We need your thoughts on late potty training

My daughter was showing all the classic "signs" of being ready for potty training at about 18mths but she def wasnt ready, she was doing okay but then had a tummy bug and that was it.
She was trained before the age of 2, but only because she ASKED to go to toilet in the car and held it in until we got home, so we decided to train.
I dont think it was anything special I did, and she is probably against the norm. She's now 2.8 and we haven't trained at night, mostly dry in the morning but drinks a lot of juice at night, so not ready yet. I am not fussed though, she'll be out of them when she is ready
When I have another child, it will be hard not to compare, but will take it on their schedule, it has worked with DD.

not getting into the whys and wherefores on this thread

but

why were we all trained at 12 months and nowadys it is nearer 3??

a thought

Well this is kind of related - we are actually having problems finding nappies to fit our DS. He is 22 months, size 6 and around 35lbs. Lots of stores are not doing size 6 nappies anymore so it is getting increasingly difficult to find them. If he isnt potty trained soon I dont know what we will put him in as there is no such thing as size 7.

Actually am going to start a thread about this.

How on earth did they get from one person saying that they had once heard about (ie didn't even know them) a family with a 7yr-old in a nappy to "with increasing numbers of children as old as seven going to school wearing nappies"?

There is no mention in the article that the reason it was made illegal for nurseries to exclude children who aren't toilet-trained was because children with SN were being denied access to pre-schools for something they had no control over.

Children are ready at different times. Ds1 and ds2 were both 4yrs old when they were finally toilet-trained in the daytime. They both have ASD. Dd is 2yrs old and should hopefully be dry in the daytime when she starts pre-school in a few months time.

Despite being in nappies until 4yrs old and still not dry at night, neither of my boys has ever had any urine infections.

I am absolutely livid at the Daily Mail article. It completely overlooks the possibility that some sort of special needs rather than supposed bad parenting are very likely to be involved if school age kids are still in nappies.

1. decision varies from child to child.

1. more social pressure from family than peers.

I offered my DD and DS the choice of nappy or pants once they got to the stage when I thought they might be ready. They were both 3 when they finally chose they had one accident each and that was it. Much less stressful for all of us - and avoided all the carpet cleaning and clothes washing. Both my DS and DD had vastly superior bladder control to friends who had been trained much earlier. In fact at playschool DS got very upset because they kept insisting on taking him to the toilet just in case he needed to go because they couldn't believe he could go a whole morning without needing to! Neither of them have ever had a bladder infection.

And hep A outbreaks go hand in hand with primary schools, I don't see what nappies have to do with it! Nurseries don't have lots of hep A outbreaks because of nappies!!
Far more likely that it's to do with small children not washing hands.

Grrrr.

Whomovedmychocolate, I'll bet there will be MILs up and down the land as we speak berating DILs for not potty training at 18 months......

Liath - it must be the same dire health consequences that mean that if you haven't weaned your baby by week 18 he will never eat and die of starvation

My MiL thinks the DM is the gospel truth. Sadly I don't think she's alone.

Funnily enough, NICE just released guidelines on urinary infections in children - obviously looking at all the up to date evidence etc. As far as I can tell, potty-traing and lateness thereof does not get mentioned anywhere in it.

Dire health consequences my *rse. You'll always get a few so-called experts who'll rent-a-quote to rags like the DM but I'd love to see the hard evidence.

sorry Mercy, just re-read your post. I noticeed this wasn't recent and they can no longer get away with this attitude.

Mercy, I'm amazed a playgroup refuses to change nappies !! The children are only 2 and a half when they can start going. It's a huge thing for them to be seperated from their parents ( some for the first time sine birth ) without the added pressure of forced toilet training to be accepted into the place. Is there no other playgroups in the area without this kind of conduct ??!

Ha. chin up Sir Digby. My boy was 3 in May.

Oh God. An dI thought I already knew all the reasons to feel guilty. My boy is three and he bloody hates the potty. "No potty! No potty! No potty!" when I smile swwetly and say do you want to use the potty?

I'm afraid it isn't up to me. However, he is going to nursery in September so there will be an attempt at Gina Ford's crash course in potty training over the summer break. But.... it may or may not work. God I hope he doesn't go to school in nappies. But, he might have other plans.

not only do kids have to be physically ready but they have to be interested in using the potty. my ds (2.9) can hold his pee for ages but refuses to sit on the potty. so diapers it is for the time being.

all of his friends (who are younger by 3 or 4 months) are all trained so it does make me feel bad that he is behind. but i know there's not point in forcing him.

Oh and DD is 19 months old. She will wee on command and now knows when she's pooing but that's a far cry from potty training!

