To think most children aren't potty trained by 18mo?

[icovetthee]

I was at my dad's talking to his DP about my daughters progress, how she's interested in the potty, sits on it and has started to tell us when she has done a dirty nappy when she says "She should already be trained. Both of mine were out of nappies by 18mo as is every other child. Children today are much more advanced than years ago too". I told her the average age is 3 and she told me not to be so silly and to ramp up the training or DD would be teased.

DC1 did it in her own time at 3.2 and was trained within a week which I thought was fine. It worked for us and that's fine but it has got me wondering.

AIBU to think most children aren't potty trained by 18mo?

YANBU, although I believe that years ago children were 'trained' much earlier simply to get them out of nappies.

DS is 3.2 and has been dry day and night for a few months which seems to be before a lot of his peers. He did it when he was ready.

PAH

Ignore her. It's just not true. In the majority of cases if your child is trained at 18months then you spend (at least) the next year doing a lot of extra washing.

Let them do it when they and you are ready.
In my case 3.2yrs, 3yrs, 2.5yrs and 20months. Depends on the child. Completely.

YANBU, but years ago kids were potty trained sooner as a pp said, to get them out of nappies.

Also true in countries like India due to nappy/hygiene issues I believe.

I forgot to mention that DD is 25 months old (tomorrow) so there's not like there's no time, especially as she's not even in Playgroup yet.

Mine were potty trained between 18 months and 2. DD just refused to wear a nappy about 18 months and never ever had an accident, with DS I ran out of money to buy him nappys I was on benefits then and had zilch when dd turned on the storage heaters and all my electric went and electric was more important then nappys. He went dry after the first day although only just this year being dry through out the night, I had to take him 4 or 5 times before.

I'm aware this is purely anedotal but I worked in a nursery and only a handful or so of the children were potty trained before the age of 2. I would estimate that only about 7 out of the 200+ children I worked with were properly potty trained by 2.

YANBU. I thought over three was starting to get into the late range of normal rather than average, but then mine haven't been little for ages. They were both out of nappies completely at around two and a half, because that just happened to be when they were ready and it was convenient to go for it!

YAsooooooooNBU. You are right. DF's DP is just wrong. That was indeed the way they used to do it, but 18 months as we all know is now not the norm. I delayed TT my DD cos we moved house so she was 3.2 before she was securely day dry. Does your dad's DP have other grandchildren?

DD1 was potty trained fully, no accidents at 20 months. However, DD2 was about 27/28 months as she suffered from toddler diarrhoea, so was kept in nappies longer. It depends on the child really. I wouldn't have liked it to have been any longer though tbh.

The age of potty training has got later, as disposable nappies have been used. When your granny said "mine were all trained by 18 months" she's probably not exaggerating (much) - as handwashing terry nappies was a powerful incentive!

My first son was 19 months, everyone (apart from my Granny, obviously) thought that was early.

All children are different, dd1 was trained in a week at 20 months. Few accidents but I certainly didn't spend the following year doing extra washing, if that had been the case I wouldn't have classed her as trained

Dd2 was trained at 3, she wasn't ready before.
It is perfectly possible to train some children at 18 months, and perfectly impossible for others!

Potty training was historically done earlier, the advent of decent, reasonably priced disposable nappies has done much to lessen the pressure on parents to do it early.

Follow your dd's lead and you won't go far wrong.

What a load of rubbish!! Around 3 is the norm. Don't get me wrong some children like everything else walking, talking etc will do the potty thing alot sooner. I was told 18 months was the time to start and for a month tried and tried and my Ds was just not interested so I stopped and gave up. Fast forward a year and one day he suddenly announced his nappy hurt and he didn't like it and would no longer wear one. Dry night and day within 48 hours! They will do it when they are good and ready and in there own time.

I am a CM. Most are around 3, but some much earlier and some much later (and some people say their children are potty trained when they wet and soil themselves every day).

Interesting article from Guardian

www.guardian.co.uk/family/story/0,,1944603,00.html

dd was 2½ years and ds had just turned 2 when they were trained during the day.

21 months and 33 months here, but I always thought ds1 was quite young

I think years ago the children were not really trained but the mothers were. My mother always claims that I was potty trained at 12 months, but then she also confesses that she used to sit me on the potty every 1/2 hour, just in case. Well, in my opinion, she was trained, not me.

I have 4 children ranging between 2 and 13. I have only known 1 child be potty-trained before 18 months.

She potty-trained herself at 16 months and was dry immediately. It was her poor Mum that wasn't ready

Both mine at exactly 2 1/2. Though DC3 currently telling me when she has done a poo at 19 months, which the others were not so she may be earlier. Would say that between 2 and 3 is usual. Some girls I know were done at just 2, some boys not til they were 3 1/2.

Yanbu. I did mine at 3.3.

Mum said we were out of terry nappies and 'potty trained' by the age of 2, but we often had accidents. Whereas mine didn't have accidents after the first 2 weeks.

Apparently where my Nan comes from (and that era of course), they started putting babies on potties at 16 weeks. Yes, I did mean to put weeks.

Bonkers.

Not a child of mine btw.

18 months?????!!!! Hahahahaha! They will train when they are good and ready and I have heard of a child being trained early but had accidents until the age of seven. His mother left subsequent children until they were ready and I followed her advice and did not have a nightmare and they were all trained somewhere between 2 and 3.

I've heard a lot of this "my MIL said we were all potty trained by 18 months" recently.

I think it's a case of forgetfulness and 'weren't my children amazing' but
I also think it's because in the old style of nappy babies could feel when they were wet so learnt younger and it was better to get them out of wet nappies as soon as possible. Whereas they can't feel the wetness with the disposables we have now and there is no harm keeping them in them longer (and easier IMO!).