Potty Training and Nursery

[pablopatito]

DS is 2.5. A couple of weeks ago we followed Gina Ford's potty training in 5 days book at home, and it seemed very successful. DS has only had one accident at home in the last week, and will now take his pants off, put himself on the potty, clean himself, and put his pants back on, even if we're out of the room.

However, at nursery it is a different story. Nursery are claiming its just not working there. They think he's not ready. They said he often has 3 accidents in 45 minutes, and that we should think of taking him to the doctor because that many wees in such a short space of time is excessive. It is, but what is strange is he doesn't wee anything like that much at home. They say he wees as soon as he's off the potty, which he's never done at home.

They've now basically demanded we put him in pull-ups from tomorrow, but that's not going to get him trained, he'll be really upset, and it might set him back at home. I sympathise with them as cleaning crap isn't fun, but its still depressing.

As well as being worried about pull-ups putting his training back, he'll be heartbroken as he's really taken to our advice to him that 'he's a big boy now, big boy's wear pants, babies wear nappies'. He is so pleased about wearing pants!

Also, the Head of Nursery, when asking how it was going at home, told me to be honest, the implication being that we've been lying about how successful his home record has been. I suspect they really don't believe he's successful at home, and we're trying it on. But he is! He hasn't quite got poos, but wees are almost perfect.

Any general advice please? Any advice on why he might being weeing 3 times in 45 minutes when he's never done that at home, would also be much appreciated.

We're really depressed! We thought it had gone so well, and now it feels like we're back to the beginning. And we're dreading telling him he has to wear pull-ups tomorrow.

Thanks in advance.

Too cross to read it all. Think nursery are talking rubbish. He doesn't need the Doctor, he needs to feel comfortable and confident at nursery to ask for the potty.

Don't put him in pull ups.

If they can't be bothered to support a child in potty training then what are they for?

Poor you, and poor your clever little boy.

Just started a week ago with my youngest.

Sorry, no advice here because we haven't reached that stage yet with ds1 (the potty training at nursery one - am kinda dreading it). But on your behalf, I thought nursery were supposed to support the child/parent at this time??! Not sure what best course of action is apart from sticking to your guns, but obviously not upsetting your ds is the prime concern and I would have thought that back to pull-ups (which are basically nappies imo) would upset him.

Hope you get this resolved soon.

At most nurseries they march all children off to the potty at certain specified times. Thus to be ready your child needs to be able to pee to order. Thus you can often get the reverse where a child is dry at school but has accidents at home as does not know the cues about when to go. Explain that you let ds decide when to go and ask what there routines are. you may find that you can come to a compromise together.

Wow, thanks for the quick replies.

Nursery take him to the potty at set times. They say they've been taking him every ten minutes, but I'm sure that must be an exaggeration. They say they take him, he doesn't wee, and then a few minutes later he wets himself.

I appreciate its a different environment. At home we have a potty in his playroom, and he just asks to sit on it when he wants a wee. At nursery they can't do that, and they say he's never asked to have a wee.

He's having on average two accidents a day at nursery, although I thought he might have cracked it on Friday as he didn't have any accidents at all. But today he had 3 accidents, and hence their request. He's there for 4 hours a day.

Why can't they let the kids wee when they need to and not to order? There should be enough staff to do this.

Nursery needs to find a way of giving him the control. Perhaps they could take him when one of his friends asks or something. So ds friends "I need a wee". Teacher "okay come on then, ds do you want to come and talk to us" ds okay then he sits on potty cos his friend is doing it.

Also the loads of wees might be a way of getting attention ???

I had this problem with my CM (not nursery). My ds actually trained fairly well but then had a regression. He slowly improved at home after the regression but did not improve at the CM. This actually lead to a big argument as it was clear my CM believed I was not telling the truth.

My CM had 3 young children to look after and was just about to start pre-school runs in two different places which I had thought would be difficult but which she seemed confident would be fine. The problem was that after ds regressed I think she started
to panic about how she would cope. This stress transmitted itself to ds and he got worse. This would have been Ok if she had realised this but instead she blamed ds saying he was 'lazy and wilful'and that he should go back in pullups.

