try again when she could grasp it more easily.

There are definitely things I look back on about parenting and wish I'd done differently in hindsight. This isn't one of them, though.

I just think there's no benefit in holding kids to some arbitrary timeline if they're not ready. But I don't care about others judging.

Exactly.

Dry at one. It was the right time. Took a couple of weeks. Don't remember carrying a potty everywhere either (why bother, a wee behind a tree is fine!).

It's still just cultural though. There are aspects of British child rearing that are regarded as very odd overseas. None of it is 'natural'. It's all just cultural norms.

Same (for my eldest, youngest is 20mo and still in nappies). We started at 25mo he had 2 accidents on the floor and was basically dry after that. He spent a couple of days asking for a nappy to do a poo then he dropped that and we were done. Kids are all different but this idea that all kids who are potty trained at 2 must have endured some terrible stressful experience and been wetting themselves for weeks is just not true.

If a child is ready, then it’s usually pretty easy to get them out of nappies.

After every single wee? Might as well have done elimination communication if you were that on it.

What does when they're ready mean though?
The majority of children with no additional needs can be out of nappies at around 2-2.5. What's the benefit in leaving them in nappies an extra year?

By child-led, I mean when they are developmentally ready, not necessarily waiting for them to say they want to do it.

The point is, they develop at different rates. Parents doing it 'later' compared to previous generations isn't necessarily being lazy. It can be that the parents are meeting their child's needs.

I'll let you connect the dots 😉

I'm in my 50s, not 2! So quite different.

I wonder if you think I'm advocating holding children back? I'm not, I'm advocating doing it when they're ready. Not to some arbitrary timetable of the parent's devising, just to make the parent feel good (we all know those parents who are desperate for their kids to race through milestones and be first), or to avoid people judging. It should be child-led.

Does it?

How do?

I get that. When me and my sister were born in the mid-70s, my mother took great pride in having us out of nappies well before 18 months. This was largely because otherwise she had to launder buckets of smelly Terry cloth nappies. I'd have been champing at the bit to do it as early as possible in her shoes, too!

It was motivated by convenience, rather than our needs (much as it was dressed up as being for our benefit - though with cloth nappies perhaps there was a bit of that too, tbf), and we both had frequent accidents for months afterwards, so in my view weren't ready. The odd accident, fair enough, but daily accidents? Nah.

And certainly our understanding of child development is a lot better now than it was then. Yet we tend to train later now.

But it's dumb and pointless. Why would you even bring that up? It's like if we were talking about children who can't be bothered walking and then you say yours can't because it has a broken leg. What is the adding to the discussion? I could go on, but I don't want to derail.

Even if you do it pronto, it's not nice is it? Would you like to wear a nappy and shit yourself?

Youngest is ten, when we were potty training all the books I read said no way to do it before 2 and that 3 was a good age. Saying that so much has changed, I got thoroughly jumped on here for saying we were advised you wait until they’re dry at night before you begin because it shows they have some control. It all worked for us but I know better methods etc do come up

with both kids its was clear they weren’t ready and got upset so I left it.

I hate to break it to you, but doing things your kids don’t like in order to prioritise their best interests is generally how it goes as a parent. If you left everything until they were “ready” and weren’t prepared to try anything that upset them, by the teenage years you’ll end up with bored, boring spoilt brats.

DS is 19, he was trained just before 3. The UK fashion was 3-3.5 then but we were going to live in the US for a short while and the nursery room he was joining was for 3-4 year olds who could use the toilet/potty. When we got there the first thing I saw was a boy having an accident and I discovered that pull ups were acceptable.

Fashions change, when I was a child it was common to be trained as soon as you could walk

Omg why is this even a conversation? Of course you’re not lazy. Wait until the child is ready and then you’re done within a very short window. Neither of ours had a poo in pants incident. I think one had a wee in pants and the other had a handful. Both were fully trained at 3 before pre school. No drama.

Erm no. I am just pointing out I am not entitled and that I would be very annoyed if my child was unable to go to preschool because he was not potty trained which in some ways could be attributed to ND which they are being assessed for. Not my fault you didn't read my previous post and save yourself some embarrassment before you posted.

She didn't have any hangups. Just didn't get that she was meant to wee in the potty. But three months later got it immediately. I'm so glad we waited. It was the right time for her.

I think it's actually more prominent in affluent areas, from what she's told me. Which probably makes sense.