To think friends child should be out of nappies

[FreshAprilStart]

Context. My friend is brilliant. Such a great mum, does so much with her children and very loving and kind. But. She gets very anxious about them and managing change.

When asked, I've always been reassuring about things like co-sleeping and so on and fussy eating and saying it all falls into place in time which it usually does.

The thing is that her DD is quite tall for her age and nearly 4 now but is still in nappies. No issues or special needs. The nursery has even said they want to get her out of nappies soon as it's now becoming noticed by other kids. My friend just ignores it all.

I've been as supportive as I can, soothing and encouraging but she seems stuck in the 'it's fine at this age' and won't tackle it. I'm getting more and more frustrated when she seeks more assurances. Her DD is adorable but I'm beginning to think she'll be in nappies at school at this rate.

Would you say something or stay out of it?

My cousin has a child with high functioning ASD. He's also very very bright. His mum was always very anxious about him. In hindsight this was because as his main carer she was picking up on differences about him that we didn't notice (he walked/talked early and was able to understand quite complex ideas and take part in adult conversations so didn't seem at all behind). Lots of people (including me to an extent) felt that his temper was because DCousin was too anxious about upsetting him - this is really what it seemed like from the outside - but actually she was quite in tune to him and giving him the support he needed.

Now this is just one example and I'm sure doesn't apply to everyone but something to bare in mind when we're judgemental of other mums. Sometimes we don't know better.

Next time she asks for reassurance, ask her if there's a reason why she hasn't done it. If reason is that ds is resistant etc, then sure giver her reassurance bu4t perhaps suggest s-eaking 4to health visitor. However if reason is she's too scared then I 4think you should point out that her issues are impacting her dd whose friends are all out of nappies and who will start to notice she's different soon.

Have similar with SIL and am kicking myself for not taking gap when she brought subject up a few weeks ago. It's definitely not appropriate for someone else (in this case, me) to bring up spontaneously.

*Approximately 10-15% of autistic children are spotted before they turn 4. The other 85-90% are seen as healthy 4 year olds with no developmental needs. So your comment was declaring 90% of parents with autistic children as neglectful. That's pretty shitty even by MN standards.**

I agree with this, too. I don’t get why it’s so difficult to understand this.

I didn’t understand what my DD1’s issues werewhen she was 4 and had regressed and was pooing herself regularly, but I knew there was something wrong. It’s horrible to think other mums might have been judging me for it whilst knowing nothing about what I was dealing with.

We were 4 children and all definitely potty trained by 18 months. My mother started putting us on potties as soon as we were big enough to be sat on them (whilst being held by her).

I came under huge pressure from MIL to get older two potty trained - so spoke to many people about it.

The Nursery staff and several older parents thought the cloth nappies being wet helped massively with potty training and modern nappies were a hindrances the wet is locked away as were pull ups instead of pants took away the big child now effect.

My Mum did above with older brother and was sure he was potty trained but when a holiday cause disruption to routine she realised she was catching it at set times and he really wasn't. She thought that was why MIL was so convinced she’d trained ridiculous early -before 1 she had a child with regular pattern and caught. Though speaking to FIL MIL was yet again misremembering.

How on earth, and why, this has turned into such a spiteful thread is beyond me. Why do so many of you think that others are slating parents of children with autism who found it difficult to potty train because of their child's additional needs?
People keep saying that the OP is not a HCP and so can't say the child doesn't have additional needs but some of you seem to be able to diagnose ASD and other health problems in a child they've never met whose mother is too anxious to start the potty training process! This is about the mother's anxiety not the child's!

I was dry during the day from about 2.5 (which was late in the era of cloth nappies, but I was slow catching on) and only dry at night days before I started school which was just after I was 5!

DS was 3 for daytime and 4 for nighttime.

Some kids seem to manage it before they are even 2, but there is a massive range of "normal".

ERIC is a good website to look at - I was quite surprised at how many children have continence issues - it's a lot and people need to get over the current narrative that kids are toilet trained late because of ineffectual parents, which will only be the case in a tiny minority of cases.

Autistic children were even less likely to be diagnosed in the past.

