Why would you wait till 2 years old?

[JingleJangle7]

I was just cruising for tips such as when will my 14 month old be able to hold in wees for more than 1/2h (she does at some times of the day) everyone elses kids seem to be much older which I find quite wierd.

We started putting DD on the potty at 4 months because I got fed up of scraping poo off her back every morning and from 13 months she's been in towelling trainer pants even at creche. We're good with poo (mainly), I think we have a more than 50% wee in potty rate and she's dry at naps. We have a lot of accidents but we're learning as she gains control. Now what we need is for her to tell us when she needs to go.
Toddlers really did used to get trained at 12-18 months (>90% by 18 months in the 1950s) in the days of terry towelling nappies that mum had to wash. Nappies cost a forture, why do most people seem to wait so long scrapping poo of bums for years longer than they need to? I don't mean to be patronising, I'm just baffled.

Because you "have a lot of accidents". Wait until later, when the child wants to quit wearing nappies, and you can often count the number of accidents on the finger of one hand, because they go straight from "wearing nappies" to "being fully potty trained" almost immediately.

Toddlers in Ye Olde Days generally got trained to the "having a lot of accidents" stage at 12-18 months, because if you're going to be washing something anyway then it makes potentially more sense to be washing clothes 50% of the time than it does to be washing nappies 100% of the time.

Not that there's anything wrong with elimination communication. I think it's very interesting, but it wasn't for us and I'm very happy with the way mine have potty trained ( very quickly, barring DD having some poo issues at home for a week or so).

Some people think that if the child isn't wearing a disposable nappy then they are potty trained. My cousin's child was supposedly potty trained, she was in normal cotton knickers but leaving puddles at regular intervals on the floor, sofas etc.

When the child is ready potty training happens in a matter of days a lot of the time. If you're doing it over months you are not doing anything useful, just wasting your time.

Must say I am baffled at putting a four month old on a potty.

my friend 'started' potty training her ds at 12 months, lots of accidents / time spent sat on a potty at regular intervils 'just incase' and still isnt fully trained at 2.5.
My ds - 2.7 months - got him a potty, he didnt like it and had as wee on the toilet, never wore a nappy again (except on a night) first 2 days we had accidents but none since. So in my opinion it "baffles" me why people would rather spend over 12 months potty training than waiting 12 months and spending a couple of days.....

Connor - isn't it funny how child no. 2,3+ always come along and show you and entirely different type of child that you couldn't possibly have imagine anyone else really had when they described then to you when you only had the 1

From a health professionals perspective who knows, there are several reasons.

Putting them on the potty is training the parent not the child.
Often they never get to expand their bladder to capacity so they don't understand or connect the urge to go.
Also this means they have weaker bladder control because they don't get used to holding it.
The other issue is that children under 18mths rarely have the ability to hold it because muscle tone is not strong enough.
They have no co-ordination to remove clothes to go.
Children have never been potty trained at 12 months,its physically impossible the parents were!!

They are ready to train if:
THEY CAN TELL YOU OR POINT TO MAKE YOU AWARE WHAT THEY WANT.
CAN HOLD URINE FOR 1.5-2HRS
CAN GET PANTS DOWN.
CAN GET ON THE POTTY WITH MINIMAL HELP.

Also they should be taught to wash hands at the same time.
You have faffed like this for over a year, if you had waited until 20-24months it would have been done in days!

PS I waited with dd1 and 2 who were trained in 1 week at 20 months and 19 months respectively.

A lot of even very young babies are dry during naps. That doesn't mean that they are ready to be toilet trained. fwiw I and my siblings were all "potty-trained" at about 12 months (I can remember my baby sister weeing in a cup (was the only thing she had to hand) at 15 mo so I suppose it must be true). We then all wet the bed until about 10. I can remember having bladder control issues at 6 and 7 (lots of wet pants) as have all my children. So not all that trained after all. It'll happen when it'll happen. I'm just sorry we started with DS at 2 cos he really wasn't ready and probably would have been nearer 4 than 2 before he was. There was a lot of wee all over the house for 2 years...

Oh yes MaMoTTaT I stopped patting myself on the back about two weeks after ds2 was born. Very grounding experience all round really.

