Still in nappies at school

[ivehearditallthistime]

As the title says some children at 4-5 and 6 years old are going to school in nappies and are still not potty toilet trained.
I understand that some will and still have accidents at night and during the day.

But to have a child at that age still in nappies is just laziness.
It is not a teachers job to change nappies is it.
Ive just got back from my sisters whos son has a 4&5 year old still in nappies the school said he or the mum will have to come in school to change them as the teachers will not.

They now think this is all wrong and it is the teachers job.
And are removing both kids from school one does half day and going to home school.
I said no its your job stop being so f=ing lazy if home schooling is anything like your potty training good luck.

My eldest sister a teacher agrees with it and said this is happing more and more now.
A mum in her school has taken her child out of school because teachers will not change her childs nappy hes almost 6.
Said mum had a rant at the school because the school reported it to SS.

Dose anyone agree this is just lazy parenting now.

Children are at home longer than they are in school so why would it not be lazy parenting if there is no SEN? It shouldn’t be school’s job to take the lead on toilet training that’s a parent’s job.

That is exactly why babies in non-western countries are potty trained at much younger ages. Disposables are expensive or unavailable. Mothers are busier and cultural attitudes play a part too. It seems that a study in Turkey found that potty training age went up with the mother's educational/ affluence level. if course we do have much higher numbers of ND children now.
I once watched a documentary where 6 month old babies in a chinese orphanage went when the staff blew whistles!

Very much pavlov,s dogs!
I'm not sure taking advice from Chinese orphanage, s are the answer.

I hear this a lot from other people but lazier parenting is not something I’m personally seeing. What I am seeing is an increase in children in reception and y1 who are still in nappies and these are the exact same children who would have been in specialist provision a decade ago (or just not allowed in school until they were toilet trained). Very few five or six year olds are happy to sit in their own shit there’s almost always an additional need.

Mine were born 1977 and 1980. I didn’t start training until right after they were 2, having read that their physiological control was likely to be ready by then.
It took just a week both times.

With dd2, I had a neighbour (non Brit) with a dd the same age, who’d been telling me since they were 12 months that I ‘must’ take the ‘pampers’ off. TBH her dd was reliably trained no sooner than mine.

I remember that, they had to be "clean and dry" to start the nursery attached to the school they would be going to at age 5. Of course there were accidents and the staff would change them and hand over the underwear for you to take home and wash but there were no kids in nappies.

I have one in my social circle whose child, 3, is back in nappies after being trained because the three year old told her mum that she would rather be in nappies. Now, in my family the response would be a brisk, No, nappies are for babies, instead it's six months on and she happily tells mum when she needs a change. Mind boggles.

Well i expect late potty training should really be listed as an issue that should trigger investigation for sen likely asd.
The comment from a teacher kids at 5 makes no sense as 1/12 kids will be just turned 4. And 50% under 4 and half.

Only one kid i know started in nappies and was still in them at over 5 had severe sen. Which is probably diagnosed as asd however the mum had put online she was alcoholic so perhaps fetal alcohol syndrome?
This was 10 years ago now.
I think though its not just asd kids there is obviously an increase in digestive and constipation issues some from kids with allergies or restrictive chosen diets.
But also adhd as in my experience we had weeing intentionally a few times.

Then there is that nursery sometimes isnt very high quality they obvuiously leave the kids to take themself and sometimes no reminders.

Then a lot more car journeys, long waits for buses and no public toilets.
Others are really house proud so arent exactly leaving kids pantsless or have a lot of activities.

The increase in sen isnt that surprising with such large jump in maternal and paternal age.
Not potty training but 2 parents i know who had kids late 30 early 40s both dc (so 4 kids all have mild asd or adhd). Whereas previously parents wouod have had a mixed range of ages of giving birth etc.

In terms of development though i suspect there are parents wfh with the kids at home so not taking them to toddler groups etc.

One of mone seemed to be doing well at about 18m with training but behaviour issues were getting in the way

My eldest started at 2yr9 months, some good weeks, some bad. 6 months in she was still having accidents 2 or 3 days some weeks (on a bad day 3 in a day), 0 others. At 8 months in she finally seems to have cracked it - 2 accidents over the last 3 weeks.

My youngest, started at 2yrs and 1 week. 5 weeks in, most poos are still accidents, but barely any pee accidents.

Nice to know that before she's 3, she will be having very few accidents too. I predict another 6 months of semi regular accidents, then how nice will it be, not taking a changing bag (just a small amount of spare clothes in my small backpack!)

No rush to get out of overnight pull ups tho. Although both wake up dry 70% of the time and rush to the toilet first thing.

