To think that not toilet training your child is seriously irresponsible?

The thing is though, I know we are throwing all we can at it but I worry any Reception teacher won’t be able to distinguish between a kid who isn’t trained due to laziness v our lovely boy who just doesn’t get it.

Don't feel crap. My 7 year old is in pull ups. He can use the toilet to poo but simply won't come out of pull ups. He's autistic which doesn't help

Thanks - god knows we’re going through a lot of chocolate buttons atm! Doing all we can but jiggling a busy job, my dad who is dying and nursery it’s so bloody hard.

That seems ridiculous. Part of the training process is adapting to the different environments at home and at nursery. What a shame

They've basically said they don't have the staffing to effectively be the ones potty training the children.

I can see their point in so ways, but it's got to be spectacularly difficult for people who effectively have to take annual leave for it.

I did with my girls, but I took a few days to get things started. Not two full weeks.

A few years back I may have somewhat agreed with you. Then I had to potty train our daughter. We tried from the age of 2 and it took over 18 months. It was awful and unbearably stressful as I was so worried we would be the parents sending their child to school in nappies. All her peers were long sorted, or at least not wearing nappies even if they did have accidents. She just flat out refused to go in anything other than a nappy and would withhold wee and poo until we put one back on. 15 hours was the longest she held out. She was beside herself in pain and it was a horrific experience to witness. It was impossible to not give her a nappy to go in. We tried absolutely everything and nothing worked. One day she turned round and said she wasn’t wearing them any more, and that was that. She’s had less accidents than I can count on one hand. My point being, you can’t understand how difficult some children are to potty train until you live the experience. I’ve learnt an important lesson from this in terms of making judgement of others.

That seems ridiculous. Part of the training process is adapting to the different environments at home and at nursery. What a shame

But you’re trying and he’s still got time. I don’t mind as long as a parent is trying, it’s the ones that aren’t that drive me mad!

It isn’t that they’re coming to reception in nappies necessarily, it’s children having frequent accidents and parents not addressing this or saying ‘well it doesn’t happen at home’.

Thats when you find out they wear pull ups at home, still use a potty (!!), are taken constantly to the toilet instead of having to remember themselves or (this is the shocking one!) they let them wet or soul themselves because ‘they’re little and want to play and don’t like stopping to use a toilet!’

I worried about this with both of mine as I attempted it when they were almost 3 and I pulled my hair out until both finally got there aged 3 and a half.

However, my youngest kept wetting himself well into reception and I think maybe even year 1. Never at home but always at school or some kind of school environment which we put down to him being scared/too busy to go to the toilet.

We've had no incidents at all in year 2 thankfully so whatever the problem was it's gone.

It's not always laziness at all, you can't force them to be ready. Mine were barely verbal at 2 so no hope in hell of me starting then but I know others who had kids that were fully conversational and potty trained by the age of 2.

It's a total pain in the arse but it needs doing eventually so I can't believe people are putting it off due to laziness, once it's done you are free from nappy changes which is a great thing!!

I've found this recently. When my eldest two (now 26) were potty training the nursery were involved. They had potties at nursery.

We care for DN atm and his nursery won't allowed them in not in nappies until they've been dry at home for two full weeks - which for people whose kids are in nursery full time is likely to be really difficult.

My nursery was really good, but did have to take 3-5 days off with each and break the back of it at home.

🥲 wee soul with her babies. I have two girls who loved their babies too.

Also one of my baby group friends likes to regularly remind us her 2yr 6 month old is dry day and night and has been since the day after his 2nd birthday. We went away with them over the summer and the poor boy wee’d his pants twice, was crying with constipation because he was holding it in due to not liking the different toilet in the holiday let, and wet the bed three times despite them taking him for a ‘sleep wee’ every night at midnight (they set an alarm for this!)
it’s not a race and not a competition!

Re nurseries not helping. When DS - now 20 - was at nursery they just supported us trying and said bring in plenty of spare clothes. Sad if nurseries won't do that now

They HAVE to accommodate SEN children as you well know. Not all SEN children are incapable or delayed with toilet training though.

My dd is a bit like this, able to speak in full sentences and have conversations by 20 months, writing name by 2, potty trained at 22 months as her nursery encouraged it strongly - she wee’d her knickers today at 3yo as she got a new doll and was literally shaking with excitement playing with it and getting all her doll accessories out, god love her. She said I’m sorry mummy I just forgot. I don’t agree with ignoring potty training but you see some absolutely disdainful posts about very little kids having accidents on here ! Some people just have perfect kids I guess 😬🫢

This x10.

It cannot be that unfathomable that children find toilets in school to be scary - Andrex have based their recent advert entirely on withholding in school. With such small children withholding very quickly turns in to constipation which is a bloody nightmare to manage (from experience) and that’s where regular soiling happens. Not because they want to crap themselves, but because it just involuntarily comes out. That’s not a parenting problem, it’s a psychological one.

*wee accidents

Same here, dd turning 3 next month and still having multiple week accidents most days, started training in March. It's so much harder than I thought it would be, it just isn't clicking for her.

You’ve got time, plenty of time. The key thing is that you’re a parent who is trying. Bribe him if you need to, we had to for pooping as my DS just didn’t like the feeling. For wees, we turned it into a game where all his teddies would need a wee during the day and he then wanted to do what his teddies were doing. Hang in there!

Ds1 was in pants but still wetting regularly when he started school. Ds4 was in nappies when he started school but toilet trained over the easter holidays. Both have SEN.

Some people are weirdly competitive about this. (“I was strapping my six week old to the potty and she was dry at nights by 12 weeks” etc etc).

Mine were both over 3. And I was tearing my hair out with stress. They were stubborn as fuck and just didn’t want to do it. And then one day, they just…did it. Like they just decided they were doing it. And they never had accidents day or night from that point.

I wish now that I hadn’t wasted the energy worrying about it so much.

Thanks - this is reassuring.

DS will wee on the toilet if asked to do so but has no sense of telling us or knowing when it will come and poo is a nonstarter. We put him in pants and if he wets or soils himself he freaks and then refuses pants.

DD was trained very easily and it’s not parental laziness. I wish people could understand.

One thing I found shocking though is how little nurseries help with potty training these days. My mum said nursery was hugely helpful back when I was a toddler whereas now some nurseries insist on nappies until toddler is fully trained and can hold a wee for minutes and can ask to go reliably. That's quite unrealistic for a 2 year old. Potty training to that level takes weeks and if nursery is difficult about it, it puts parents in a tricky spot where you essentially delay and delay until child is over 3.

My DD was dry at 2 years 2 months. She went to school at 4 (summer born so was the youngest) and she’d been toilet trained nearly 2 years at that point. At multiple points throughout the year she had both wee and poo accidents at school as she was distracted and a bit disregulated/ stressed with the school environment. 🤷‍♀️