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?

They are right, though.

Boys are not harder to train I've done more than 60 and always when they are ready it's taken on average 3 days to be reasonable and around a week to be virtual independent and clean. How did your 18 month old go to the bathroom undress clean and redress? How does he ask?

Same with my dad ( he wet the bed until about 11, he's now 83) and my brother who is now in his fifties. It wasn't discussed but it was happening.

Both of mine were toilet trained before school but my youngest in particular still has the odd accident and he's in year 1. He was very stubborn to potty train but once he started he refused to back to nappies even at night.

This led to several wet accidents at nursery and school because I think he was just lazy. He is one of the oldest in his year too.

By contrast my eldest was a summer baby, he was a nightmare because he would happily wear pants and try the toilet but he just wasn't reliable and he would more often than not poo himself but upon starting school just over 4 I think there was maybe one accident in school.

The general age has got later and parents like me read up on what the average age is at the time and I ignore people saying so and so were trained at 18 months, my kids could barely walk at that age.

They need to be potty trained before school, accidents happen and that's fine but more reliable than not at school. That is/was my benchmark.

My nephew wasn’t fully toilet trained before starting school because my sister didn’t start until really late as she was adamant that he wasn’t ready because he hadn’t ‘expressed an interest’ and toilet training before he did would scar him for life. However he didn’t express an interest because he was an only child and no one had ever told him that he shouldn’t be wearing nappies. I don’t see how he could ever have been expected to lead toilet training himself!

When my eldest started playgroup in the mid 70s they had to be out of nappies or you couldn't leave them. I think disposable nappies are so good at taking the moisture away from them the child isn't as bothered, when they had a soaking wet terry nappy on they got to a stage where they didn't like it so were more likely to co-operate.

Yes

I bet there are no proper facial change the dc either.

No UTIs at the moment. Have had a few in the past and cleared up with antibiotics but didn't cause issues as bad as this, only symptom really was stinging when weeing. Thanks for your comments.

I trained both of mine quite late (according to most on this post), I admit it was an element of 'laziness' with my eldest, alongside most things I read saying that it's best to wait for the 'signs they are ready' and 'boys train later than girls on average', so I wasn't prepared to start training before he was 2, then I fell pregnant with his little brother shortly after he was 2 and was in no way willing (nor capable) of trying to potty train alongside morning sickness for 20 weeks and then squat down with my big pregnant belly after that. Then I waited maybe 6 months after baby was born so that I had recovered and so that I was able to easily put baby down somewhere to deal with taking his older brother to the loo/clean up messes. Eldest was potty trained within a reasonable amount or time, I can't remember exactly but maybe a few weeks or so, I started and didn't stop with him until he was trained (so somewhere around 3.6/3.9) and he was night dry by himself by 4 years old. However, I did buy 'biodegradable' nappies for him to help reduce the landfill issue (around 60% biodegradable iirc) and I went straight to toilet with him, I could not be asked with faffing around with smelly potties or having to keep emptying out and cleaning one. He got chocolate jazzles as rewards to potty train and I used training pants, he hated feeling wet/dirty.

It went so well with him I assumed it would be the same with his little brother, maybe even a little earlier with him with having his older brother as an extra toilet using role model... I was wrong... I tried training his younger brother several times after his 3rd birthday (summer born so perfect time of year to go bottomless or in just pants), I tried chocolate button rewards, I tried the training pants, I tried explaining to him that if he goes on the toilet he won't need to be cleaned so much because he absolutely hates being cleaned up down there (screams and cries even at preschool), he is at preschool (nursery) so has other children to model too, I gave it a good shot several times since his birthday but he just didn't care if he was wet or dirty, I tried just straight going to pants and he still wee'd and poo'd in them and just kept playing! He would never tell me he needed the toilet but he would go and hide to do a poo. I gave him breaks of going back to nappies because we were both becoming stressed, he seemed scared of doing a poo on the toilet. He and his brother just had a week off school last week so I tackled it once more, but this time I bought loads of 2nd hand toy cars, some small pots to put small treats in and some toy animals and wrapped them all up and put them in a basket for them both to take a surprise every time they used the toilet successfully (so as not to leave his older brother out, I read this idea from someone on MN so thank you whoever that was!), it worked! He loves cars so finally the reward was worth the effort for him. He is night dry already (from the day I started training again 2 weeks ago, I suspected he would be an odd one and night train before he day trained as he has had concurrent dry nights on occasion before), he is having maybe 1 accident a day with a wee or a poo where he doesn't make it to the toilet in time, but he does actually go and finish on the toilet now, so he is getting there at least. He is dry when we go for outings as long as I take him to the toilet before we go (he can hold his wee for hours on end!), I do wonder if it would have been different if I hadn't followed the current mainstream advice of waiting for 'readiness' and had started around 2 instead, or if it still wouldn't have gone smoothly because he just didn't care about being wet or dirty (my husband found him one day last week hiding in the playroom where he'd done a big wee and then lay down in the puddle to try and hide it... he was completely soaked...

However, they are both going to be trained prior to starting school, even by UK standards, so even if I started late I still did it 'in time' in that respect (nursery didn't mind him being in nappies, his class is 2-4yo so many of the other children are still in nappies). He will be 3yrs and 9mos in a few days and I would say he is now basically (finally) toilet trained.

TLDR: I would blame current mainstream advice of waiting until they are ready and being 3 and in nappies not being considered an issue as well as an element of laziness/needing timing to be right too. I would still expect more NT to be trained by age 4 however.
Sorry for the long post.

