To think that not toilet training your child is borderline neglect?

[PithyNavyViewer]

If your kid is four and still in nappies, that’s not a “gentle parenting choice” - it’s just lazy.

Depends if the parents have attempted and child is struggling which is fair enough or parents haven’t bothered trying (nappies are so pricey now surely that’s a good incentive to at least give it a whirl). I have a three year old with brain damage and dev delay (though if you met him in the street you wouldn’t clock immediately) so I’ll enjoy all the judgement as the next year goes by that he’s oblivious to toileting

Rates of chronic constipation are also rising which can (in addition to a variety of medical reasons) be triggered by poor diets lacking in fibre. This can interfere with bladder and bowel control as well as causing impaction leakage and stress around toileting because of the pain and discomfort.

Having had a child whose autism wasn't diagnosed until 9, I'd say that in the absence of clear medical or developmemtal needs, it is lazy to not have tried toilet training before starting school, but success is a different matter.

In our case DS1 had no interest at all when we tried at 2½ in the summer. We used washable nappies so it wasn't the dry disposable feel being a factor. His communication skills were also just above the threshold for intervention which didn't help at that point in time.
The advice of the time (10+ years ago) was to look for the signs that the child was ready and make the most of summer for nappy-free time. He was a winter baby and just wasn't ready in that summer window. Nursery supported when he moved to the pre-school room at 3 (during the winter) and trying together those few months later did help. His autistic traits didn't present together strongly enough to begin the diagnostic pathway until he was 7-9.

It was great having DS2 who was self motivated to train by 2½ (although he wasn't dry at night until 6) however he had more urgency for toileting for many years.

In the 80s I had a "potty chair" so presumably I was expected to sit on that for a longer period until something happened. "Accidents" in young children were common into the infant school years so I'm not convinced that perceptions of what classed as "toilet trained and successful outcomes were exactly the same, but disposable nappies were new, expensive and much bulkier so weren't attractive options for prolonged use as a strategy to avoid "accidents"

"Hydration" culture didn't kick in until the late 90s-early 2000s so access to drink will have been a drink at breakfast time, access to a fountain for a couple of gulps of water (in the toilets at my school), a small (200ml?) cup of water at lunchtime. No constant swigging from large bottles through the day. It's another layer of change that will affect frequency of toileting demand.

We were lucky.

I was a SAHM and the pre school only took kids from 2y9m if they were out of nappies in the daytime, they can't say that any more as thankfully, inclusion is legislated for.

It gave an - admittedly pretty tight - target, and I had all the time in the world to try different tactics.

If you have no time and no strict target it gets harder. People have precious little time, less support from family, and less pressure to "have to".

Lots of toilet training advice recommends an "all-or-nothing" approach, taking a couple of weeks to go full toilet training. For families with two working parents, it's difficult to find the time to do this, so often start a little later than when the child is immediately ready to wait for the "right condition" (eg. summer to spend lots of time in the garden, no holidays planned...)

That's my understanding in the case of no SEN.

I do think the trend to wait for signs of readiness is the culprit, and agree it would be neglect to reach reception age without having seriously attempted training multiple times (of course, excepting children who are clearly not capable due to additional needs already obvious at that age).

I had a battle with my dc2, tried multiple times and failed then went cold turkey with nappies around 3.5. She refused to use the nursery toilets for ages and just held it all day (school nursery so 8.30-3.30)/had the occasional accident so I’m well aware how stubborn some children can be - I suspect many would have given in and put back in nappies worried about ‘trauma’ but we didn’t and it did no lasting damage…

I think this is it and that's absolutely fine to be lead by your child within the confines of your own life. I think a lot of parents are getting a shock though when schools are staring to ask them to leave work to come and sort their child out as they've had an accident!

It doesn't help that the nappies and pull ups are so good now that the child doesn't feel uncomfortable after wetting.
Did the children who arrived in reception in nappies not go to day care nurseries where the staff are good at encouraging the little ones to use the toilet in conjunction with parents.
A friend who is an experienced reception teacher has recently had parents say they thought it was a teachers job to do all that. There are 30 children in a reception class with one or possibly two TA's where is the time for two of the adults to go off and change a nappy for several children two or three times a day.
An SEND child is different - and they may be assigned an extra person for support

Lots of kids had undiagnosed SEN in the 90s. Very few if any started school in nappies. I blame the cultural idea of "wait until they're ready". Some are never going to appear ready unless you force the issue.

