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Potty training

Is your child ready for potty training at nursery? Here's the place for all your toilet training questions.

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Original poster

Everyone else has "trained their kids in 2 days"

27 replies

TiredOfPeople · 12/09/2015 10:21

"Well my little Jimmy/Sally were fully trained in 2 days flat with no accidents ever and they were only a year old", and so forth. No one I know seems to have struggled with potty training, AT ALL!!
My SIL was basically saying this (I later found out from my MIL that that wasn't the case at all, my niece was about at least 2.5 not the 17 months my SIL was making out like). Why is it only me that seems to be finding it hard, or is it I'm just honest and everyone else is lying?

OP posts:

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mabythesea · 12/09/2015 10:26

For most people it takes a week or two of intensive training and then staying on top of it (eg. reminding them to go before leaving the house/arriving somewhere) for some months afterwards. Dry nights can come months/years after day training. It's not at all uncommon for children to have accidents into their first year at school.

PosterEh · 12/09/2015 10:26

Took me a year with dd. By the time I realised she just wasn't going to get it i felt I'd invested too much time to stop. I started at 2.5 so not super early.

XCChamps · 12/09/2015 10:26

Ds1 took about a month to be properly reliable and we didn't start til he was almost 3. Ds2 was dry quickly but still soiling himself until he was 5.

It's like everything else. People only talk about their "achievements" not their failures.

A friend helped me a lot by saying, with acompletely straight face "very few children go to uni nappies"

MrsLeighHalfpenny · 12/09/2015 10:29

Ignore these people. Potty training takes a while.

mabythesea · 12/09/2015 10:29

Also from working in Early Years for a long time I can say that most children train when they are 2. It's unusual for a child to start the pre-school class (term after 3rd birthday) still in nappies but also equally unusual for a child to never have an accident after being trained.

MrsLeighHalfpenny · 12/09/2015 10:29

I mean the people you are talking to. The posters here are correct!

TelephoneIgnoringMachine · 12/09/2015 10:32

I got this. My Dsis kept telling me that my niece was fully trained by 2nd birthday. Until we went on a day out together & it wss abundantly clear she wasn't... She's apparently still in night nappies at 4.3. Which is not uncommon I understand, but makes me feel better about my Dsis' attitude to it all. Apparently we were not doing it right, when my DD (now 3.4) didn't get potty training straightaway. She's dry most nights, but wears a night nappy in case of accidents & because we don't want to stress her out.

A lot of people make light of their "failures" & accentuate the successes. Which is fine except when you're making someone else feel inadequate.

iwouldgoouttonight · 12/09/2015 10:39

With all due respect to your SIL, she is talking bollocks.

It took ages with both my DCs, and with DS in particular was one of the most stressful experiences of parenting. But they will get it eventually, as PP said nobody goes to uni in nappies.

But many still have accidents when they start school and it is considered completely normal not to be dry at night until age 8. It's only after that age doctors would investigate to see if there is a medical problem.

BeBesideTheSea · 12/09/2015 10:42

Um, yes. DS was 2 yrs 4 months. Was an Bank Holiday weekend so I remember. We stayed in for 3 days - day 1 wee everywhere; day 2 held it in for 5 hours; day 3 got it.

Still the odd accident at nursary (too busy playing) and night for the next 6 months or so.

Sorry.

Micah · 12/09/2015 10:43

I did train mine in a day.

But I had left it until she was really ready, asking to go to the toilet, taking her nappy off, weeing. From the it was a matter of making sure she went before we went out, and asking whenever we were near a toilet. She was nearer to 3- and want dry at night until 7.

It does make me laugh these people who think their child is toilet trained, when what they are doing is following the child round with a potty, hoping to catch it. One particularly amusing case at baby dance, mother spent the whole class hovering with a potty, then the child peed on the floor. There were toilets right next door too. Imo if the child can't make that they're not ready.

the amount of people who describe their child as "clever" for toilet training, and seem to equate early potty training with genius is laughable.

NullaBore · 12/09/2015 10:45

I has to tell our cm not to train dd (she was attempting to train an older dc at the time and thought two birds with one stone) as we were flying to Aus in 4 months and l preferred dd to be on nappies.

She really couldn't understand as 2 in the perfect age apparently

Dd started around 2.5 and got it instantly. Because SHE was ready. Not what the bloody books said.

But she wouldn't sleep without a pull up on for another 6 months.

NullaBore · 12/09/2015 10:46

^too many spelling mistakes to bother fixing

WankerDeAsalWipe · 12/09/2015 10:47

I did the "toilet training in less than a day" book and they were more or less trained in a day. There was the odd accident though. However I did wait until they were 3 and it does require a complete dedicated day with no other distractions.

SilverdaleGlen · 12/09/2015 10:49

Mine both did it within a day. Very very very infrequent accidents (maybe every 3 months).

The trick is to ignore everyone and do it when THEY are ready. Mine were both nearly 3. No drama.

bearleftmonkeyright · 12/09/2015 10:52

My oldest was having accidents at school regularly and my other two were well past three when they were able to do it. The oldest had childhood epilepsy which didn't help but the school were pretty about it when she started. The oldest two are in secondary school now but I still remember it as a very stressful time as a parent. They are ready when they're ready.

