To think that waiting until the toddler is ready for toilet training is not a new concept. And that PT would be more successful if the child was ready

[pigletmania]

I know that i have done this to death, I have a dd 2.8 years and have studied Psychology to post grad level, so have a keen interest in child development especially in relation to potty training and the concept of 'readiness' A lot of people on MN feel that this is a fairly new phenomenen, but talking to my older relatives about it, seems to me that its not, and that parents have been waiting until the toddler is ready before starting potty training for years, I know that my mum did 30 years ago, and my mums cousin did 40+ years ago. I have a Dr Spock book, and even though some of the advice that he gives should be taken with a pinch of salt, even talks about waiting until the child is ready, and I think that he wrote his books in the 1950's but have been adapted for modern day reading.

For me personally, waiting until the child is ready is the way to go, I have tried on two occasions and dd is not ready and have failed. I feel that no amount of potty training will work unless the toddler shows signs of readiness, and thus are in for a long hard slog. It seems that those parents who wait until the child is ready have a fairly straightforward and easier time. I thow it open to you here, what do you think!

I might even do this as a future study once i get back into Psychology

You are right.
I tell my parents (am a nursery nurse) there are 2 approaches.

1. Start when you are ready and turn it into a long drawn out exercise that will last for several months.
   This method is for fans of Pavlov and his conditioned responses.

2. Start when the child is ready and do it in under a week
   This method is for fans of Piaget and Vygotsky.

I am not sure I disgaree with you, but with a background in psychology, you should know that using anecdotals about your mum isn't a great back up for your statement .

I think wait is generally sensible, but by about three, you need to tell your child that this is what big children do, and crack on. Some children, like adults, are lazy and are happy not to stop what they are doing when they have a comfy nappy to do it in.

There will be exceptions to this - individual differences psych tells us this. But the vast majority are emotionally and physically capable of potty training by three.

DS is 2 1/2 and MIL has been making comments / questions for months about when are you potty training, "you're a big boy, you should use the potty". Finally I told her that (the mythical) they recommendf doing it in a child led way these days, following the child's cues and waiting till they're ready.
Oh, she said, that was the way they recommended doing it in my (child development) degree. That was 35 years ago!!

YANBU at all.

I'ma childminder and was this week told that I have to start PT a 20 month old. This 20 month old only just started to walk, can't talk, doesn't understand a simple instruction such as sit down. You can guess how that discussion ended anyway!

HV in our area are now pushing the concept of the child needing to go through physical/pyscholgical changes before you can even think they are ready such as linking that feeling with needing to go etc etc.

If you can't PT a child within a week, then they simply aren't ready.

If the child doesn't recognise that tingle means they need to go, then they are not ready.

If you take them to the loo every 30 mins, and sit them there for 10 mins at a time, and happen to catch a pee/poo, that's just co-incidence, they are not doing it themselves and are not ready.

Sorry, have had a bad week with this! am off to see if I can find some Piaget stuff to print off for my parent.

do remember it was different for a lot of our parents, the didn't have modern nappies, so getting a tot dry was a way to save a lot of work for them.

I think there are certain times which are windows of opportunity for potty training. In our house it seems that interest in all things toilet related comes and goes, and you need to catch it at one of the "interested" phases.

DD1 pretty much trained herself at 2.5 as I was 9 months pregnant and not wanting the extra hassle unil after the baby was born. I'd also heard that children often go backwards with the arrival of a new baby so was in no desperate hurry to do it beforehand. She was too keen to ignore though and kept taking her nappy off. Over the next year though she still had good and bad phases with it. The summer when she was 3.5 she had wet knickers most days, seemingly she just couldn't be bothered anymore, but had been "ready" a year earlier.

DD2 2.3 was very interested about a month ago so I thought I'd give it a go, even though I thought she was a bit young. She spent 48 hours running around at home with no clothes on using the potty then after that has been straight into knickers and the proper loo. She's only had wet knickers once since then. Fingers crossed it'll keep going that way.

On the concept of "readiness" though. I think if I hadn't bothered last month I could easily have been waiting a few more months until the interested phase kicked in again. Also maybe dd2 was more interested because she sees her big sister using the loo and wearing knickers.....

My mum said that in her day (70's) children were supposed to be dry going to playgroup at 2.6. She said my brother was nowhere near ready but she sent him without nappies anyway and he just always came home in different clothes! I think gender plays a big part in "readiness" too, although I have no experience of potty training boys.

Oh, and this thread is going to get support your statement, due to self serving bias surely , and the fact that those that have trained before you have aren't really bothered by what you do anyway

Liberty I agree, but that ancedotal accounts could be used in conjuntion to actual research and studies to support a hypothesis. Yes i do agree that there is a cut off point, you cannot wait unil the child is starting school, you would be waiting forever. My dd is 2.8, i will have a cut off point at 3 years. It does not mean that I do not get her used to using the toilet/potty, I have sat my dd on the potty at regular intervals, taking her into the toilet with me, telling her that she needs to tell me when she has done a wee or poo, she is beginning to do this at sporadic intervals, and getting the staff at pre school to sit her on the potty with the other children so that she can learn.

I do not want this to go on until she starts school, but there is a pressure for them to start when they turn 2 years of age.

Based purely on personal experience, I agree, although I also second what Runoutofideas says about the idea of windows.

My DD showed huge interest at about 20 months, was great for a day or two, then had accidents constantly so we went back to nappies. Then at 2.4, she just got up one morning, took her nappy off, used the potty and has had about 2 accidents since then (she's now 2.10). I'd love to take credit, but she's pretty much done it entirely off her own back.