At home we were very relaxed about his regression and just kept on dealing with the accident in a very laid back way. This paid off as he improved very quickly. At the cm (who was getting rapidly more stressed) he just got worse.

In the end I had to take ds out of his childcare as it was making him very unhappy and I was unable to communicate with my cm as the trust had gone.

In retrospect it was so clear that ds was not doing so well there because he was stressed.

You need to have a really honest proper chat with the nursery and see if something can be done. They really need to change their attitude otherwise things won't improve.

BTW - Ds started at a new nursery a couple of weeks after leaving the cm and had exactly one accident in 2 months. He had been having 2-3 a day at the cm.

Despite all the stress of changing childcare, his potty training didn't regress because the nursery were so laid back and helpful. They have potties in the room (for 2-3 year olds) which any child can use, they also encourage then to use the toilet of course but accidents are seen as just par for the course and no big deal.

Have they bothered to nicely explain that he is allowed to ask for the potty whenever he wants to go?

If he is trained with you, he is trained. Him not being able to wait until the staff have time to take him is not the same as him not being potty trained. The staff need to be quicker.

Also ds objected to being 'taken to the toilet' if he wasn't ready. I learned quickly to accept the 'no' if I asked if he needed a wee and not to insist he go as this made things worse.
Also at nursery accidents can happen more as they are so busy but the key thing is how the accidents are dealt with.

If DS asks, then nursery will take him to the loo. The problem is, he has NEVER asked. He asks at home, but not at nursery.

He seems very happy and settled at nursery, and I'm told he is very confident and chatty and even says to me "When I need a wee, I say Sarah Wee Wee, Sarah Wee Wee". But Sarah (one of the staff) says he's never asked.

He will get there, and I am afraid toilet accident is all part of nursery life, and people who can't cope with wee shouldn't work there! I think putting him back in pull ups would not be a good idea if, s you say, he is well trained at home.

Thanks for all the replies, it helped give us the confidence to stick to our guns and turn up at nursery this morning in pants. They've agreed to "see how it goes" but won't give us a timescale.

What they can't explain, and what we can't understand, is how pull-ups will help. I mean they're basically nappies aren't they? He's been in nappies for two and half years. How will putting him back him nappies help toilet train him? It seems to me it will just delay training, not solve it. At some point he has to wear pants and learn to ask for the toilet and that will mean accidents and I can't see how anyone can avoid that situation.

Well, he was accident free today! Yay! So that's 2 accident free days out of 3, I really can't see how nursery can say things aren't working.

my DT's (3 in a few days) were trained at nursery before they were at home! Mainly because of the regimented times they went it helped them know when they needed to go. However one of them is dry and almost dry at night too, and the other is still having accidents - which kinda proves its the child not the technique which is successful in this case.

One thing we did to minimise the accidents of DT1 was to buy ON Target toilet training balls - you put them in the loo, they float but don't flush away and little boys are supposed to aim at them - it made going to the toilet more fun and meant DT1 would go when everyone else went rather than insisting he didn't need to go then wetting himself 5 mins later just cos he was busy playing.

Another thing is that nursrey is very busy and if your DS is anything like DT1 he will be 100% involved in everything thats going on, so may just simply forget to go to the toilet til it's too late - but your nursery really do need to chill out about it all, as it will be stressing DS out. I send in LOTS of changes of clothes, lots of spare pants and remind DT1 EVERY morning to go to toilet when he needs to - lots of praise when he has a dry day and the nursery also have a sticker and certificate scheme in place to reward good behaviour.

Both my boys woke up dry this morning and both proclaimed excitedly that they would be getting certificates at school - it really does work.

pablopatito - the pullups are for the conveninece of the nursery so that they have less trouble cleaning up accidents. Once a childs is potty trained, going back to pull ups is generally a backward step.

If yor ds is capable of doing it at home he can do it at nursery. I think you are right sticking to your guns. If the nursery don't want to deal with a few potty accidents they are in the wrong business !!!