I have three children, one with diagnosed ASD and another going through the diagnostic process. Eldest (NT) trained easily at 24 months. Middle (diagnosed with ASD aged 13) was a much more challenging prospect. He was trained by 2.5 with a great deal of bribery. DS2 was born a decade after his siblings and I drank from the "wait until they're ready" fountain. By the time he was 3.5 I realised that he preferred just going in his nappy, and trained him, which was fairly quick but not fun for either of us.

I really think there has been a shift from parents deciding to do it (eh thinking they'd do it the summer after their kid turned two, when they're outside a lot), to people waiting for the child to take initiative, which is fine if the kid does, but not so great if they don't. I have seen this in real time thanks to effectively having kids in different decades.

Maybe becsuse schools were allowed to discriminate agsinst kids in nappies in the 90,s

"Readiness" as a concept came from... Pampers.

It's a warm, comforting concept for people who are struggling - the idea that a child might not be ready.

Since "readiness" was introduced as a concept, the average age of potty training has increased by a year.

And no, I'm not being a dick about children who CAN'T learn earlier. I have worked cross-nations on early years projects. The non-trained kids are also the ones with mouths full of cavities, "unique" names, who've never used cutlery and who've sat in front of screens all day.

Their parents need serious support and intervention.

And autism is a huge spectrum as you should well know just becsuse your autiistic son was trained by 2.5 doesnt mean all childdrn with autism will be my son didnt get the concept of bribary and still doesnt at nearly 15 hes also completley non verbal
We eventually got him out of nappies at 9/10

But because schools discriminated, people trained their kids! My DD's pre-school said they had to be toilet-trained, even the two year olds, so we trained them - even though some were later diagnosed with SEN.

my sons started nursery at 3 but could only go if they were toilet trained. DS 1 was ready only just in time but DS2 was ready a little while earlier. I can’t remember anyone I knew having problems with this so it is puzzling to me that things have changed. I think that sometimes if you expect things to work it is easier than if you have doubts. One thing we did was to ditch nappies in the daytime for pants, and to let them just be bare if you could do they could use the potty quickly.

Of course it is. Kids with ASD who are non-verbal are obviously not going to be toilet trained at 2.5. But neither are they likely to be in mainstream school.

Yes! We have to talk about this. The taxes spent on the education system should be going on paying trained teachers and TAs to teach children the National Curriculum and help them develop social, language and other skills, not change nappies and teach them things that they should have been doing two or three years earlier at home or in a childcare setting.

Simply ignoring what's happening won't help. We as a society need to know there's a problem, find out why it's happening, and then do something about it. If it's down to more parents having mental health problems which are not being deal with by the NHS, that's yet another reason for trying to improve MH support for everybody.

In the 90s when my children went to school there were was at least two admission dates. My December born DC went in the January after his 5th birthday. Other child with classic autism and born in August started in the September after his 5th birthday.
Some children would join at Easter as rising 5s.
Children have to be in full time school the term after they are 5. Or different provision agreed such as home education.

Schools are taking in much younger children.

It was fairly common for one parent (usually Mum) to only work part-time. Now it is common for both parents to work full time.

It is more common for children to be in full time nursery in 2025.

Things have changed and they are all bound to have an effect on toilet training.

Like others have said I’m sure I started school in January rather than September as a summer baby which will be making some difference. I wouldn’t have wanted my own summer baby to miss half of reception though as I’m sure it would be hard to catch-up now expectations for learning are so high.

Just to be clear, I’m not talking about children with SEN, and i understand that most wouldn’t be diagnosed at this age.

I personally think that most parents leave starting potty training too late now, I trained both of my DC at 18m by taking a week off work and staying in for a few days until
they had grasped it. I’d done the preparation in the months leading up to it by teaching them what a wee/poo was, that it shouldn’t be done on the floor, and where it should go. I can’t imagine what it would have been like training either of them at 3yo when they were resisting everything I wanted them to do and being generally unreasonable. I probably could have easily trained Ds earlier as he seemed to get it straight away during nappy off time in the months leading up to training, but I had to wait for my week off.