Also frankly, I have no clue how to potty train other than read a book by SWMNBN and I'd rather not throw any money in her direction. All the other advice seems to involve holding babies over potties and hoping

I feel under no undue pressure. DD is interested in the loo and flushing her poos away when I empty her nappy but I'm expecting another baby so there is really little point in trying now and I expect she'll still be in nappies in a year. If they aren't at nursery, who cares when you potty train.

Unless the actual child is aware of them being unusual, it's just normal for them.

Besides, my child is naturally developing her own neurosis (she hates having dirty hands) without me attempting to distill others on her by prematurely insisting she controls her bladder and bowels!

It would be interesting to know the average age in the days before disposable nappies, though.

My MIL insists that all the children born in her generation were toilet trained by two, because mothers got sick of doing the laundry. Maybe she's right .. but my son certainly wasn't ready until about 2.6.

Did the Daily Mail not blame working mothers? It's usually our fault...I suppose they did, implicitly, by pointing the finger at nurseries, which obviously wouldn't be needed if we all stayed at home looking after our children (and potty training them at 18 months). This is the worst kind of journalism - based on anecdotal evidence they report "huge increases", which I note are not given any back up or justification. I'd like to see some statistics...is it really a problem on the scale they indicate?

I am highly amused at the idea of the average 18 month old being ready to be potty trained. Properly potty trained, to me, means that the child understand the sensation of needing to use the loo or potty, is able to communicate that need, hold on (if necessary) and understand in some way why it's considered important (i.e. has an aversion to being in a wet/dirty nappy and understands it's preferable not to be). Show me an 18 month old capable of all those things...I'm not disputing the fact that some 18 month olds are out of nappies, but I suspect strongly that the parents are trained to spot the signs and whip them to a potty. My friend had her son out of nappies by 12 months, but couldn't leave the house without a potty and a change of clothes until he was nearly 3.

To answer the other questions:

What do mums think is an ideal age to get a baby out of nappies, or will it be a decision that varies with each child?

Most that I know were trained between 2 and 3, though 3.5 isn't unusual. Surely it depends on the child - some may be ready sooner than others. My hunch (and it's no more than that) is that early and high pressure training is more likely to result in psychological problems in the long run.

Do mums feel social pressure from others in their peer group or their own parents to get their kids out of nappies?

There is pressure, I think it is (wrongly)seen as a developmental indicator. I ignored anyone engaging in competitive potty training.

Any tips for getting kids out of nappies?

Let them run around naked. They soon get the idea.

Nappies are much more 'efficient' than when my dbs and I were born which is one reason why our parents trained us earlier than in recent years (same goes for washing machines and tumble dryers). Disposable simply didn't exist when I was a baby (early 1960s).

WHen you decide to train your child does vary - on the individual child and on your circumstances. For example, when I was pg with my second I couldn't deal with pooey nappies anymore so I trained her at 2.5 - fortunately she got it in a week and was using the toilet full-time 3 months later. Ds was 3 and a bit when he was trained, again got it in a week, never used a potty BUT a year later will still not poo in the toilet.

Another issue is that her playgroup wouldn't change nappies so it was either train her or lose the place (and dd was as keen to go as I was for her to go!. I believe pre-schools can no longer discriminate on these grounds alone.

So if nappies at school is a problem, maybe the school starting age is really the problem?

Sorry no help, but an anxious soon to potty train mum of PFB, whom can stand up in the bath and accurately aim and pee on all his toys floating in the bath.

Oh, and I love their conclusion: "In the meantime, the expert consensus is that parents need to be encouraged to potty train their children at 18 months."

Which experts say this?? As the mother of a nearly 17m old (as well as the 3 year old!) that is ridiculous! I might have liked ds1 to be potty trained before 3, buy the idea of starting to potty train ds2 now, when the git darling can't even bother himself to say mummy and daddy (though he will say tractor and calendar ) let alone "I need a wee-wee"..... Words fail me.

I read this piece of crap subjective journalism today (in a coffee shop, I wouldn't actually pay money for the DM) and I suspect it is a load of scaremongering rubbish.

You can toilet train your lo as early as you like but it will be you who is being trained to predict when the little darling needs to go. It is normal for children to train themselves (ie 'get it') at around 3, a bit later for some, a bit earlier for others. Stressing about it is a pointless waste of time.

And btw, not one child in my dd's pre-school class of 27 is in nappies. When she starts her infant school in September, out of the 90 children, a couple may well be still in pull ups but I suspect that is how it has always been.

the most hilarious thing about it , is that when DD does do something on the loo, we do big thumbs up and clapping! she cannot do thumbs up, so sort of cocks her forefinger at us, like a cheesy playboy would... and now, when i go to the loo, she claps me ,and announces 'well done, mummy do a wee wee, clever mummy, now wash hands..'

x-posted with welsh who expressed herself better...

should be by forcing, not but !