Almost 3yo and not toilet trained

[marveljane]

My sisters DS is going to be 3yo in August and is not potty trained yet. Everyone is making a huge deal out of it from his DF to our mother and the staff at his nursery.
My DS has tried her best with toilet training but DN just cannot understand 'needing to go'. He can tell you when he's in the process of filling his nappy but not when he feels the need to. He also cannot understand the difference between a wee and poo. She tried putting him in pants a few weeks ago hoping that actually wetting himself would help him but he didn't seem to be affected by being in wet pants and having to change. I assumed he just wasn't ready and told her to put it on hold for a while.
He's slightly behind with his speech but has come on in leaps and bounds recently and is really catching up.
Aibu to think that it's really not totally worrying for children not to be ready for potty training at this age or does DS need to start worrying like everyone says?

i did not even try before DS was 3 - he was read just before, but we were due to travel so i left it til after that.

your 'horrified' family need to FTFO tbh

Well he's clearly not ready yet. 'Everyone' is wrong to make a fuss about it, he's still young, it really isn't a problem at that age.

DS will be 3 in August and that's when we're going to try. He is starting to tell me when he needs to go so it's as good a time as any.

I don’t read BlueUggs’ post as being smug.

I don’t see any problem with him still being in nappies. Unless there is a reason not to, I think children need to be toilet trained and confident enough not to regress for school but otherwise, it is what works for the family.

Nursery suggested it when DS1 was 3. He was speech delayed and hadn't been ready in previous experiments. He did get the hang of it fairly easily.

DS2 wanted to at 2.5 and got the hang of it very quickly and was quite reliable in a few weeks. Far less accidents than DS1.

Curiously, at 5, DS2 is not reliable through the night whereas DS1 was before 4.

The advantage of not rushing was that we went straight to toilets and by-passed the faff of potties. I suspect that in the past, children had more "accidents" than now. There was also a lot more public toilets!

At almost 3, it's quite common. By 4, most children without any additional needs will be reliably toilet trained. A couple of months can make a big difference.

I totally feel this pain!!! My lg is 3 in mid September, we are trying potty training- have been for 2 weeks - with little success and mostly because of pressure from others (yes pil I mean you!!). I dint think she knows when she needs to go do is a happy accident if we gappen to get her on the potty at the right time! I spoke to hv about it this week and she told us to stop, she doesn't sound ready and age is no indicator...

It’s fine. 3 isn’t that late. Kids develop at different rates. It sounds like he’s just not connected it all together for himself yet.

People need to back off and relax. It’ll work out.

This makes me feel better. DD is only one I know (nearly 3) not even vaguely toilet trained. I don't think she gets the feeling of needing to wee; the only time we've tried with no nappy she's wet herself and freaked out so needs more time.

DS is nearly 3 and doesn't want to even touch pants! He knows we're going to try when he's 3 and I'll give it a week to see any progress. If not, we'll stop and try again in the summer holidays.

DD was dry day and night within 3 days and she was 2.5yo. I don't have time for lots of accidents, so we'll absolutely leave it until we can blitz it quickly.

My DS was almost 3.5 when he potty trained, he did it when he was ready and he was dry really quickly with very few accidents.
We had tried when he was younger but he wasn't ready and wetting himself several times a day.
It's worth waiting till they are ready.

He’ll pick it up, the fact that he says he is going is encouraging as he’ll start to sense the need to go as well. I actually think it won’t be too long now that he can recognise when he’s going. My friend refused to train her son as ‘he won’t be my little baby anymore’ he was 3 and more than ready

Sorry if this derails a little!

To all PP- when you toilet trained your DCs did they still need a nappy at night?
My DD is now 4 and still wears a nappy at night- though she's been toilet trained for quite a while now!

He's a boy. Boys tend to take longer than girls to be trained, on average. It sounds as if he's just not ready.

I wouldn't worry, I'm not even planning to start trying my dd until she's three she doesn't understand

Paie. Being dry at night generally takes quite some time longer.

That can only happen when the child is able to wake if they need to wee.

When I had small DCs long ago, it usually became apparent when they could go all night or wake when they needed a wee because they'd either have a dry nappy in the morning or they'd wake.

Not that unusual at all. Leave him

Currently on day 2 of training dd2 and she turned 3 in February (so far no accidents and she is ready if unimpressed) tomorrow is dd1s sports day though in a field in the arse hole of nowhere so I'm not quite sure how that's going to go . No point in putting it off though as there's something on every week somewhere.
Dd1 was almost 4 before we got anywhere and had the odd accident on and off for quite some time years but she was preemie

Dd2 did her fist pee in the potty today, prior to this a few drops in the toilet. She will be three on 21st july. You do your stress levels and your child no favours to push too much. Dd2 still isn't aware of needing a pee or a poo so today was a well done (we got lucky) day. Dd1 was in pants by 2.5 except for poos that took another 6 months. It will happen when she is ready and it can't be forced.

We started with DS when he was about 2 years and three months and finished when he was 3 years and four months.

He picked up using the potty in the house if he had no clothes on from the waist down just fine, but getting him to use it while dressed or outside the house took a year.

All children are different, we let DS do it in his own time and so what if it took a year? We didn't stress about it or turn it into a big deal and it was fine.

Paie it’s really normal to not be dry at night at 4. I discovered loads of my friends still had kids in pull ups at this age, even some whose kids had been dry in the day since they were 2.

Toilet readiness is like any developmental stage(walking and talking), some do it early, some late like ds who walked at 17 months. Yiu can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make them drink.

My DD is 3 in August. We started potty training about a year ago........and we are still bloody potty training. At one point we had pretty much cracked it and then ds was born and she started having so many accidents every day so we had to put her in pull ups and start again pretty much from scratch. No way am I making the same mistake with ds, we will start when he's ready not when people pressure us to!

My DD is nearly 4 she was doing really well with potty training and then a few weeks ago she started having major accidents again multiple times a day, I wouldn't worry every child is different x

Not even slightly worrying for a child not to be trained at 2 years 10 months. Very odd view.

My son was 4 and a quarter. He totally refused to entertain the idea before that and we didn't push it. Then one day when we were staying with my parents, my mum was getting him dressed and said "Right, will I get you a clean nappy now?" & he said "no, I'm going to wear pants from now on" totally casually, and that was it. He had a couple of accidents, but very few. He's got a slight speech delay, but no idea if that connected. So I personally would just wait until they're ready.