The general age has got later and parents like me read up on what the average age is at the time and I ignore people saying so and so were trained at 18 months, my kids could barely walk at that age.

indeed, my ds2 didn't walk until he was 22 months.

I also agree that in the "old days" these things weren't talked about as much, apparently my dad was a nightmare to toilet train! I'm 36 now and my mum said that I wasn't trained until I was over 3.

Unless there is a underlying illness or disability there is no reason to a child being in nappies it is down to lazy parenting!
But children wearing nappies isn't the only issue,there are children who at 3/4 who can't hold a pencil,count and there is ALOT of speech delays ect its really disappointing!
My son started nursery in September he was 3 and his nursery teacher was surprised he could talk in sentences and put his own coat on!

My ds took loads loads longer to get it at nursery than at home. Clicked within a week or 2 at home. Took an extra 3 months at nursery. Don't worry! I think nursery is harder because they have to ask someone to take them to another room, and they don't want someone else to grab their toys.

It is the idea that toilet training should only take a few days. And if it is taking longer they are not ready and so toilet training needs to be delayed.
The reality is some children quickly toilet train, and some take ages whenever you start. So if you delay it with the ones who struggle, they end up being toilet trained at a much older age. It is not always easy.

Also the idea that they are not toilet trained until they can take themselves to the toilet and dress and undress themselves is frankly bonkers.
My children could put their coat on by themselves, but I did not say they were unable to because they could not take their coat off the high coat hooks in the hall.
Children need help with things like zips or buttons or just opening toilet doors, long after they are toilet trained.

Grim.

We used sign language to tell us as he wasn’t speaking yet. He had small potties in the play area, bedroom etc. we had pull down pants with elastic and sometimes he managed to do it himself, sometimes we helped. Gradually he moved to the big toilet within 6months as he quickly figured out poop stinks less when he goes there (used a step thingy with handles and seat)

I thought 2ish was about average. My now 5 year old was about 2.5 when he was completely toilet trained during the day. He was nappy free over night at just over 3. At just after 2 he was showing an interest in using the toilet but we would have encouraged it then anyway.
SEN aside, it's really not a teacher / TA job to be dealing with toilet accidents regularly.

99% off the time it's lazy parenting, working in pre school I see children wanting to use the toilet asking togo for a wee etc all signs they are more than ready yet they are still wearing nappies!! When my lad started school 16 years ago you had to be toilet trained or they couldn't start.
On the news clip I seen some parents were saying its not just there responsibility to toilet train YES it is they are your child.

It doesn’t just matter that they can hold it though does it! They also need to be able to recognise when they need to go and the difference between a wee and a poo, to be able to effectively communicate when they need to go and/or have the confidence to go to the potty themselves or let somebody know. It also helps if they can pull their own pants up and down.

My DD (who has been trained for a while now and is 2 1/2) could easily hold wee for three or more hours but it was an agonising 5 months of potty training. She is only now starting to regularly let us know when she wants to go without being prompted. The whole thing would have been a lot less fraught had I waited a little longer for her to be developmentally ready not just physically ready. But there was a huge amount of pressure to do it earlier due to attitudes like many on this thread.

Of course it’s not acceptable to deliberately not potty train a child out of laziness but I disagree that the other extreme is a ‘one size fits all’ solution. Some 1 year olds may well be ready to comprehend everything they need to do early but many will take a bit longer and that’s ok.

This.

It’s such an odd thing for people to be so judgemental about. It seems like much like sleep, if some people had children who took to potty training with relative ease, it must be a result of their exceptional parenting rather than the child.

why don’t we start applying it to other things? Oh your child didn’t walk until 18 months? You must not have bothered getting them walking earlier! Disgusting and lazy parenting.

Definitely- the hardest part about training is having the 3-5 days at home/with parents. I found it hard to organise around work

I think this is the main reason for fewer children being potty trained before school. We struggled - we are full time employees, and our kids have been in full time nursery practically forever. Thr nursery policy, like most nursery policies, is that kids need to be potty trained before coming in without nappies on. But... how are they ever going to learn to potty train then?? Then you take time off work, and that puts pressure on getting it done instantly, and it just doesn't work like that. We got there in the end but it was stressful!

I used disposable nappies for eldest. She was out of them during the day age 2 1/2 . Youngest was in washable nappies, she was out of them during the day before the age of 2. I was difinitely more motivated with DD2.
I do think there has always been children who are a bit delayed and of course schools don't mind dealing with that. but disposable nappies do cause parents to wait a bit longer.

@BlueMonday1977 If the average age that children learnt to walk increased by a year, then people would be commenting on that.

I toilet trained DD at 2y2mo (and started using the potty a bit around 20 months) BUT I would have left it much later if I hadn’t had MIL encouraging/pushing it. I honestly thought 2.5-3 was when you started based on the online parenting advice I had read. It was incredibly easy, and whilst I know that is partly down to the child I can imagine that based on DD’s personality (cheeky!) she might not have been so cooperative if I waited until she was older. In retrospect I could have trained her at 18 months.

My sister is a teacher and they have noticed an increase in the number of kids who are not toilet trained this year. In almost all cases though, the kids have SEN, or not yet formally diagnosed SEN. Maybe in the past these kids went to special schools?

Lots of children with SEN were also toilet trained young. Depending on their disability obviously. But I worked with non verbal children who signed makaton for toilet when they needed to go.