To send my ds to nursery before he is potty trained?

[elizaishere]

My ds is 3 and not yet ready to be potty trained. We tried a few months ago but he was still having frequent accidents and then tried again a couple of weeks ago and it was much the same.

He is starting nursery soon and I was just wondering if I should try the potty training a bit longer as dp thinks he shouldn't go to nursery in nappies.

I've heard it's harder to potty train boys but he's my only child so can't compare to anything.

Would you send your 3 year old in pull ups or hold off till they were using the potty/ toilet independently?

DD was nearly 3.5 when she was ready, but then it happened really quickly.
She was at nursery at this point and I think that actually, being with other children who were using potties or the toilets helped her. With it.

I don't know if the op is talking about a school nursery.

In any other early years setting the ratio is 1:8 age 3 and up (or 1:13 if you are an EY teacher). With this ratio, caring for children should be possible without neglecting one area of development, or insisting (spuriously) that children have to be toilet trained in order to attend.

It's often not possible though.

I'm not saying that children should be excluded from starting a nursery in a school if they aren't toilet trained. But in reality it does have a big impact on the day to day running of a setting if one of the two members of staff is caught up with toileting.

The nursery at work only takes potty trained kids (it's the preschool unit) if they aren't potty trained they have to stay with the toddlers at the other site.

Talk to the nursery. Most take kids from age one or even younger so have nappy changing facilities and regard changing nappies as entirely normal. A few which only start with older kids ask that they be toilet trained first.

He'll train when he's ready. My DS was over 3 when he got it. In hindsight, I wish we hadn't wasted all that time between age 2 and 3 getting him to sit on a potty.

Also, he may get the hang of it faster if he is at nursery and sees other kids his age using the (probably child sized and thus less intimidating) toilets there.

Both my boys were potty trained just after their second birthday. But I remember children in the private nursery being helped to potty train, however the nursery attached to the primary school, which younger ds went too, they wanted them out of nappies when they started. I’m unsure what happened if they were not yet potty trained.

I'm sorry but he needs to be out of nappies. He's 3 years old, unless he's got something wrong with him, then he absolutely can use a potty/ toilet. You need to be dedicated to the training, keeping aside atleast 5 days where you make no plans to leave the house. I don't believe in this 'boys take longer ' I've toilet trained 6 children, 4 of them boys. All been done by 2 and a half. One was delayed as they were starting nursery and then needed to settle in first. If you set the time aside, then it can be done.

Staff in a nursery should becapable of coping with children who are at various stages of development in the area of toileting, be it still in nappies, toilet training or out of nappies but still having accidents.

It's not a question of "should be capable," it is a question of "staff spending more and more time changing nappies inevitably leaves less and less time for things like craft activities, reading books with children, outdoor stuff etc."

It means we have a choice of, we either accept that kids are going to get less high-quality and stimulating care, OR we increase staff ratios. the UK already has just about the highest ratios in Europe, which is a large part of the reason why our childcare is so incredibly expensive by other countries' standards.

As a culture, we need to really think hard about whether we want to continue going down this route.

More and more children arriving untrained is creating a vicious circle, as it means that the "peer pressure" to train is now less than it was, making it even harder to get all the children trained.

I understood that private nurseries (not work ones eg) can't refuse to take children who aren't toilet trained.

Dry at 2?! Virtually none of my friends kids were properly dry by that age (I mean that the parents could take them out without always needing a spare set of clothes every time) - some were dry at 2 ish but most have been closer to 4, with some at 5 still using pull ups at night.
There's no shame, but guidelines say that as long as they are dry by reception age, that's best.

Dryness at night is different. We're talking about daytime. I don't know any 3 year olds that are not dry during the day.

I would give it a go in the Easter break but if hes not ready hes not ready.

But please. As a nursery worker please dont use No pull ups, they are annoying and time consuming and have no reall benefit to potty training.

God, these sort of discussions always end up being a pissing contest.