I think that a lot of children weren't trained exactly, they were toileted and the incentive to do so was cutting down on washing when it was more difficult and harder work.
It depends what you mean by toilet trained. I have heard parents say a child is not toilet trained until they can totally go to the toilet without any help. If you take that definition, then many kids who would have been thought of as toilet trained in the past still needed help to wipe bums after a poo and to pull up tights and make sure they are sitting okay.

Elimination training is catching it, and yes this is what is happening with tiny babies.
But you literally could not buy nappies for 4 year olds and up in the recent past, pre internet. People with SN kids had to get them through SS. And plenty of kids went to nursery and playgroups. I can tell you as a nursery worker back then I did not catch it. Kids simply went when they needed to. You would gently tell a child to go to the toilet if they were engrossed in play and crossing their legs yes, but nothing more.

Kids are in general in Britain being toilet trained later. I really don't think that is under doubt. The question is does it matter? I think for kids that get it easily it doesn't matter. I think for kids who struggle, it makes it harder to leave it later.

There is a major difference in having difficulties toilet training a 4 year old and not attempting to toilet train a 4 year old.

I know all too well that 4 year olds don't have helpful SN labels attached to them, but since DS was a toddler, I've been aware of what normal range is and where he has deviated from it, either struggling or excelling, and now at 8, all those little details have finally built up enough of a picture to begin investigating SNs.

If the friend/ mother is only just becoming aware that not being toilet trained at 4 is outside the "normal" range she needs to know that, whether the cause is an underlying difficulty with the child (which based on what OP can share with us, there is little sign of) or just that the mother has missed that fact for whatever reason.

If the child is so bright, next time you're with her why don't you just ask her if she'd like to use the toilet like big girls do and have knickers instead of nappies? She'll likely tell you clearly whether she is or isn't aware that it's even an option.

DS1 has high functioning ASD, he wasn’t referred to a paediatrician for assessment until he was almost 4.5 yrs.
He’s 7 now, and has only been reliably going to the toilet independently for wees at home for the last 6 months or so. Although he generally managed ok at school / nursery because they encouraged the children to go to the toilet at set times at nursery and Reception, so he got into the habit of going to the toilet at break times when the other children went.

I do think though, that there’s a huge difference between (a) a 4 yr old child struggling with toileting, for whatever reason, despite the parents efforts to help toilet training; and (b) a 4 yr old child still in nappies full time because the parents have made no effort at all to toilet train.

I’ve got a lot of sympathy for parents in scenario (a), and it would make me wonder if the child had some sort of underlying SN or physical problem affecting toileting.
I’ve got much less sympathy for parents in scenario (b). It’s difficult not to see that as lazy parenting, although I’d guess these parents are very much in the minority.

If your friend is a good mum otherwise she probably has tried and the dd may have SEN issues you don’t know about. My bf hid her son’s SEN issues for years and always brushed off the fact that he was in nappies at 4, but it all came out after he got a diagnosis and she needed to let out her feelings.

We were 4 children and all definitely potty trained by 18 months. My mother started putting us on potties as soon as we were big enough to be sat on them (whilst being held by her)

What a waste of your time and theirs. As I refuse to believe there weren't copious accidents until they were really of an age to understand what they were doing. And at 18 months they don't.

Why do you refuse to believe it?

Yes in India it’s quite common to fully potty train by 12-18 months. Kids are often even cleaning themselves fully by 24-36 months.

A lot of people from South Asia brought that tradition to the UK. I used to laugh at the other girls in nursery who couldn’t wipe themselves and so asked for help - lol apparently I got into a lot of trouble for it!

This article explains how babies 6-12 months can hold on for a short while until their parents tell them to pee, and that the peeing is not just an automatic reflex. Of course there are only benefits to doing this in countries where parents can not easily afford disposable nappies, use cloth nappies, or my not be able to afford any kind of nappy. There is no reason to do this in Britain, but it contradicts some myths stated on this thread.

www.parentingscience.com/infant-toilet-training.html

So, am update. Sunny week in Scotland and paddling pool out and lots of running about with bikini bottoms and my friends DD didn't want a nappy on and then just ran to the toilet herself and went.

So, looks like that's her done.

I think there should be an attempt to potty train before a child reaches 3 years old. Of course, there will be children who struggle for one reason or another but to not even attempt it is lazy parenting.

Just seen the above - good news!

Great news OP.