I wouldn't call it training, but I would call it preparation or practice, if you sit a baby on a potty for no more than 2 mins at each nappy change. The baby wears nappies between times. If the potty catches something, fine, if not fine as well. The baby is under no pressure, but becomes accustomed to sitting on a potty as part of the daily routine. They get used to the feeling of something 'dropping away' from them, and also the appearance of what they've done, common problems in older toddlers on this topic are that they are in nappies constantly and so they have to get used to these things, and some plainly can't cope, so you get flat refusals, with-holding, only pooing in a nappy or pants etc.

I think combining this approach with observing when a child tells you after they've done something, to when they tell you as they're doing it, to when they tell you before they do it would be a good indicator of readiness to try training in earnest. I do feel that children need to experience what it is like to wee and poo without a nappy on, and get used to what their body produces, from a very young age.

and 3yr olds aren't young any more???

FWIW - we've tried a few times with DS3 in the last 12 months or so. We did have a fair few wees in the potty during the failed attempts.........he looked at it and said "ooooo green water" (it's a blue potty) - he had no concept of the fact that HE had made the green water appear there out of his body.

Left all mine until they chose to wear pants.Dd1 was the youngest at 2.4 and ds1 was the oldest at 3.3 had barely a handful of accidents between the lot of them. Children don't generally start school in nappies and so if they others using the toilet and have pants available they will choose for themselves in my experience.

Of course 3 is young. But there is a school of thought that by 3 children can be 'conditioned' to use nappies, and strongly resist any attempts to get them to use potty/toilet instead. They see no reason why they should. Some might think that their caregivers actually want them to wear nappies because they've never done anything differently, and the child thinks it must be acceptable.

At least MaMo, your DS didn't freak when he saw what he'd done! But the more he does it, the better he will understand the cause and effect. In todays superdry nappies, it's amazing children are aware they're peeing at all!

It's not about how young you can potty train a child completely, it's about making it as trauma free as possible. I certainly wouldn't expect a child to be fully trained before 2.

The majority of children are not ready until they are much older.

We thought that ds1 was ready when he was 2 and 4 months, we tried but he was hysterical he clearly wasn't ready at all so we stopped. We tried again when he was 2 years and 9 months and it was so easy, we had no poo accidents and only 2 wee accidents on day 2.

It is easier if you wait until they are ready. Mil said that her children were all trained before 12 months old. I don't call running around after a baby with a potty in your hand being toilet trained.

'cruising for tips' my arse

rather smug OP...

do all kids walk/talk/write operas at the same time? erm, no

me however, I love scraping poo off bums. It's my hobby. Nothing better IMO. Will keep dd2 in nappies til she goes to school just for the fun of it.

"putting DD on the potty at 4 months"

I didn't bother with my DSs until they were 3. Nappies are not allowed during the day after your third birthday - it's the law, I told them. In exchange you get a party.

But DD trained herself not long after she turned 2 - took me completely by surprise. Some children just seem to get it, and it usually seems to be girls. Must be some muscular/neurological development thing.

If I'm honest I don't really enjoy scraping poo off ds2's bum (6 months) but it is preferable to scraping it off the sofa and not being able to go round other peoples houses in case the baby poos on her cream carpet.

Just thinking about battling for 12 months to get a child dry brings me out in a cold sweat, I waited until she showed signs at 2.5, stayed in the house for a week and was dry day and night in a week!

I know its not always that straight forward, but putting a 4 month on the potty shocks me , I agree with others comments, I'd rather wait another 12 months and do it in a week than spend 12 months mopping up!!

'We have a lot of accidents but we're learning as she gains control'

i think that is the key

when kids are older they learn a hell of a lot faster. Fewer accidents and messes. Dd1 learned at 2.5 and was pretty much there in a couple of weeks.

If you only have a 50% success rate then she is not potty trained.

DDs were ready for pants at different ages and the way they were potty trained really corresponded to their natures.

DD1 was a bit vague and forgetful about the whole process - we had many a false start. With DD2 wwe had a discussion one morning and the next day she ws virtully dry the whole time.

Hassled - with DD1 we had to do the 'law' thing. I had got that from my sister. A parent of one of my sister's friends who was very slow to potty train thought that one day she would have to write her DS a letter to inform him about the law, so slow was he on the uptakle......

OP has vanished...

weird OP

my mum says: 'Start training at 2 and they're trained by 3. Start training at 3 and they're trained immediately'

DD is 2.4, shows not much sign of being interested in the potty and I'm damned if I'm going to force the issue with her til she's up for it. From all I've heard, if you're just patient they get to it in their own time