I think it’s a huge exaggeration to say that having a handful of children in nappies is going to take up vast amounts of teaching time from the EYFS/ nursery staff. I work in childcare and I’d argue that having a child in nappies is less time consuming than having a child who isn’t reliably dry in pants. Changing the wet nappy of a 3-year-old would usually only take a couple of minutes - obviously a soiled nappy takes a bit longer but in my experience most 3-year-olds need help with wiping if they’ve done a poo at nursery so there’s a need for assistance from staff wherever the poo is done!

It’s much quicker to change a wet nappy than to change a child out of wet pants & trousers, wipe them down and get them into dry clothes. Not to mention the time it takes to get out the disinfectant spray and clean up the puddle from the chair/ floor - even worse if it’s on carpet or soft furnishings and you have to get out the spill kit or get it deep cleaned.

Obviously I’m not advocating for keeping children in nappies any longer than it takes them to be toilet trained but I can’t get behind the idea that having a handful of nursery-aged children in nappies would take up much staff time in an early years setting.

He only turned 3 last month and is perfectly happy and healthy so I will give it another go before he starts nursery.

I don't doubt that 20 odd years ago most 2 year olds were potty trained as I assume a lot of mothers were at home most if not all week. Unfortunately I only have 2 full days with my ds a week.

My son is three and isn’t toilet trained yet either, he has been attending the same nursery for two years and it isn’t a problem and he has washable nappies rather than disposable.

Every child is different, you really can’t expect two different children to do the same thing at the same time.

I second the Oh crap book. Becoming toliet trained is like learning every other skills eg walking and using cutlery, your child needed time and the opportunity to practice to be able to do it.

"some were dry at 2 ish but most have been closer to 4"
Seems unlikely and a bit concerning...
(Occasional accidents or special needs aside)

OP what is your current set-up? I am just thinking it might be easier to train him before starting nursery as a big upheaval in routine such at changing nursery will mean pushing back potty training even further as you wouldn't want to do both at the same time. Also it's much more difficult to train if your child is in multiple childcare settings because they all have different routines and methods for potty training so it can be confusing.

@MyNewBear
But wouldn't it be easiest if a child was fully/ properly trained by the time they started. So there would be very few accidents to clean up, therefore taking less time than several wet nappies per day?

Also it would take up a lot of time during the actual training process whereas if they are already trained when they arrive, this wouldn't be the case.

Also chiming in to say that 'oh crap' worked really well for us, so it's definitely worth giving that method a try.

I think it’s a huge exaggeration to say that having a handful of children in nappies is going to take up vast amounts of teaching time from the EYFS/ nursery staff

Thing is that 1 or 2 wouldn't. But the number is growing so much. If there are 10 three year olds who need help at 5 mins a time, that's 2.5 HOURS a day of a teacher's time - when the ratios only need to be one teacher to 14 kids, that's an issue.
And if they start in nappies, at some point they'll need help with training, and with accidents - both of which are more time consuming.

I use cloth nappies and the vast majority of kids in cloth are trained by 2.5, because it's a PITA to do all the washing. Similarly in the past, when nappies were time consuming and expensive - now they are cheaper and parents are working, there's less incentive to spend your weekends chasing a pooey toddler.

It’s much quicker to change a wet nappy than to change a child out of wet pants & trousers, wipe them down and get them into dry clothes.

Don't toddlers in nappies have fairly frequent episodes of clothes getting wet too?

I think you should try over Easter OP think of the environment.

One issue imo is how people define 'dry'. Yes, 2/3 year olds have accidents and they need to be taken to the toilet/ bribed to go before getting in the car for a journey. You have to take spare clothes when you go out. Slightly inconvenient. But if they are in nappies you have to take nappies and spare clothes, change nappies including using gross changing tables and buy/send a while load more nappies to landfill than are actually needed. Slightly incomvenient also but its what people are used to I guess so some would rather stick with it.

I had one girl because I'm not actually convinced there's that much difference who was easy to train and one who was a nightmare. Both were out of nappies well before 3.

I suspect the existence of pull ups has delayed toilet training. They are comfy and dry.

Forty years ago DC were in terry nappies with liners and plastic pants which felt very wet. Much harder for a child to ignore.