New nursery expects all potential pupils be potty trained, even the 2 year olds.

[FundraisingPTABitch]

That's it really. I'm new to this part of town, and so is this nursery.

When I enquired with the admin about this policy, they said every potential pupil must be potty trained.

AIBU to think this nursery can just fuck off? I will potty train my little child when both the child and I are both ready.

Ludicrous. Irresponsible! Elitist!

Yes, I particularly like
if the nursery don't want to employ people to change nappies why should they have to?
I think that if you struggle with the idea of changing nappies, working in a nursery might not be your best career choice!

Thankyou for the lovely posters earlier - I'd never thought about working with children until I spent so much time at preschool with ds, and saw what wonderful job they did. I feel very lucky to work with little children, it is a privilege.

That made me laugh hazey unfortunatley threads like this always have some posters who think children still in nappies shouldnt be allowed in nurseries or schools when in reality its only a very small proportion of children starting nursery/preschool in nappies and an even smaller proportion of children starting reception on nappies.

X2boys I think so. Laws or not, you have to wonder about anyone working in a primary school or nursery who would let a child sit in their own faeces or vomit for 30mins+ while mum or dad travelled in. I hope it is more a threat of "punishment" for the parent than normal practice anywhere.

I think there could be a genuine issue in the future, if we follow the american trend of training later and later while still having some children start school within a month of their 4th birthday. 2 adults in charge of a class of 30 need a good proportion of them to be reasonably independent. But the answer is not to exclude children who wear nappies and I am pleased the law is there to support that.

Some people really want to believe children are potty training later and later. It honestly doesn't seem to be the case, at least in the places I've worked and volunteered in over the last 20 years. (Chemist / Nursery / After school clubs).

Even in the 30's you had 3 year olds in nappies, look at the shirley temples first series of films, i know it's playing up the "Baby aspect" but it's not like there were cries of outrage back then.

Pirate is it really that or is it that some people just want to believe that they were better parents?

Even in the 30's you had 3 year olds in nappies, look at the shirley temples first series of films, i know it's playing up the "Baby aspect" but it's not like there were cries of outrage back then.

Thinking about it the kid in look who's talking Too was about 2½ish.

when it came out 25 years ago were people gasping at how he was way too old to be just starting potty training... Or, more than likely, was it the average age to start back then, much like today and nobody batted an eyelid at him being over 2.

I asked my grandmother about this yesterday. She had 12 children (no multiples!) in 16years in the 1950s-early 1970s. Each of the children were breastfed and co-slept until the next came along, when they were weaned and went in with their siblings. They came out of daytime nappies at the same time as they were needed for the baby, but she said they had lots of accidents, which wasn't a major problem as they were outdoors all day, and had generally got older siblings to clean them up!

Pirate, this from Wikipedia

Until the mid-1900s, the vast majority of babies finished toilet training by 2 years, and achieved nighttime dryness by 3 years.[8] Since then, the age for toilet training has increased dramatically. The convenience of disposable diapers, pull-up diapers and more efficient laundry facilities may contribute to this trend.

In 1957, the average age of starting toilet training was still under the age of one year old, 11 months, and 90% of children were dry during the day by 2 years.[8]

In 2002, the average age that parents recognized their child "showing an interest in using the potty" was 24–25 months, and daytime dryness was achieved on average at almost 3 years of age.[3] Now nighttime accidents are considered normal until 5 or 6 years of age.

Out2 American statistics again.

Yes disposable nappies could have contributed to this, thank god for them. I have eczema all over my hands, my hands are in shreds, it woukd be blooming painful having to wash cloth nappies. I tried for 6 months, but my eczema became worse. Those who are in nappies when starting school, have some sort of SN anyway. My dd8 has ASD, dev delay, she was dry at night from 7. It makes no difference wether they are dry at 3 or 8. She dies not wet the bed, she made her own decision to be dry at night as she was ready, physically and emotionally.

and does it matter when most children are dry at night the vast majority of children do not start school in nappies fact.

So are Americans genetically programmed to potty train differently?

I'm not sure how reliable the stats are but it says that 10% were not potty trained at 2 having started before 1. That is quite a high number actually even taking into account that this is based I imagine on self reporting. It certainly doesn't say that everyone was trained by 2 EVER!!!!

"Between the ages of 2 and 3" has been standard for decades, with a fair few either side of those ages.

