To be annoyed at people that think that a 2.8 year old should be potty trained by now

[pigletmania]

I have encountered some people RL and not that think that any child over 18 months should be potty trained. My frind from India said that they train them in India at about 9 months! How, when the nevers between the brain and bladder are not fully developed. I have heard that Europeans think that English people are lazy because their children are toilet trained later.

IMO surely if the child is not ready, no amount of training will work. I tried my 2.8 year old in knickers and sat her on the potty every hour in the summer she did not understand a thing, and gave up after 2 weeks, i tried later in October and put her in knickers and sat her on the potty regularly but while the poo bit was nearly sorted, she had no concept of going for a wee and that she was wet and could not tell you wether she had done a wee or poo despite me perservering for a month and a half. So i put her back in pull ups but still put her on the potty regularly

We have never really "taught" our to go to the toilet really they just started going one day!. We dont have a potty as I hate scraping the poo out lol they just use the toilet (I do help them when they ask I dont just leave them to it!)

My daughter was 3.5 before she started using the toilet regularly (before that she used it on and off) and she was dry at night a month or two later.

My son turned three last week and is dry day and night, probably because he wanted to be like his big sister.

YANBU to be annoyed at people who say that 2 year olds should be trained. I see no rush and I think sitting a little on on a potty for hours waiting for them to go is pointless as is bribing them. They will use the toilet when they are good and ready!

Thanks fellow MNres for your wonderful advice, its good that i am not alone. All the children that we know dds age are potty trained and i started to think whats wrong why is she not getting it yet! I will just put her back and pull ups and let tell me when she is ready. my mum did this over 30 years ago and at 3 i was asking to use the toilet and she said was so easy no training involved. My mums cousin said that her son (now 45)started to use the toilet properly when he was 4. I think a lot of pressure is put on children and parents to train them by 2 years. I know that dd will not be in nappies when she starts school at 4, well i hope not so will be a bit more calm.

I dont think that waiting until ready is an entirly modern concept, well it seemed to exist when i was a littl un all those years ago. Some parents are just more relaxed than others it seems and take a much calmer approach than trying to hothouse their little one to using the potty at really young ages before they are ready.

"I wonder if parents who manage early PT correlates with those who smack"
No, of course not. The ECing parents I have met or spoken to online, lean to the attachment style of parenting, with no physical abuse of their children.

"Some parents are just more relaxed than others it seems and take a much calmer approach than trying to hothouse their little one to using the potty at really young ages before they are ready."

ECing works best if you are relax and calm about pottying. If they were 'not ready', they wouldn't get clean/dry. I believe there are several windows when babies/toddlers can learn to use a toilet.

Personally I have no interest in other people children's toileting choices. As long as the parent(s) and child are happy that is the right time for them.

Being toilet-trained means different things to different people.

Personally, I didn't consider my DD toilet-trained until she didn't have accidents and didn't need prompting to go to the loo.

How many children are really toilet trained at 2?

DS1..was three and still took ages
DS2 was 2.6 took two days from nappies fulltime to dry day and night.
dd1 was 18mths, all her own doing and ds3 is only one.

My sister was 1 year and I was 18mths, according to my mother....but then in those days everyone had real nappies and so I think there's more need to get them trained!

When your dd is ready, you'll know.

My dd has never had an accident.

No babies i was not referring to ecing but a couple of mums i know who were very strict with their kids with regards to potty training, and that they did it before the child was ready and it took month to master not just like that they child tells them.They would make their children sit on the potty even if they did not want to and would be strict with them. One of the mums calls me lazy as she thinks i dont try hard enough to potty train and do the easy approach and put her in pull ups. She thinks that i should continue to put her in pants despite her not being ready and just cause extra work for me. I do admit to finding e cing fascinating, some people who do e cing say its not potty training put natural hygeine management or something along those lines. I dont think its for me but really interesting. I did read that some e cers do use nappies sometimes i certain situations, like out and about when access to a loo might be restricted or at night when everyone is asleep.

I have just started ecing and use nappies as backup. Totally relaxed about it, sometimes my 10 mo old son stays in one reusable all day, other times he needs changing, esp when he goes the childminders. But that's fine. He laughs when he goes on the loo (have baby seat) - it's what he sees us doing, so, just like eating, drinking out of a cup etc, he likes to do what we do. And me and his dad are getting better at picking up his cues, and he's starting to trust us to respond and holds on while we take him to the loo. It's really nice. We don't praise or reward him btw.

DS1 was 16m when he was dry day and night, he just got it by himself. DS2 is 2yrs 2m and has not shown any signs of being ready and you know what? I am leaving him to it, when he is ready he will let me know.

I am always having people moan about him not being PT and i now tell them "You do things your way and I will do things my way" every child is different. Oh and ds2 is in cloth nappies ds1 was in disposables.

Why do you have to persevere? What is the point in having a wet child, carrying a shed-load of spare clothes around, having a house that smells of wee and slowly demoralising them as they continue to try to please their parents by trying to do something they may not be physically capable of?

