to think this does not constitute potty training

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We are having issues with toileting our 4 year old. MIL announces today that both dh and dsil were potty trained at 18 months. Apparently they uses pottys in them days and they sat on them till they went.
I may be oversensitive but I offended by this. I used pottys too you know. Just find it difficult to make a 4 year old sit on potty until he poos. Wees ok.

If they were using a potty at 18 months, then it sounds like potty training to me.

Your MIL had to do it when terry nappies were still about I imagine and therefore the urgency to potty train was higher.

I take it from your post that your ds isnt fond of doing poos anywhere but in a nappy?

yanbu.

What did they do, sellotape them to the potty and stand over them? Children trend to get up and run off IME, not matter how many times you want them to stay in once place.

Ignore them!

Well it is potty training but just a different method.

From my experience you have to try and 'catch' the wees and poos in the beginning, DS1 was 22 months and we kept putting him on every 15 mins or so. I thought it was standard potty training technique?

If you are still having trouble with the poos at 4 yo then I would see the HV, my friend had the same problem with hers and basically the DC was uncomfortable about actually doing a poo not in a nappy so the HV gave them advice on how to encourage them.

I just waited until mine were ready and they trained themselves. Dd1 was about 1yr old and dd2 was around 2.5.

I second a visit to the GP/HV if you're still having trouble.

We have visited gp and taken advice from school nurse as ds in reception. It just seems barbaric to me to make a child sit on a potty till they go. Yes, to doing it every so often though.

I can see why you might be frustrated, but if you are actually offended you are taking things far to personally.

Why is that barbaric?!?

Why are you sceptical? It's perfectly normal for some children to be potty trained from the age of 18 months, including one of my children. I never forced her to sit on the potty; she asked herself.

And in previous generations, hand washing dirty nappies was quite an incentive to potty train.

It's very much the old school method based on conditioning. Think of Pavlov's dogs who drooled when they heard the bell. Babies are conditioned to wee into the potty when they sit on it.

Are you sure that your dc isn't constipated?
Does he have 'accident' or only goes when he has a nappy on?

This is potty training, similar to what I've done with my 2 dcs.

I had been told to make dc2 sit as she was very constipated so we used a mix of sitiing on the potty whilst watching TV and me or Dh reading to her as she was sat on the toilet. it was hard and time consuming as difficult for dc2 as she didn't like to sit there for hours.
I am not sure it did made a huge difference either but the idea was to make her body 'more regular' all by itself (so she would always go first thing ion the am or last thing at night) which sort of make sense if you have a child that can actually go.

If your MIL literally means forcing them to sit on the potty till they go this can't be very pleasant for anyone involved. You can't physically hold them down on it.

What did the school nurse say?

If your DS is in Reception, and this is the advice of the school nurse, you need to start listening. Do you not think you have a problem with a non potty trained school going child?

I think YABU. Children become potty trained at different ages, but I would think if your DC was in reception and still wearing nappies, you'd be willing to try something you wouldn't think of doing at first.

What technique are you using at the moment?

School nurse has pretty much said oppossite of MIL. It must be his decision to go and I should be intervening less.
He does still have poo accidents in pants but probably 70% of the time he goes at bedtime in pyjama pant.

surely your child has fairly regular bowel movements by now ie goes roughly the same time every day - you might notice her going to a favourite corner etc
perhaps you could be watching her closely around this time removing nappy etc so that she is encouraged to go to the toilet (i might use toilet rather than potty at age of 4)...so it wouldn't be like you'd be holding her there all day

I would guess that your mil could gage when the dc needed to go so would sit them on it and wait. I very much doubt it would be for hours on end and I don't find it that hard to belive that they were trained by 18 months as one of my ds' was. He basically trained himself to begin with and I then took.it from there.

You know that's just one opinion, don't you?

It's not wise to listen to opinion and blindly follow it.

Your MIL has a perfectly normal and sensible perspective on it as well. It's just up to you what you choose to do with what you're told. That said, I maintain what I said above. If my four-year-old reception-goer was still doing pretty much 100% of his poos in pants or a nappy, I would be more than willing to try something different. I wouldn't get offended at the suggestion.

I guess its probably a MIL thing really. She has always favoured older ds. So I suppose a comment like that would normally go over my head if it came from anyone else. I guess I have always felt that she doesn't approve of the way I treat/parent ds2.

We do always get him to sit on toilet at bedtime but the poos always seem to come once he is in bed.
Maybe he is holding it in.

My mum toilet trained my severely autistic ds1 at the age of 5 by getting him to sit on the toilet and stay there until he went. She did it by putting him on there at the same time every day (after dinner), feeding him full of orange juice right before and shoving toys and books at him to try and keep him on, and putting him back on each time he got off. Bag of choc buttons if he produced something. It worked eventually. I had two younger ones so couldn't keep shoving him back on or work to keep him there.

Why aren't you willing to try something different?

Is it just because the idea came from your MIL?

I am happy to try things. I will try and encorage him to stay on longer at bedtime. Maybe a book. I guess what got me was the way it was said. It felt like it was said to make me feel bad.