Amongst my DC’s cousins, the only one who has been trained later than 2yo has SEN, it was undiagnosed until 4yo but there were always signs of delayed development. My Sil was a sahm mum so she decided to use timed toileting and had a great routine set up by the time they went to school, but they did wear a pull up for the first year as they were reliant on the TA to take them at the right time. Now attend a SEN school who are excellent at following the routine.

I do find it interesting that a lot of the children who are started at 2.5 or later don't seem to get it and it's pushed until they're 3. But most potty training that starts around 18-20 months is successful. Especially if the concept of a potty/toilet is introduced even earlier. Small children really are often very capable if you let them try things.

Most childminders and nurseries insist on a child being able to tell them that they need to go and also being able to pull their pants/trousers down and back up themselves. For a lot of children they can't do this until 3 or later. My child was fine at home/out with family - but for whatever reason wouldn't ask to go when he was at childcare and would himself until he he had an accident

My eldest was trained before she was 2, my second took longer as was almost 3 and longer than that to be reliable. My third was a nightmare and would have nothing to do with the potty or toilet, but she was all done in one day about 2 weeks after her 4th birthday. My goodness I can’t even describe the relief as I was getting worried she might never do it.

I now have twins who are 3, I don’t think I need to explain what a palava that is, but they will get it when they are ready, and that’s just fine! In hindsight looking back I think I had such a hard time with DC3 because I started before she was ready so I am eager to not make the same mistake with the twins. Especially as I can see one is ready and the other definitely isn’t yet.

There are increasing numbers of children with significantly impaired communication skills starting mainstream schools who don't have the skills to communicate basic needs.
Children at this level of development are far greater in number than appropriate SEN provision.

Not helped by SALT provision not yet recovering from the delays in 2020-21 so they haven't had access to early interventions to assist as young as possible.

DS1 was lucky to get early intervention in the mid-2010s which did assist with school-readiness. He wasn't non-verbal, but had difficulties in forming sentences together, particularly with the more abstract parts of grammar that create the flow of language.
For him, it wasn't the language delay that affected his toilet training as much as his sensory needs, self awareness and ability to switch focus. Even now as a teenager, he's not great at recognising hunger, thirst, or need for the toilet unless his focus changes at a transition point. He also has an iron bladder after 10 years of holding to avoid using school toilets.

Schools will know which children have additional needs/ undiagnosed traits and which children have lax parents not meeting their needs.

MN is abundant in additional needs parents because we find it a source of support which can be hard to find in RL.
Parents on MN are literate and looking for/ open to information to support their parenting. You won't find the uninterested parents who aren't inclined to help their children thrive on here by default. It doesn't mean they don't exist though. No one on MN will be here to admit that it's the school's problem to get on with (but there are teachers on the receiving end), but there are plenty of parents who've had difficulties despite their best efforts due to additional or medical needs (often not diagnosed for years) so the discussion naturally sways to a disroportion of SEN based viewpoints.

Compulsory school age in 1995 was 5 and it still is now. It's been common practice in England for decades now to admit children to the Reception class before they are 5, often at the start of the school year in which they will turn 5. My mother was a Reception teacher in the 1970s and that was the practice then. My children both started Reception several months before their fifth birthdays, and they'd already had five terms in a community nursery school before that too, which gave them a fantastic start in life.

What has changed in the recent past is that it used to be accepted that 3 and 4yos were too young for much formal learning so they did just a little bit of the 3 Rs and most of the time they were doing play-based activities, running around outside, having stories read to them, singing songs and so on. I'm out of the loop on this now but I have the impression there's more formal education now, which is a great shame. It sets up the summer-born children and the boys in particular to feel like failures from the very start because developmentally they're just not ready until later on.

There is also the recent change in that boys are being trained/ encouraged to sit down and use a potty rather than stand and use the toilet or urinal like dad or older brothers would do.

What do you think it is? What do you observe of the parents of these kids? Could it be that they're more aware of SEN, and don't want to push the kids? Should the kids be pushed regardless?