YANBU.

People constantly asked me about toilet training DS1. My friend who has a DS a few months younger, always made a huge fuss about the fact her child would use a potty when at home, and mine had no interest at all. I toilet trained him the week after his third birthday, he went straight to using the toilet (no potty) and was accident free within three days. My friend's DS still only uses the potty at home, wears nappies when out and about, and will only poo in a nappy - so starting early doesn't necesarily mean anything.

I am glad I came across this thread as I was/am having major guilt attacks that I have not even started with ds2 when I was already over 6 months dry with ds1 at the same age. Especially when friends nag me and tell me he should be dry and I am being lazy, I am not he is just not ready! its good to know that others are going through the same.

OOOh i hate it when people call each other lazy, basically no amount of 'training' imo will make the lo PT if they are just not ready. I have been told that when they are it is so easy that there is no training involved.

can anyone please tell me what are the signs for potty training? it has become a nightmare to change his nappies, he fights every time. he's started going into another room to poo and tells me to go away until he's finished which he never did before. he also keeps trying to take his nappy off.

he's just turned 2 and so we thought we'd try potty training but after reading this thread i'm not sure it's still a bit soon. help!

Not necessarily HFTB, if the child is not showing certain readiness signs e.g. awareness of a wet dirty nappy, attempting to remove nappy, more control of bowel and bladder, pointing to nappy and saying wee or poo than its not going to work imo and its going to make the child more anxious and stressed thus causing problems. PT is one of those things that you really have to wait for certain signs. I put dd in big girls pants for about 2 months but still she had as much understanding as she did when she first began and would just wet like a baby no understanding or interest in what she was doing. Therefore in that situation no amount of training will help

It is a pain and it does feel like going backwards, trips out more stressful as you have to take potties/changes of clothes etc. It might mean just giving up on everything for a week or so while you crack it but worth it IMO especially if it means she is dry before the next baby. We found what worked was going cold turkey, resorting back to pull ups repeatedly might be confusing.

Of the people I know those of us who used re-usuables had dry children by 2.3. I know lots of children aren't potty trained by 2.8 personally think it is on the late side but not my business to comment. Although I am a secret eco warrior on nappies so I would be thinking of that side of things.

DS will be 3 in Jan, he is not yet trained and only wears disposable nappies at nursery, washables at home and it hasn't made him train any earlier. At home he tends to run around in just a T-shirt and is getting better at asking for his potty when he needs it. I can't remember the last time he pooed on the floor, but wees are different - he is very good and gets a cloth to pat the carpet with but he finds it harder to know its coming I think.
He was 22mo when DD was born and I have had 2 in full time nappies for a year - I really hope he gets the idea soon! but don't want to push him. We are concentrating on rewards for success and Oh dear, try for the potty next time when he doesn't make it

Hi i first put her into knickers in the summer and then at the beginning of October. I have now put her back into pull ups as she was not becomming aware of being in a wet or dirty nappy, if she were ready she would have been awre being in knickers for over a month, all it was causing me was more laundry. I would put her on the potty no results, as soon as knickers are on whoosh, i told her that she had wet herself and made her feel her wet pants, nothing, no interest. I will put her in knickers when she shows some signs of readiness, and if nearing 3 she has not showed any readiness i will put her back in knickers and be a bit more tough.

NanBullen, they sound like good signs to me. A few of my friends who had dcs who were out of pants much earlier than my ds mentioned wanting to be in private to do poos. Ds only started doing this in the last couple of weeks which is another reason that I think he wasn't ready before.

No one could call me lazy . Six months of wet pants and trousers - stupid for perservering maybe, but not lazy. Didn't boost the profits of the nappy companies either, although the manufacturers of Ariel made a few bob out of us (and they're probably the same people).

I dare say 90% of children are ready to come out of nappies between 18months and 3 years with most somewhere in the middle and of course a number who are earlier and later, just like everything else.

Out of pants? Nappies obv.

At the end of the day each child is different and so are their family and home life circumstances. It's not a race and really shouldn't be competitive. All children get there in the end. You wont be able to spot the children who were dry earliest when they get to university!

Quite agree, DS1 wasn't interested until we neared his 3rd birthday and we agreed to start the day after. It took 2 days, a few puddles but no soiling and was really easy.

DS2, however, still wasn't interested at 3. At all. We didn't manage it until he was almost 3 1/2, not because he showed any interest but I just felt it was high time he was out of nappies. It still took a few weeks, lots of accidents (he was a classic case of the child who only pooed 2 minutes after coming off the toilet / potty, but I suppose the point is that when he was ready and willing, he was absolutely fine.

Just wish I had been lucky enough to have a 2 year old who was ready.

I do agree with others who have said that "training" is not a problem per se, but it does depend on your child as to whether they are willing to join in with this idea! Like just about everything else to do with parenting it's usually best to ignore what other people think.