Modern nappies & potty training - AIBU to think old terry nappies made it easier?

[Ilovepastafortea]

Spent the afternoon with a friend who looks after 3 year old (4 in October) GS 3 days a week. Her DIL has decided not to try potty training until the child decides he's ready.

Friend & me discussed that at 3 - nearly 4 he should be using the potty by now at least in the day time.

Obviously friend isn't going to go against DIL & potty train the child - that's up to the child's parents.

However, given the good weather we were wondering about if she might suggest to DIL & DS that they allow the child to run around the garden with just pants on & introduce the potty where accidents don't matter. Again I stress that it's up to the children's parents. But we're concerned that this child will be going to nursery in September & still in nappies - well nappy pants.

I used to take mine out to choose 'Big Boy/Girl pants' to prepare them & talk about 'now you're a Big Boy/Girl you get to wear nice pants with Thomas the Tank or the like on them. I would frequently suggest that they may want to sit on the potty, praising him if they 'performed' ignoring any accidents - saying 'no problem, maybe next time you could tell me when you need a wee & you can use the potty like a 'Big Boy/Girl'?'

I also used to put my DCs into terry nappies when potty training as I felt there's nothing like a cold wet nappy slapping around a toddler's thighs to focus them on a better alternative.

My point is that modern nappies/pants don't tell the child when they've wet themselves.

Also surely 3 years off the 4th birthday for a child who has no issues, is intelligent & sociable is leaving it too late.

edited to typos

We've just potty trained at 2.5. How can you know they're ready or not until you put them in little pants / knickers and get started...?

I suspect there is something in this. The average age for toilet training is getting later and later and this might be one of the factors.

We use reusable nappies and I do think they helped my son tell when he was wet. He was toilet trained a little after his second birthday. Lots of kids I know are well past three before they toilet train.

Ds wore modern day reusables. He’s still young so only a few years ago.

They were great. Never had nappy rash. And was toilet trained by 2 years.
From about 18 months I started putting him on toilet after he woke and at each nappy change so he got used to using toilet early to go. Plus it meant he didn’t wee or poop in new nappy 5 mins later.

He couldn’t even talk at all at just turned 2, so waiting until they ask seems bonkers to me. We just took him regularly and in between he took our hand to bathroom if he needed to go.

I was wondering if the average age of potty training was getting later and later because

• Less people have siblings for peer pressure
• There isn't a stay at home parent any more who can spend a week not going anywhere to get it right

We mostly used a variety of 'real' nappies, only using disposables when it wasn't convenient to use the real nappies - while I only have one child (so don't have multiple experiencs), I will say that he was very easy to potty train, dry (pee/poo) day and night within a week or so of starting training (couple of months after 2nd birthday - timed basically for warmer time!).

Completely lazy.

Mine were all potty trained at 1 and a half, day and night. It's a skill that needs to be taught.

They were in reusable nappies.

We were a little later to coincide with warmer weather, just turned 1 felt too early, so we went for just after 2. There was no way I was waiting until just after 3 though. 😬

Wow, that’s amazing. There was no way mine (in terry nappies) would have been anywhere near ready for that at 18 months. He was about 2.5.

YANBU.

I used terries and all of mine were clean and dry (day and night) by variously 2 - 2.75

I did the unrecommended night-time lifting when we went to bed too and none of them learned to wet the bed in their sleep as all the experts said they would

Potty training is currently fresh in my mind…
I have 3 DC and I am currently potty training my third.
my two girls were 2yrs 2 months and 2 yrs 6 months when they potty trained. I remember both cracked it pretty much straight away, no accidents, no dramas. One took a few years to be dry at night but again no issue really, the other was dry day and night straight away.
I am around 8 weeks in to potty training my Ds who will be 3 in September. And he is only JUST getting it!!! Seriously, I thought I was a potty training wizard as both my two girls got it. Normal tricks of good weather, naked in garden, praise the success and ignore accidents worked fast with them…. But not with my boy.
soooo my point is I guess that all kids are different and you don’t know what the parents have tried yet.
However I would find it hard to believe that an almost 4 year old wasn’t ready. Maybe Granny could acquire a potty at her house and subtly slip it in that he has used it on his own all day… to give them a nudge?

My mum said I was potty trained at one but she herself hadn’t done it but a family friend who took care of me when I was a baby. Disposable nappies were used and my mum definitely didn’t use terry for my sister who was potty trained at 2 but also had assistance from the Catholic daycare mum had her in when my parents worked.

