Nursery says my 2.8yr old can't got into preschool until he's toilet trained

[Gmac2009]

Hi all

My 2.8yr old DS's nursery has said he can't move up to the preschool room with all of his friends as he's not toilet trained yet.

We have recently put him back into nappies after 6months of training. We decided to stop as he was still having anything from 1 to 5 accidents a day and still not asking to go.
In our opinion he's just not ready yet.

However, he is due to move up to the preschool group in nursery in Aug with all his wee friends, who he's been with since 9m old.
Nursery says they won't move him as he's not toilet trained.

He's just as clever and socially adept as the others in the toddler group and I think they are penalising him just because he's not ready for the loo yet.
Any suggestions as to what I can do about this?

Thanks again for the advice.

nurseryvoice, I was very interested - and reassured - to hear your experience.

I did email the Early Years Service and they said they couldn't help me with this matter as it was the providers perogative.

However I think I will now contact the Care Commission - our version of Ofsted - and get their advice.

I don't want to get into a battle over this and hope to resolve it soon . As I mentioned my DS has been in this nursery since he was 9m old.

Defiantely get all the relevant people on board. We had difficulty training DD. She regressed significantly after starting playschool and I was told that hse would have to leave. I actually had a lot of help from Early Years and the regulatory body. I put all of my concerns in writing as well as a specific action plan - things like using a reward chart at nursery, me providing extra wipes etc (we persevered with keeping her in pants) and also being available to come to playschool if the needs of other children were affected by staff having to attend to DD.
We then had a joint meeting with the staff and all the professional involved and the attitude of the staff after that was completely different and 3 months later, we have not looked back.
I would suggest leaving him for now, then perhaps in a month or 6 weeks time, you try again. He moves up as normal and the staff have a specific plan in place to deal with the issue in the same way that they would deal with a nutrition or health issue. Good luck with all.

I totally agree that children should not be held back beacause they are still in nappies.
But let me tell you of my experience this week and it might give you an insight into why the policy exists in the first place.
I work in a busy pre-school room if a day nursery. this week we started visits from the younger toddlers who will all move up in september.
We had 24 children and 3 members of staff. One of the visiting children, who is just 3, pooed his pants and had to be taken into the bathroom to be changed.
Another child had painted both his hands at the easel and I took him into the bathroom to wash them, which took a while as it was all up his arms.
This left the remaining member of staff with the other 22 children on her own while we sorted out 2 children in the bathroom.
Not ideal is it?

Hi as far as I know in the nursery dd goes to which is a school nursery so this may not be the same as a private nursery, they have to be potty trained but if they have accidents while they are there they don;t mind

When ds went to the same nursery 5 years ago and this lady I knew little boy was not potty trained and the dragon lady that run the nursery kept telling her that he wold have to leave if she didn't sort it out etc so maybe the discrimatory thing everyone is talking about has something to do with them not minding accidents now

But don;t worry too much as August is a while away, dd would not even sit on the potty or go anywhere near it and then a month before she was due to start nursery it just clicked

I don't think the DDA is especially relevant as he is not disabled but if you wanted tp you can argue that they are not meeting the unique needs of your child nor are they showing inclusive practise - both very important for EYFS.

Would cloth training pants or pull ups be a compromise such that he can use the loo if reminded but if there is an accident it's not a big deal? Then put an action plan together as suggested i.e frequent reminders, stickers when dry, etc?

I work in a preschool and we have a 3 year old who is not potty trained, we deal with it and we only have two members of staff at any time. It's not that unusual - my own DD's were not fully trained at this age. They don't sound a terribly helpful/supportive nursery - how happy are you with them in other regards?

my ds is in a private nursery and this doesnt happen.

I didn't start potty training till my DS was 2.8 mnths and was done in a week, i think cos we'd left it a wee bit later. i'd start again in a month or so. chocolate is always a good bribe!!

purepurple, not ideal.
No it wasnt why didnt you arrange extra staff if you were feeding 2 year olds up??
when our 2 year olds move up, they dont all go up at the same time. Their keyworker starts a few weeks before taking them down there for an hour or so building it up until they can happily manage a am or pm then a full day.
Luckily as the owner manager i have complete autonomy and decided to have an extra member of staff as a floater so we always have enough cover. Might be an idea for you to suggest it to your manager or room supervisor cos you are right it is not fair on you or more imjportanly the children.

nurseryvoice, I agree, we should have had extra staff, but we were within the ratios as all the children were 3
there is no extra staff, we don't have 'floaters' and yes, we bloody well struggled.
Cos the baby unit is so busy all the children in the nursery get shuffled along. The result is the train stops at the pre-school room.
And we complained to the manager, very loudly, but all she can see is the numbers and pleasing the boss.

Hi I know from my dd starting pre school nursery in aug that she has to be toilet trained to start or she wouldnt get a place

I am in scotland dd will be 3yrs 5months then she was only tolet trained in feb/ march this yr