My DS (her twin brother) also showed interest at 2.4 but although he would use the potty, he didn't seem to be capable of realising it in enough time to prevent an accident. Using the potty was, as AvadaKedavra says, more about coincidence than intent. At 2.6, he started taking his nappy off all the time, but kept having accidents, so we started using pullups simply to make him feel he was in pants like his sister, but without quite as much washing. This week (2.10) we've had another go just in pants and he's doing brilliantly. I think we've cracked it.

I think that if I'd persevered with it when they were first showing signs of interest, yes we would have got there earlier, but probably with a lot of accidents and frustration on both sides. Waiting just that bit longer has made a huge difference. I was dreading potty training and it's actually turned out to be fairly easy!

Yes I think waiting for the child is ready is mostly a good thing.

What I think the problem is is that parents simply don't know when the child is ready. They are waiting for a list of signs to tell them that their child is ready, and sometimes it just doesn't happen like that.

I think we are strongly in danger of making potty training far scarier and complicated then it should be.

It is just another aspect of development,and accidents are normal for most children as they learn to control the capacity of their bladder/bowels.

What I think would be interesting for a psychologist to study is the influence of advertising and the nappy companies on the age of potty training, as well as the influence of having carpets in your house and standards of hygiene that have increased over the past 30/40 years.

I think it would also be useful for a psychologist to study the concept of physical readiness v psychological readiness - for example my dd2 potty trained at 19 months was clearly physically ready and had forgotten within days that she had ever worn nappies. For her it was psychologically no big deal, but for an older child, I suspect that it might be psychologically far bigger a deal, and far more pressure, because they know that something is expected of them. My dd2 had no idea anything was expected of her; she just did what her body was telling her.

Also it would be interesting to bear in mind that the age of potty training in Britain has significantly increased over the past 30/40 years, and that it's much higher then in many other countries - where it is difficult to even buy nappies for children above the age of two.

Thank you for all your responses its certainly interesting to read of different accounts, i do believe that the child has to understand the feeling of needing to go, and to recognise that they have done a poo/wee and show interest before they are ready. I recently just put dd in pull ups as she was a month in knickers with no result, would just wee in her pants like a baby would and no recognition or interest, even when i pointed out that she was wet and got her to feel her knickers, nothing. They say that once in knickers/pants they will start to learn as its more uncomfortable, the wetness and wee down the leg, not so with my dd she did not care less.

by the end of the month, I just gave up because nothing was learned it was just like it was when i started at the beginning of October. Obviously i do not want dd to go to school in nappies and hopefully by the age of 3+ she will be ready or i will just go for the plunge, at the moment we dont need to worry.

I didn't potty train my dd2 - she decided she wanted to be out of nappies, as her big sister was and at 2.7 months big sister and dd2 did the toilet suff in one weekend she was dry.

I had thought roughly I would try her at the end of the summer in a following 3-4 months time - dd2 had other ideas!

dd1 I left until she was ready and she was dry at just shy of 3. It was easy with both as they were both ready and dd2 more than willing

So what you are saying then, is that you didn't wait until your DD was ready, as is the assertion of your OP?

I'm all for opinions. Many ways to skin a cat and all. But doing something then passionately stating that you feel people should do something the opposite way is, well, odd, imo.

DD1 went into pants one day, had one accident, then was dry from then on at around 2.4.

DD2 is potty training herself (2.3). She takes her nappy off. Variable success, and no bowel control, but short of gaffa tape, not much I can do

LOL at the assertion that I was unconsciously following a Piaget approach, sadly I don't know who he or she is.

However I tried a few times with DS and it was hard work so I decided to leave it, then spontaneously a few weeks later he announced that he didn't want to wear nappies in the day time et voila job done.

Agreed with others, its nothing new though. My mother is in her 70s and was a paedaetrician and was very much of the school that start at 2 finish at 3, start at 3 and you won't have any problems. My father is another matter, but being as I don't think he can have changed more than a handful of nappies even when I was a baby I'm not keen to take his particular philosophy into account.

Maybe the OP is meaning that she felt pressured into doing it and wishes she weren't, that she had left it till she was sure her child was ready?

Lou your dds sound as though they were ready for it, different if your dc shows no interest or understanding despite your best efforts, it really has to be a two way process,not just the parents wanting it. I would loved to have PT dd at 2 but i would have been at it for a year and a lot of stress. Part of the reason as to why i put dd back into is that she was starting to get stressed out by it all which is not a good thing. I think that i was putting too much pressure, no i have laid it off and hopefully in a few months she will do it of her own.

Seems like the majority of dcs self trained when they were ready, it will happen, they will be be in nappies forever.

sorry they will not be in nappies forever

The part if the brain that controls continence is one of the last to mature. A child might not be physically capable of PT until they are three and that would be well in the normal range.

my children are older but eldest DD was 18 or 19 months and dry within weeks very few accidents DS was nearer 4 but SN youngest DD was 2.6 but would only use the potty until about 5 because DS frightened her about the toilet she only started using toilet when we changed the seat to a wood one.

TSC your dd sounds ready, at least she is knowing the signs of when to go and is using her own initiative even if it is the wrong place . Just keep praising her and just say if she does miss the potty, 'nevermind mabey next time in the potty'. My dd used a basket of books to poo in lol, i was over the moon that she used her initiative, but i did leave her sitting on the potty but decided she preferred the basket of books.

My mums cousins son was nearing 4 when he was potty trained and he is 48 years. It is rather like other developmental milesones such as walking, talking, it varys from child to child. I expect that if i were to do bit of qualitative research using parents accounts of potty training there would be some very interesting and varied results.