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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Potty training AIBU to think friend is telling a little porky?

54 replies

Sockmonster23 · 07/03/2020 14:57

She said her daughter now 17 was potty trained at 7 months 🤔 now I've had 3 kids and none of them at 7 months were even remotely able to go to a potty. She insists it was 7 months! 12 months maybe just but 7?

My son is 2.5 and a great speaker, he tells me when he has done dirty nappy but will not sit on potty or toilet but I will keep trying.

OP posts:
MarieQueenofScots · 07/03/2020 14:59

She may have practised elimination communication.

Whilst not strictly potty training in the expected format, it can mean children are out of nappies well before a year.

IDontDrinkTea · 07/03/2020 14:59

Depends what she means by potty training I guess. Some parents do that elimination communication thing, and don’t use nappies at all. Doesn’t mean the child is potty trained though, more that the parent is trained to know when their child needs to go and hovers them over something suitable just in time

Soubriquet · 07/03/2020 14:59

Probably she means as in changing her wet clothes 10 times a day

That’s what my sister

Insisted her dd was potty trained before the age of 1 whereas in reality, she had to keep changing her clothes as she had accidents, every day until she was nearly 3 Hmm

I got so much flak from her because I didn’t potty train my dd until she was 3 but she was fully potty trained within 4 days and hadn’t had an accident since

Coffeenofilter · 07/03/2020 15:00

Is it that elimination communication thing? Where basically, from what I can tell, people spend all day with their baby on a potty so that they are "out of nappies"?

I've not known a 7 month old that could communicate a need to use the toilet. I thought they don't even become aware of the fact they're weeing until much older?

paperandfireworks · 07/03/2020 15:02

Shes telling porkies

Khione · 07/03/2020 15:04

Mummy potty trained not baby Grin

Grembolina · 07/03/2020 15:05

Yea she is probably lying misremembering. No way is a 7 month old potty trained.

I putty trained at 2 and had my dad's wife insisting that her grandkids were done by one.

QuixoticQuokka · 07/03/2020 15:08

She may have started then to save on nappies, upon waking, before a bath and so on.

strawberry2017 · 07/03/2020 15:12

Sounds a lot like crap to me. But I suppose it's possible god knows what she was thinking though, I don't think I could be arsed at that age.

mastertomsmum · 07/03/2020 15:12

In the 60s and 70s parents potty trained their kids starting at 9-12 months. Little ones in those days would have been in old school cloth nappies or early versions of disposables and - as such - much more aware of how wet/uncomfortable they were.

What sounds wrong about 7 months from another perspective is that it’s overload if the child is learning to crawl and just started weaning to solids.

My DS was premmie and could but sit reliably at 7 months. We tried potty training at 18 months but he’d just started walking and really didn’t want to sit on the potty or be still unless for food

EssentialHummus · 07/03/2020 15:16

What master said. Though very recently a (reliable) friend had her DS doing all poos on a potty from 6 months - he just wouldn’t poo unless on the potty, and obviously was reliable in terms of timing. She was also a cloth nappy user, if that’s anything to consider.

arethereanyleftatall · 07/03/2020 15:20

Probably. I would have just said 'that's nice' and thought no further of it.

Guacamole · 07/03/2020 15:21

My friend had his DD potty trained at 8 months. I couldn’t quite believe it but she was. He told me it was quite common in Serbia for children to be potty trained quite early. His MIL case to look after his DD for the summer holidays and trained her. Essentially this baby wouldn’t go until she was placed in a potty or toilet. I was amazed... my DS was around 18-20
months before we started training. They must have saved a fortune in nappies!

Bizawit · 07/03/2020 15:21

Depends what your friend meAns by “potty trained”. My baby has just turned 9 months. We do elimination communication. She still wears nappies but they’re only really for when we go out, and I’m not able to potty her frequently enough. She only very rarely poo’s in her nappy (unless she is sick), but she will wee in her nappy if I don’t offer the potty frequently enough. I certainly wouldn’t say she was “potty trained”, but she does do most of her toiletting in the potty, and has done for several months now.

Mumoftwoyoungkids · 07/03/2020 15:22

I remember going to tumble tots with ds when he was about 18 months. Another mum was very smug about her dd being potty trained. I then had the upsetting realisation that the “fizzy pop” I had trodden in with socked feet by the ball pit was not actually fizzy pop at all.

shinyredbus · 07/03/2020 15:24

Elimination communication maybe? I know in some poorer countries they can’t afford nappies so the kids are potty trained fast.

cabbageking · 07/03/2020 15:25

At 6 months the child is being placed on a potty by the adult. You have an idea of the child's timing 're bowel movements.

Potty trained is when the child choses to go and use the potty independently.

Mumalu · 07/03/2020 15:29

I wa apparently on the toilet at 9 months my mum would disappear one time she left me with no nappies so my nan put me on the toilet I supposedly took so well she just didn't buy anymore nappies

ElderAve · 07/03/2020 15:32

At one point I began to think my ds2 would be 7 to!

Bizawit · 07/03/2020 15:49

At 6 months the child is being placed on a potty by the adult. You have an idea of the child's timing 're bowel movements.

True, but it’s a bit more than that. If it were just guesswork it wouldn’t work very well. The reason it works so well is that babies learn very quickly that the potty is the place that they go to the toilet. They learn to hold on (within reason) until offered the potty , and they learn that when placed on the potty they should try to go. My baby ( will almost always do something when put on the potty even if it’s just a little wee.

PatchworkMonkey · 07/03/2020 15:52

Before they can even speak or understand words? I struggle to believe they can "hold it" or take themselves to the potty. What about at night?

Ds1 trained toilet trained at 2, easily from nappy to potty to toilet in a week. Dry day and night. But was always a super quick learner.

Ds2 (was expecting the same ha!) tried all the same techniques and he just didn't "get it" until he was 3.4.

Stressedout10 · 07/03/2020 15:55

Funny as I was told by drs and hv that children don't have any bladder control until around 2 years old

Thisismytimetoshine · 07/03/2020 15:55

A child is not potty trained until they can take themselves to the potty/ toilet independently. Dangling them over a potty umpteen times a day so you manage to catch what’s coming is not it.

Littlebean0506 · 07/03/2020 16:01

I have never heard of elimination communication and thats after 6.5 years of working in a nursery. I met one little boy whose parents may have done that as he wasn't in a nappy when I started and he was just over a year and he constantly had accidents as he wasn't ready and this carried on until he went to school. We had another girl who was terrified of having to use the toilet and cry for a nappy, her parents eventually had tot ake it of and let her get on with it, this was a couple months before she went to school. Just before she left the mum admitted that when she was around 12 months she sat her daughter on the toilet with a nappy and she fell through the seat, which is probably why she was terrified. To me potty training isn't completed until after they stop having accidents during the day or will have very few and then can still tell you

MaryShelley1818 · 07/03/2020 16:12

I've worked with children for 20yrs and have a toddler. I also have a friend who claims her child genius daughter was potty trained on holiday at just turned 1. Posted it all over FB but strangely enough everytime I've seen her at soft plays etc she's wearing a nappy.

Dangling a small baby over a potty several times a day in attempt to get them to hold their bladder sounds ridiculous and a recipe for bladder problems and infections.

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