DS1 was 3 when he was potty trained and is autistic. He caught on really fast and didn’t speak more than two words, but understood. DS2 tried to train him several times (on the waiting list to be assessed for autism) and he got it the summer before entering reception but still struggled to wipe himself but got there eventually. DD1 is only 21 months and I’ve tried sitting her on the training potty that looks like ours and she slides right off. She used to scream and kick when placed on it so progress. She has run off without a nappy, done a wee and then treat it like a puddle and also likes to pour water on herself and has no qualms about being wet, but she is getting better with following directions and constantly watching what we’re all doing so hoping she’ll be easier like DS1. She’s more advanced than her brothers were at her age with many things so we shall see.

Tried reusable nappies and struggled to stick with them especially when they leaked and I was carrying around a mix of both.

If we're all going to be goady and smug on this thread about something some kids take better to than others, I'd like to add that pants/knickers-free is best. Even when you take them out the first few weeks wearing trousers/shorts after they've been left to roam naked in the house/garden, leave this item of clothing off. Otherwise they think the tight material is a nappy.

Cloth diapers with an occasional disposable, both kids started potty training at 2 and that was that. My second hated if there was one drop of urine in her diaper, so that made it pretty easy.

I do think cloth makes it more uncomfortable to be in a wet diaper, so that makes potty training easier.

I've not seen much smugness apart from the one poster who was apparently advanced in everything.

Nothing to do with disposable nappies all to do with today’s lazy parents! I used disposable and they were all out of nappies by 2 1/2.

My child wasn’t ready at 3. Believe me, I had eight months of soiled pants and not readiness. It was awful tbh and I do actually think the posts on here that were / are so horrible and scornful about children struggling with potty training affected me quite a lot.

I think a lot of children were put in pants and smacked and shamed for having accidents so yes, they probably did train earlier. Great, let’s go back to those days

I know I've said this upthread but today's parents are not lazy. We are overthinkers, over analysers, constantly explaining things to children in twenty words when one will do (like No or Stop). We give our kids so much 1-1 time. Constantly with the sword of damocles hanging over us of "traumatising your children". Don't tell them off, don't deny their feelings, give them "quality" time, cook wholesome food etc etc.

Whereas generations before us had bigger families and less present dads on the whole; kids shifted for themselves a lot more from a younger age, parents didn't lose sleep with guilt after raising their voices or serving potato smileys.

Today's parents aren't lazy. We do so so much, probably too much. We're paralysed with fear of getting it Wrong. Everything is informed by Research. So we put things off till children are ready because this or that source says it's better to, and we mustn't get it wrong because otherwise our children will be traumatised and need therapy. Everyone says so

We used cloth nappies for the first 2 and potty training was sooooo easy. It was easy with the 3rd though too to be fair. My nephew on the other hand wasn’t potty trained until he was 4, summer before he started school. That was plain parental laziness 😬 but all works out fine. It’s not a big deal, unless it actually is and the kid has actual cognitive/developmental issues. Just my preference to get it done. Although IMO there comes an age where a kid in nappies is a bit stomach churning imo, and it’s not cute anymore.

By that same token though, it’s wrong to wait until the kid is ready and we should all be doing Evacuation Communication from birth. The overthinking - who do you decide to listen to? I completely agree it’s overwhelming. Everyone doesn’t say you have to wait until they’re ready though.

DS was potty trained at 18 months and had 'modern' nappies.

I'll train twin DD's at around that age too. Too early to argue so the job usually gets done.

I think if you look after your grandson 3 days a week it wouldn't be unreasonable to say you'd like not to have to change nappies anymore and suggest trying over the summer.

I understand from your other posts you're essentially reluctant to say anything because of how your son and DIL responded to you sending food home, but you provide significant regular care for the child.

DD's childminder told us to try the summer before she turned 2 and it was good advice. This was a couple of years ago and as another poster said how can you know until you try. I don't know if terry nappies or training pants make any difference, ime it was patience, lots of reminding, praise and reading books to her on the potty.

And the motivation of not spending £££ on biodegradable nappies 😂

As I said upthread, 30 years ago people generally started at around 2, certainly by 2.5. And amazingly we loved our dc and worried about them just as much as people do now, and no one I know slapped their child for 'accidents'. What we didn't have is other mums online constantly reassuring us that its perfectly normal for 3 or even 4 year olds to still be in nappies, and that it's better to wait until they are older and 'ready'. Ime 2 year olds are way easier to train than 3 year olds who often seem to have picked up all sorts of anxieties and insecurities around toileting as they get older.

This kind of talk came from my mil. You sound very similar.

Rose tinted glasses are very strong 60 years on. I remember hearing about how my mil taught all the new mothers on the baby ward how to wash their babies because she was that good when she had her first, and how her babies slept 12 hours every night at 2 weeks old or some bs....not helpful when you are in the thick of it.

You forget the bad times basically, and only talk about the good, unless it was a funny story.

Folk lore basically.

How do you encourage dry nights? My 3.5 year old has been potty trained from 2.5 but his nappy is soaked in the morning.