To be surprised at "at 2 he should be potty trained"

[Anxiousally]

Read an article in my local news paper a few days ago about a little boy who had been expelled from nursery untill his behaviour improves due to him being violent.
In the story his gran had given the paper a statement saying they felt it was unfair on him as he's only 2, he's still practically a baby he's not even toilet trained.
The paper posted the link to the story on their Facebook page and there were a lot of comments slating the family for complaining about the way the nursery had dealt with this child and then someone copied the part of the story where it mentioned about the toilet training and said "at 2 he bloody should be toilet trained and I was shocked. DS will be 2 next month and I'm not even contemplating potty training as I know he's just not ready yet.
Aibu to be surprised at this opinion, now I'm thinking DS should be trying now and worried he's behind?!

Granted all my children have ASN so I’ve no experience of potty training a NT child, but I fail to see how it’s parental laziness? Surely it’s easier for the parent once they’re not in nappies?

My DS1 was about 3.5, DD was about 2.5, DS2 is nearly 3 and nowhere near! DS3 has just turned 1 so not thinking about it yet.

It definitely depends on the child and I never worry about it.

They’re individuals. 3 of my kids were out of nappies at around 12/13 months. The other 2 were after 3. Very different. All very normal kids.

My DD was out of nappies before 2. In other countries where disposable nappies are not easily available this is very normal.

I looked after 3 year old children over 30 years ago. They were all toilet trained and I don't remember any accidents, although there may have been the odd one. And we did not take them at regular times, they went to the toilet when they needed it. All I remember was helping kids who struggled with buttons on their trousers, regularly flushing unflushed toilets, and urging kids to wash their hands. Also suggesting to the odd kid engrossed in play that they go to the toilet, because they were standing squirming with their legs crossed. They were the things most of them were hit and miss with. But being toilet trained by 3 was normal then for most kids.

Toilet train when you want and when seems best for your kid.

Smeddum Except in extreme cases of neglect, I don't think it is about laziness at all. I suspect it is more to do with nappie manufacturers and the readiness message they push and the fact that nappies these days are so comfortable that it makes it harder for kids to learn toilet training.

When I was younger we were taught readiness was simply when a nappy was dry when you took it off. That indicated the muscles had built up enough that they could hold the urine in.

Before disposable nappies toddlers were clean and dry by 18 months.

They really weren't! DS was born in the 80's, pretty much on the cusp of the change from terries to almost universal disposables. He and other babies who used disposables trained around about 2.6. Friends with sightly older children who had used terries trained, at pretty much the same age, around 2.6. Again with a few exceptions, but really just a few months either way!

My DS was trains at 2.3 and it was very quick. I was all ' wait til he's ready' until I read 'oh Crap' and wanted to start the next day!

I found the idea of 'are they capable of learning' rather than 'are they ready' to be really powerful.

Also with the old style nappies, you could clearly see if a child was in nappies or not because they were so bulky.

Every child is different.

My ds potty trained at just before 2. He wanted to wee on potty and was ready. We only had a handful of accidents while he got used to it.
My dd was 18 months when she decided she wanted to use the potty. Again a handful of accidents and she was fine.
I would class my children as been out of the "norm" and been early potty trainers. I worked in nurseries where parents decided at 2 to potty training even though their child hadn't shown any signs of being ready. Even with us setting an alarm to remember to take them every 30 mins they would still wee all over because their body just wasn't ready.
I have also seen children at 4 who start and get it within days because they have waited and are ready.

So I repeat every child is different....but there's always going to be the perfect mum brigade who have to belittle everyone else who's child isn't potty trained at 2, speaking full sentences at 12 months, walking at 9 months eating home made organic food and can recite the alphabet in 5 languages by he time they start school. Ignore them....

Another one almost reduced to tears here. DS is 4.1, no special needs, was in cloth nappies since the age of 6 m and been wearing pants for the last 18 months. Except... he wets and soils himself regularly, mostly doesn't use the toilet at home, and any attempt to either get him to use the toilet or change him out of wet/dirty clothes is met with a tantrum and hitting/kicking us. What do all the oh-so-clever posters on this thread suggest I'm doing wrong?

My ds was 3and 2 months when he decided to toilet train. All done in 2 days. People are idiots if they think one size fits all. The person making that comment was a moron. Too much pressure on little ones these days. People are that desperate to keep up with Zoe from Nct they create so much stress for themselves!

I was born in the mid 80s and had cloth nappies, I was potty trained age 2, but it was much closer to my third birthday than my 2nd birthday. My sister was the same. We weren’t outliers in our peer group at all.

