Toilet training before school

[jackass232]

I saw a piece on the news last night about how there's been a big rise in the number of children starting school not fully toilet trained. I think the figures were something like 13% of kids in any reception class are not fully trained and that teachers are on average spending 2.5 hours per day dealing with toileting accidents and issues.

Obviously this is quite shocking (I expected to see a MN post about it actually, sorry if I missed one) but I can sympathise as my ds started reception with issues surrounding pooing - mostly holding onto it, becoming constipated and having leaks. I remember always packing spare pants for him and I know the TA had to help him change a lot. This wasn't anything to do with laziness on my part. He was just hard to toilet train and continued with these issues for quite some years. The school was always lovey about it but I felt very embarrassed and upset on behalf of my son.

I feel the general narrative behind this story is that parents just can't be arsed to toilet train their kids and are happily sending them in and letting teachers deal with them. But that's not always the case. I know it's a big drain on schools but what's the answer? And why has there been such a rise?

Very comfortable throw away nappies- simple as that.

There has been such a rise because overall yes parents are being a bit shit about it

The average age for toilet training was 12-18 months in the 90s, now it’s 24-30 months.

This is linked to people genuinely believing children of a younger age aren’t ‘ready’ for toilet training, which has been disproven time and time again but it’s stuck in terms of people’s minds and is continually repeated across parenting groups etc.

I think part of it is that the an average age of toilet training has got older. It used to be quite common to be trained around 18 months, so a 3 year old in nappies would be considered unusual. Now loads of people don’t even start thinking about it til age 3 so unsurprising that you’ve still got 4 yos in pull ups.

It’s a narrative as well - look at toilet training threads on here and you’ll have loads of people saying ‘oh it’ll be really easy when they’re ready’. So people try, their kids (naturally) have some accidents, they put them back in pull ups.

Cross post @Antelopevalleys
And you’re absolutely right that this narrative that younger children aren’t ready for toilet training is bollocks and so bad for a) the environment and b) people’s budgets!

The increase in neurodivergent diagnosis will play a factor in the numbers too

but oh noooo, it’s “lazy parenting”

I think it’s because most people start later now. So if DC has a lot of accidents in the year after training, that would have previously been aged 2-3, whereas now it’s 3-4 and tipping over into school. Contrary to all those ‘potty training in 1 week’ or ‘3 day method’ books that promise near instant results, it takes some kids a lot longer to become completely reliable.

This is it in a nutshell. Nappies are so convenient that a lot of parents are in no rush to stop using them.

Yes, nobody needs to wash and dry nappies any more. It’s just so easy to say, ‘Oh, s/he’s not ready,’ when they’re already three and a half. Unless there were SN, that was unheard of a few decades ago.

Another issue that’s come from the trend of piss poor parenting in the U.K. There will always have been a number of children who had issues and accidents and those with SEN. But the numbers schools are seeing are a general trend of children just not being prepared for school. It is laziness. And it’s taking up very valuable staff time in the school day.

In my experience most people want to wait until their child shows lots of signs of readiness. Personally I got to a point where I started to really hate changing nappies and that's when I decided to go cold turkey and train but I know doing things parent led isn't trendy these days.

DD wasn't reliably trained until 4.5 (luckily before school, as she is oldest in year, but if she had been youngest, she would have already started), no matter what we tried. If the average age is 3, some will always be 2 and some will always be 4.

I saw an article about it yesterday and it said that 50% of parents surveyed believed that toilet training wasn’t their responsibility/wasn’t solely their responsibility.

Easy convenient disposable nappies.
Waiting until the child is ‘ready’ not when the parents are.

But that’s the point some of us are making. Average age probably used to be 2.

Easy convenient disposable nappies.
Waiting until the child is ‘ready’ not when the parents are.

This. Bowel & bladder control are present from as early as 18 (bowel is earlier, can be 12m) in terms of physical.

More working parents of toddlers who lack time and inclination do to the work. Most children can be potty trained between 18 and 28 months.

Disabilities aside, its pure and utter lazy parenting.

Waiting until they are ready is a ridiculous view created by snowflake parents, children need to be taught to understand the feeling of needing the toilet.

An example would be we teach children to wash their hands after going to the toilet, we don't wait to see if they will naturally start doing it themselves.

Goodkidsmaadhouse exactly. Average use to be 2, my mum had me and siblings trained at 18m. Almost no one was still in a nappy after 3.

I think there is a combination of factors.
There will be genuine cases where parebts have tried really hard, sought medical support, followed advice and still not achieved it.
My oldest toilet trained at 2.5 no problems
My youngest initially toilet trained at same age but then a month later had a painful experience with a very large hard poo making her bottom bleed on the toilet and then absolutely refused to go near a toilet for nearly a year. We tried different toilets and pottys, making it a games,rewards etc but she became so upset she would vomit (otherwise a very chilled child). We were advised by HV to take a break and try again after a month or 2, but it took a year to get her back on the toilet, and as a summer born, she only toilet trained just before she started school, so we easily have been one of those stats.
I think the increase in children going to nurseries is possibly a factor - children need a consistent approach and we found the nursery gave conflicting advice with both of ours, so I took a weeks annual leave to toilet train each of mine at home. That is in no way a criticism of what were otherwise excellent nurseries, or nurseries in general, but they are limited by ratios and by early years guidance

It is a parenting trend linked to child centred parenting and enabled by disposable nappies. If you want to potty train your kid at or pre-24 months you have to be quite pushy about it. A lot of parents don’t want to do this. Since they don’t have to launder nappies the downsides of this attitude are much less.

What wonderfully judgemental replies!

The majority of neurodivergent children are just as capable as neurodiverse ones of being toilet trained. (Obviously excluding those with classic autism from this). A lot of parents are working and can't be arsed to make the effort when they're not. And are more than happy to leave it someone else, along with teaching manners and how to behave generally. Everything is someone else's problem these days.

I get that.

What do you suggest I should have done? We took her to the GP, she was under consultant, nothing physically wrong with her, except for anxiety surrounding it (and Selective Mutism which was all probably linked).

What more could I have done? She just wouldn't do it.

I read a similar report. It’s not just toilet training. Some 4 year olds have never held a pencil, had a book read to them or made a jigsaw, put on a coat or eaten with cutlery but are able to use smart phones and tablets.

I would have loved to have potty trained my eldest earlier. In the end he was 3. Would have been interesting considering he didn’t start walking until he was 18 months.

For me if they can’t get themselves to the toilet and do what they need to do on their own they aren’t toilet trained.

That’s not the same as a parent watching for signs and rushing them to the potty which you could obviously do much younger.

Yes I read that. The saddest thing for me was that in reception the first thing they now have to tech some kids is how to hold a book, let alone read it.