I can't speak for the UK since I live abroad but my daughter will likely still be in nappies when she starts school due to a physical disability. She will hopefully attend mainstream school and will be entitled to an assistant to help with things like nappy changes. She is catheterised (intermittent catheterisation) and on medication so she's actually completely dry throughout the day but so far it's unclear whether she's able to feel or control bowel movements so she still wears a nappy. Even at 3.5 she's aware that lots of her peers already wear proper underwear though. If she wasn't disabled I'm 100% certain she'd be potty trained by now.

This is true. My DD2 is autistic and has sensory issues. This actually helped with potty training as she hated being wet and would just take her nappy off once she had a wee so potty training was pretty easy.
DS is nearly 5 and due to his additional needs just doesn't understand what the toilet is for and doesn't seem to notice it he's wet or dirty (he has other sensory issues though). It does depend on the special needs and the child's understanding but it does upset me that DS might never be potty trained.

I agree yes about the pull-ups and modern 'dry' feeling nappies being a factor. I wonder as well whether kids still being in nappies later than previously is linked for to the way many people are so child-led now, ie they don't want to push their kids into anything that they don't want to do. (Not all are like this of course, I just mean in general the trend)

I have a summer born. When they got to 2 I thought it was time to potty train so I got a book out of the library to help me. The author wrote that you can either potty train at 2 and deal with a year of accidents or potty train at 3 and get dry quickly. My child showed no signs of being ready (and actually 5 years later WAS diagnosed as having some additional needs) so I waited until 3 to give a clear year before school. I took a week off work, took them shopping for their favourite contraband drinks, gave them free rein to have as much liquid as wanted and then stopped the nappies. They were dry in 3 days. By this point they had sufficient mobility and motor skills to go to the toilet largely unaided. Nursery reinforced this the next week when they went back, doing regular toilet visits, helping with clothes etc. I had work colleague whose nurseries refused to assist at all so I was appreciative of my nursery’s support. I can count on one hand the number of wet/soiled pants and clothes I washed from 3+. I’m very glad I checked that book out.

just editing to add that at 3 they were able to use a toilet and skip the potty which seemed to help too

There are experts who say potty/toilet training should be led by the child, they will say when they are ready. I believe these experts are pampers scientists

Tldr, but I think, as did pp on p1, that this is a huge part of it:

Parents being told to ‘look for signs of
readiness

We are told so much to wait for the signs and it will just click in a couple of days. Not necessarily true.

DS has SEN. Therefore couldn't even feel when he had actually wet himself, let alone the feeling of needing to go. ETA: couldn't feel being wet even when in normal pants, not when in pull ups. So the pull ups weren't masking the sensation - it was just bare bottom, pants, shorts.

We got specialist help due to this, and the first thing they did was shove a leaflet at us telling parents absolutely should NOT wait for signs as some children may never show them, but that nearly all could be trained into a routine which resulted in dryness. We felt awful for not having done that already- but all the advice was wait, wait, wait.

My son was non verbal till he was 8 but he was fully toilet trained by about 5. In order to help it happen we practically took up residence in a downstairs loo and took him every 15 minutes throughout the day. But he was at home with me, I did home Ed with him, and I don’t know how it would have worked out if he’d been going to school because it was the repetition of so many visits to the toilet that worked for him.

eta - I’ve just read the last post and I think not waiting for signs is probably what we did.

It took 5 months to potty train my DS (3.5) started last summer and he hasn’t had any accidents since January when he started preschool. This included me and his father working full time and having 50/50 co-parenting agreement and my DS being diagnosed with speech delay (he’s almost caught up now) it’s the most stressful part of parenting I have ever done so far but we stuck at it. We waited until he could tell us he’s done a poo and then we started but we did it! SEN and disabilities aside obviously, it is 100% lazy parenting.

Who is if you want to fuck off 😝

I was not recommending chinese commie style toilet training at 6 months!

I know it was supposed to be tongue in cheek .

I think you know that this discussion isn’t about kids with learning disabilities.

It's very similar here.

My son has no issues with wees but he has no bowel control and due to his bowel not absorbing brilliantly, he also goes more than the typical amount so he needs changing multiple times per day.

His school teacher doesn't change him but he has 2 teaching assistants named on his intimate care plan who do the changing.

I think you nailed it with child-led approach. We've just managed to get our DD out of nappies at 3 years old. I started potty training when she was ~21 months old and it was going quite well, but then the nursery suggested it was too early and wait for her to be moved to the next room where majority of children will be going through training and she will learn with them. Big, big mistake! She moved when she was 2 years and 3 months old and it took ages to get get some consistency. She just got used to nappy and when she was without it she was getting constipated and it was painful for her. Thankfully we finally managed, but with the second child I am starting earlier.

Yep, lazy parenting. I can see why teachers decline: it's not their job to change nappies and it's quite resource hungry. Good on the schools for making parents come to the school to do the changes and experience the natural consequences of not toilet training