MandMand · 12/09/2015 11:00

Just as people's definition of what "sleeping through the night" actually means differs, the same applies to the phrase "toilet trained". I had a number of friends who proudly told me that their child was toilet trained, only for them to wee all over my carpet when they came to play.

For some people it just means that they've stopped putting nappies on them during the day, while for others it means that the child actually takes themselves off to the toilet.

Remember that each child is different - my son wasn't ready until after he'd turned 3 and his baby sister was born (when he just decided that nappies were for babies and he was a big boy now), while my daughter was genuinely ready just after she turned 2. Please try not to get stressed out by competitive parents!

Biscetti · 12/09/2015 11:08

Child 1 - 2y5m, 3 days
Child 2 - 18m, 1 day. Yes, really.
Child 3 - 2.9 not ready, give up after a week. 2.11 - 3 days
Child 4 - 2.2, 2 days 1 day if you don't count pissing on the flower bed once..

WankerDeAsalWipe · 12/09/2015 11:10

I'd consider them trained if they either ask to go or go themselves without asking 90% of the time and go when reminded for the remainder with an accident no more often than once every few weeks if the are 3 and less often if the are older. I'd exclude night training from that completely as its not uncommon to have accidents at night for many years after. It's a totally different skill imo.

teacherwith2kids · 12/09/2015 11:13

It's worth remembering that conscious 'daytime potty training' - ie where a child combines the physical bladder readiness with the training to decide to use the toilet / potty when awake is an entirely separable, and separate, process from 'night time dryness'.

DS was potty trained at 2.5 (and the process wasn't fun - it is, after all, the first thing that you want them to do which has NO advantage to them: all the other developmental stages like walking, talking etc have benefits for them, the swap from nappies to potty / toilet has none!) but not dry at night until nearly 10. Nothing he nor I could do could have affected the date on which he finally produced enough hormone to down-regulate the amount of urine he produced at night in order to allow his bladder not to overflow....

If a child is potty trained in the day and, coincidentally, becomes dry at night around the same time, the former is 'training', the latter is totally coincidence!

HeadDreamer · 12/09/2015 11:15

I agree people differs in what potty trained means. DD1 was trained in 2 days when she was around 2y3. She however has been asking for it since 2y. She just kept taking her nappies off and declared she wanted pants. And then to proceed to weeing all over the house. At 2yo3 she started to appear to know it's coming, so we decided to train her. She got it very very quickly, which probably is because she's been 'training' on and off for so long. She was at FT nursery. And I looked at it as trained in 2 days because after that weekend, I was comfortable for her to go to nursery without nappies. Basically she can tell the nursery nurses she needs the loo.

Now at 4yo and at school, she still has accidents. 2 weeks in and she has come home once in PE clothes. She managed to not quite make it to the toilet on the walk home 3 days in a row.

So don't beat yourself up. Some of us has much lower potty training standards. And maybe yours isn't ready?

Original poster

TiredOfPeople · 12/09/2015 15:12

Thanks everyone :) I feel better now. DS is 2.2. It's just I was told by his nursery key worker that children "should really all be potty trained by the age of 2", and I was made to feel by her and people like my SIL that I was lagging waaaaay behind by having my 2.2 yr old still in nappies. He was begging today, after the (literally) 12th accident to go back in pants, so I'm going to just chill out and wait until HE'S ready, not when I'm told he's "supposed" to be ready (although of course if he's almost hitting 3 and still not "asked" to be in pants I'll be definitely trying again then!)

OP posts:

Original poster

TiredOfPeople · 12/09/2015 15:12

Headdreamer that sounds just like my DS. Thank you for taking the time to reply, I feel so less stressed about this now.

OP posts:

Velocitractor · 12/09/2015 15:32

Dd just one day refused to wear nappies (just shy of 2 years) and didn't have any accidents (during the day).

Ds was nearly 4 after attempting to potty train for around a year and a half (I shit you not - see what I did there?!) Not through lack of trying on my / nursery's part - I once came to pick him up and there were 7 bags of soiled clothes piled up next to his peg.

Now - dd took bloody years to become dry at night (she was 6) and ds had dry nappies at night from the age of 2 or so.

So sorry, no magic formula but he will get there eventually. They're all different (and I've since spoken to lots of parents whose toddlers have been 2 or 3 once they've been properly potty trained).

Spidertracker · 12/09/2015 15:37

Every child is different, my DS was dry in the day after 3 days practice at 19 months, dry at night and out of pull ups at night by 2. Fantastic - I was one of the people you think is lying.
Then came DD who just couldn't get it was 3 and took months, and months after that for the night time.

TheFairyCaravan · 12/09/2015 15:50

DS1 was trained very quickly and dry day and night at 22 months. He decided he wasn't wearing nappies anymore I was happy for him to carry on!
DS2 took a bit longer, but he was dry in the day by 2.3 and out of night nappies 6 months later.

My sister will tell anyone who cares to listen that DN was out of nappies at 18 months. It's odd because when she came to visit me when I had DS1, DN was 2.6 and she was in nappies.

I think some of these competitive parents have very selective memories!

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