Parents throughout history have done whatever suits their lives, their children and the tools they have available. Parents 50 years ago found it easier to attempt training earlier and deal with accidents and holding children on toilets every 20 minutes becsuse the alternative was endless cloth nappies too wash. I imagine they wouldn’t have bothered with all that hassle if the alternative was as easy as disposable nappies.

@RomeoBunny where are you getting your information from? Here is a research article from 1962 where the average age for toilet training to be completed was 33 months

scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=toilet+training&oq=toilet+

@Anxiousally I'm a student HV and I see a huge range of ages for children to be potty trained. Somewhere between 2 and 3 is the norm with some being younger and some older. You can't potty train a child that isn't ready, they have to have the ability to recognise that they need to go and to hold it in. With my own dc ds was 2 and 9 months and dd was 3 and 3 months before they were ready. Don't worry about it yet

Frater, you are doing nothing wrong your ds just obviously isn’t ready! Just forget about it for a bit. The “I’m so clever because I’m lucky to have a child who got it” brigade on here are idiots. Good for them - once again mistaking luck for ability!

FraterculaArctica Its so hard I feel for you, I'm no expert however what i tried when i faced this with my ds at 3 1/2 was a reward chart and it worked for him i think because he could see a point to it, that if he did the toilet thing he would get a treat that he could choose. although i would say at night hes not always dry and still has the odd accident at nursery but I'm hoping this will get better with time.

Bugger, my link didn't work and I can't do it on my phone. Screenshots instead

There's a lot of bullshit (pardon pun) spoken about potty training and when it is managed. Lots of parent top trumps; lots of nonsense oneupmanship. You do what works for your child. Stop and start again later, if it feels unsuccessful.

Ds1 was in disposables and toilet trained at 2 years 9 months.

My twins were in cloth nappies and toilet trained at the same sort of age.

They all took a week to get the hang of it.

Then DS2 who has SEN (was in cloth nappies till he was too big and qualified for free disposables) was toilet trained at 5.5 but got the hang of it straight away.

My youngest started at just over 3 and it took him a year and a half to be reliably clean and dry - he was later diagnosed with ASD.

So it's all very well saying all children without SEN should be toilet trained by 2/3 or whatever, but some won't even have been diagnosed, and might not be for many years.

We started with DS when he was around two years and three months, and he very quickly got the hang of going in his potty (only two accidents), but only if he had no pants or trousers on so he had to wear nappies when we went out. It progressed until he would wear clothes but wouldn't use a 'big toilet', until finally, just over a year after we started, he would use a toilet - just in time for starting at nursery.

We just let it happen in his own time and didn't stress about it.

There's a lot of bullshit (pardon pun) spoken about potty training and when it is managed. Lots of parent top trumps; lots of nonsense oneupmanship. You do what works for your child. Stop and start again later, if it feels unsuccessful

Definitely this. The same kind that insist their children slept through the night from birth/could walk or talk from an early age, or any other thing they can use to feel superior.

@FraterculaArtica don't ever feel bad about something like this. My three were all prems so I really struggled to get over the fact that whilst other people's kids were meeting milestones (and according to them tiny geniuses) mine werent. It took me a long time to accept that kids will do things in their own time.

If your son isnt there yet, he will.

My eldest was 3 and hard work, my next one was dry by 20 months day and night, he copied his brother and was easy, it totally depends on the child, they let you know when there ready, at the end of the day there all pretty much the same by time they reach 5

I didn’t even bother potty training mine until they both had turned 3. My first child was because of necessity as I was living with in laws at the time and couldn’t bare to hear the snide comments about him having accidents all over the house and waited until I moved into my own place. He was dry within 3 days and my daughter within a day! I was lucky but the reason why I waited until they were 3 was because I had seen friends and family trying to potty train 2 year olds and it seemed like they were taking longer to be potty trained (maybe they weren’t ready?) and Everyone seemed so stressed about it.

As a previous poster said there's toilet trained and there's toilet trained. Having just toilet trained my 3.8 DS who got it instantly and hasn't had an accident in the 3 weeks since, I'm feeling pretty annoyed about some of my friends who had been making snide remarks about the fact their LO has been trained since 2. But I've witnessed countless accidents from their kids. Once we were in a pub and a 2 year old just whipped her pants off and pissed on the floor. Another friend had 6 months of her DS shitting himself every day but would happily insist he was fully toilet trained at 2.

So to the posters feeling bad that their 3/4 year old isn't trained, trust me when they are they'll get it instantly.