It's not some made up average, it's because children motor skills, cognitive ability and body control generally have leaps in development, this is when potty training happens.

Three I would expect as a blanket rule as vast majority are trained by then unless there are issues/special needs and imho you can never apply the same rules in those cases anyway.

Never heard of two as a rule before and would have struggled with it with all of mine (did try and train them all at two but it did not end well) mine were however all dry by three.

Nurseries I used were both three or over we would request trained but talk to us if this is an issue. One kid in my youngests class was not trained at first but was a few weeks later, copying really made the difference.

So are Americans genetically programmed to potty train differently?

Not genetically. But what is considered "Trained" has changed especially in the US, from the mother knowing when her 10 month old needed taking based on timing to the child realizing and being able to express the need.
This generally skews the figures.

Well yes and even based on that 1 in 10 wasnt there by 2

Just to make the obvious point - daytime (conscious) dryness and night-time (unconscious) dryness are essentially separate things, which is why the age to achieve them can be very different.

Daytime conscious dryness requires the physical ability to 'hold' urine while walking once there is a need to go, a set of 'mental links' to do with recognising the signals of a full bladder, and a set of 'behavioural habits and decisions' to do with using the potty / toilet, asking, managing clothes etc.

Night-time dryness does not have the behavioural element - a child cannot 'decide' to go to the toilet at night, because they are not awake to do so. To be dry at night, a child has to have sufficient hormone to downregulate the amount of urine produced in the night and also has to be awoken by 'full bladder' signals. Neither of these are under conscious control.

DS was potty trained at 2.5 ... and reliably dry at night at 10. He lacked the hormone to downregulate his urine production at night, and no amount of 'mental maturity' or 'wanting to be dry' or 'training by parents' could increase his hormone production. For DD, the gap between the two was more like 12 months - dry in the day just short of 2, dry at night around her 3rd birthday. Same parenting, same approach, different biology.

My instinct is that there's something though. If they practice releasing on demand (and not releasing not on demand!) in the day, logic says that muscle memory will still be there when they're asleep. That habit of peeing upright on a potty in the open air and not peeing lying down wrapped in a nappy.

Our personal anecdata is DD who was semi-EC'd doing a huge pee on the potty first thing in the morning from around 6 months, and being dry at night unless we had a very long lie-in by age 1. Non-EC'd DS did nothing like that. Talking to friends who did/didn't do baby potty training, and did/didn't use cloth nappies, there does seem to be a big difference in dry at night ages. Not that it works for everyone, but a difference on average.

Is there any good data on EC'd children (or children in EC cultures) and night dryness? How much is known about what triggers the hormonal changes anyway?

ps aeroflotgirl, did you not find sposies did horrible things to your eczema? All those drying chemicals. My hands were falling apart, one reason we couldn't wait to get DD out of nappies!

This article was intereresting, I thought.

www.godaycare.com/childcarearticles/5

Producing urine at the same rate 24 hours a day is not in any way linked to muscle memory, and cannot be helped by increasing muscle memory.

www.parentingscience.com/bed-wetting.html is interesting, also because it refers to studies that indicate that bedwetting rates are similar across the world, even in countries like Taiwan which might well have a very different approach to daytime toilet training.

As DS got older, he did wet less often during the night. Ie each trial of night-time dryness, which we undertook regularly, would result in on average, fewer wet beds - so from 4+ when younger to once when older - but much more fully saturated ones. So his bladder capacity was growing [not something to necessarily celebrate when wrestling with sopping wet duvets in the middle of the night!!] but the total volume stayed very much the same (when we still used nappies at night, we had to lift and change him at our bedtime, as otherwise the amount of urine was simply too much for a single nappy to cope with).

As he got older and more and more desperate to be dry, we lifted him twice a night - along with umpteen other small alterations suggested by his enuresis nurse - which in the 'muscle memory' theory would have helped (it did reduce the need for nappies, and the number of wet beds, but not by much) but then when it stopped, it stopped. Like a switch - the switching on of the relevant hormone. It was almost magical.

(I should also make clear that my '4+ when younger, once when older' is not 'wet beds per week' but 'wet beds per night'!)

I suppose tiggy, she told me she did not want to wear a nappy at night, she was also physically ready to be dry, so two things together.

Whereas DS did not want to wear a nappy at night from 2.5 ... but wasn't physically ready, through no fault of his own, for over 7 more years....