To be appalled that parents need to be supported by government to potty train their child

This is the NEW advice. Children starting Reception now, or last year, or 5 years ago wouldn’t have benefited from it.

Also, it only changed because of the focus on the Kindred surveys (about school readiness , including using the toilet) and lobbying from the ERIC charity.

I'll be honest whilst I'm not denying this doesn't happen, it feels very pushed and exaggerated in the media. My DS is the youngest in his class, he started year one this September and his class of around 25 have a mix of family backgrounds and dynamics including one child with a developmental delay. Of that they are and we're at starting school potty trained, I'm including in that my friends and families children too. Which will be around the same figure of children when I started primary in the mid nighties.

My DS and his friends thought it was weird when the 'toothbrush lady' came in and showed them how to brush their teeth as we'd already done it that morning...

Again, I'm sure it does happen but does it really happen so much and on such an increasing scale that we need constant articles over it?

Our DC are early 30s/late 20s.

They could go to the lovely little private nursery for three hours in the morning or afternoon from the term after their 2yr 6mth birthday, providing they were dry and out of nappies. I don't recall any child starting reception in nappies - I don't think they'd have been allowed.

There is no incentive.

I mean I’ve seen a baby with a phone and a big bag of haribo in the buggy while mum was picking up an older child. Maybe 2 years old?

I never rushed my kids but it was never a fight either. They just would eventually say when they needed to go. I don't know how they can get to that age and still be in nappies without any other issues.

Surely what's changed is that it's basically impossible to afford to live now without two incomes coming in. And responding to school emails is now becoming a full time job. More and more admin is required in every aspect of life just to get by in a basic way. Human children are being raised in nuclear family settings with two working parents. There is no village anymore. If your child has SEN instead of support you get a whole new full time administrative job, The whole model is unmanageable and parents can't cope.

This is on the NHS website

When should I start potty training?
Almost all children can be potty trained between 18 months and 2-and-a-half years old.

Starting around this age gives your child time to practice these new skills and build confidence without nappies.

The best thing to do is to start the training.

You do not need to wait for your child to show signs or ask to use a potty before you start

A free website. Pass it on.

https://www.nhs.uk/best-start-in-life/toddler/potty-training-your-child/#when-to-start-potty-training

Yes it is worse - certainly compared with the 1980s

Now they’re saying to start between 18 months and 2.5 years old. But it wouldn’t have been uncommon 3/5/10 years for everyone to be utterly unconcerned with an untrained 3 yo. It was still wait until they’re ready. Why people refuse to acknowledge that fact baffles me.

That was how it was for us in the 1970s. I was out of them by two years old as my mum wanted to use the same Terry nappies for my by-then-imminent sister.

Those Terry nappies did duty as floor cloths for years afterwards until they finally disintegrated.

@XStitcher87

personally, I think that potty training is quite straightforward. My daughter copied me and went on the potty when I went on the loo from around 15 months, as she showed interest in seeing other kids doing it at the childminder, so we did about 3 months of just practising here and there at home and then went full training and she was fine within a weekend. My son was harder work at 2.3 - I did it with annual leave - I took two days before a BH so that I had 5 days and then we went away on holiday for a week and continued there - totally trained by the end of the 12 days. Was it less relaxing on holiday - yes, but I had a two year old, I wasn’t expecting an easy life and it was convenient because I could give him my full attention.

i really don’t think it is a big deal - secret is to have a high mess threshold anyway and/or be willing to spend lots of time outdoors to minimise cleaning! It is also very important to be able to communicate clearly and firmly and kindly that you want them to try to do it but keep calm and let them know it’s ok when they fail “oh dear, next time on the potty” and genuinely mean it. Lots of parents get really stressed about it and every accident is a failure and then it is hell.

I wonder if the difference is to do with families needing 2 working parents and how many of these families are either using relatives for childcare or are trying to WFH with their children and don't have time to do it.

These are often things that are said every year and I remember when my 11yo started being told more and more children weren't potty trained. It would be interesting to have actual figures to compare.

I wonder if school refused entry for any child who didn't have some kind of medical exemption it would make people do it. However I suppose demographically speaking if you cant be bothered to potty train your child they are potentially the one suffering by not going to school.

Me too!

Quite.

I do think the "how do you find the time?" issue needs to be addressed by pointing out to parents that they should be saving some annual leave to take kids out of nursery if needed, to focus on potty training. I am allocating a week of my leave next year for this purpose.

I don't disagree with the general argument that its very hard to raise children well when you're both working all week, but equally parents can't just shrug and do nothing helpful to try and minimise the harm.

Mine are long grown up now, but I read at the time that children were not usually physiologically ready - meaning that they’d have sufficient bladder/bowel control to wait even a very short time - until the age of 2.

So I waited until they were both just past 2, and both times it took a week - at least for daytime.

I certainly didn’t wait until they showed any particular signs of readiness.

A friend of a dd used to say her son (no SN) still ‘wasn’t ready’ at three and a half.

This is nothing new. There were kids in my DC's class who were still in pull-ups at six and that was a decade ago. I think a LOT of support had been cut at the time that made it worse but now it's on the slow train to correction.

Tbh we seem to be moving to a situation where we don’t have any expectations of adults. There’s always an excuse as to why x and y are impossible and that 21st century life is so overwhelming.

Breakdown of the extended family meaning no older generation to advise new parents.
Devaluing of the advice of the older generation even when it is available.
Less oversight from health visitors who would have prompted and advised.
Too much advice to let children develop at their own pace.
Fear of forcing things like tooth brushing on children in case it's 'abusive'.
More time spent outside the home so potty training is inconvenient.

How about putting useless parents in the stocks outside Tesco’s/Aldi/Lidl, and having them pelted with ordure.

I’d like the same to apply to anyone going to the shops/on the school run/to a hotel breakfast, in their pyjamas.

😈

My own HV told me to wait when I asked for advice with potty training. She was 2 and 3 months and had a speech delay. Apparently no point trying until she could tell me she needed to go. I ignored that advice and DD was potty trained for preschool. I’ve seen it happen hundreds of times, in real life and on here , mum groups etc. Because the bloody professionals kept telling us to. It was literally official NHS advice.
Parents were advised to wait for distinct behavioral or physical signs that a toddler was ready (such as telling you when they needed a wee, staying dry for hours, or showing dislike for a wet nappy) before introducing the potty.

I think it's all related to the growing belief that we shouldn't have expectations of children. That training and asking children to do things will somehow damage them mentally. People seem to think that children will do things when they are ready at their own pace. No they won't.

These days you just know many kids would be left in their own shit all day.

My instinct is that these are children who haven’t been to nursery.

My children’s nursery were very proactive with toilet training, had approached me before I started toilet training my children about when I thought I would like to start and made sure they were taken to the toilet in nursery etc.

All the children also sat down to eat together (with cutlery), the nursery always tried new foods with the children (lots of fruit and veggies), read to them, brushed their teeth with them etc.

This would be so good for sustainability too