Potty training in full time nursery care

[Stucklikeglu]

Me and DP both work full time. How do you potty train without taking time off?

Could you have a long weekend or do it the next time you know that you've got annual leave booked.

Both my DSs potty trained while in full time nursery. No time off required. In fact it was nursery who suggested they were both ready. We bought two potties so they had the same one at home and nursery. Put them in pants, supplied several sets of spare clothes for nursery and off they went.

Speak to the nursery about how they usually proceed as they will have a preferred system and they will have done this countless times before.

How old is DC and do you think they're ready to potty train? IE do they seem to know when they're wet/dirty or show signs just before? When they're ready you can often have them fairly trained within a week so book that time off work and see how you get on. If at the end of 7 days you feel it's still very hit or miss go back to nappies and try again in a few months. Don't stress

We started potty training DS1 when nursery told us they thought he was ready. They were wrong but had to deal with it more than us!

With DS2 we did it when he decided it was time (he refused to have a nappy put on him at nursery and went commando).

We didn't take time off from our lives for this

Talk to the nursery, I would assume they would work with you for potty training (our nursery certainly did!).

Thanks everyone, he'll be 3 in October. They think he's ready but each nursery assistant who speaks to me about it doesn't give a very consistent response, just a vague 'oh we'll take him to the potty every so often' - I agreed to this and it doesn't seem to have happened.

I don't get much annual leave and I'm using tomorrow-sunday to try and make some progress. My worry is no progress or some progress and then it just going back to normal at nursery.

Maybe I just need to brave it and pack the clothes and let them get on with it, and of course do the same at home.

You need to take the time off. Do it properly and you’ll only need to do it once.

Bank hol weekend with an extra day added on is best (if you don’t work weekends/bank hols obvs).

Ours are happy to take them whenever but we've found a long weekend helps. Then just send them in with loads of spare clothes and hope.

We tried dc2 in March on a three day weekend and gave up on day two as she really wasn't keen. Tried again in the summer and she had zero accidents the first day. When they're ready it's quick, don't push it if he isn't keen.

Long weekend - bank holiday? Consider using a days leave? It's very hard as some of the staff are consistent and others aren't!

The problem is that only your child can decide if they are ready, regardless of whether or not you take annual leave. We tried too early with DS1 and had months of extra clothes to wash. We learnt the lesson and let DS2 decide.

Oh and it took another 7 years for DS2 to be dry at night while DS1 was dry a couple of months after he gave up nappies during the day. There's no text book here.

My daughter is like myself and her dad and was only ever going to do it when she was ready. On her 3rd birthday she declared she was too old for nappies and has gone to the potty/toilet ever since. We didn’t have any accidents until 6 months in when she started the school nursery and she didn’t like the cleanliness of their toilets.

I think it works well at crèche as they see other children going in/out toilet and plenty of talk about no nappies.
Our place had one person a child starting so they knew who next would be getting ready.

Thanks everyone, really appreciate all the advice.

Loosely following the oh crap method (naked from waist down to start since yesterday morning). For the first time ever, we've managed to get some wee in the potty on more occasions than on the floor though these have all been prompted. We're at Friday now and he's back to nursery on Monday. Happy to carry on as we are over the weekend but my worry is how to proceed on Monday...

If he's ready, he'll pick it up quickly.

Keep encouraging him to use the potty then send him to nursery in pants and ask them to do the same

Our nursery mandated crocs for when they were training so that they could just dry them off if there were accidents.

Just send in with no nappies/pull ups and 200 changes of clothes. We find DC always had more accidents at nursery because they got absorbed in playing with friends and didn't want to stop to go to the loo so be prepared to get the 'bag of doom' at the end of the day with the dirty clothes in.

Bear in mind that it all good saying they're fine at home using a potty in the living room & being naked from waist down but this is absolutely not possible in any form of childcare - safeguarding & hygiene issues. You need your child to be able to tell you they need to go & be able to pull their own pants/ trousers/skirt up & down- so many parents send toilet training kids in with dungarees, tight jeans which is just setting them.up to fail, leggings/joggers are perfect and loads of
changes of clothes. Ideally start at home over a long weekend or a weeks hols. Also being consistent, it's frustrating for a childcare setting to be TTing then be told by child they still wear pull ups at home:((
Definitely speak to the nursery before you start.

The downside with nurseries is you do have to adapt your approach to fit with what they can accommodate in the setting. I think the issue with Oh Crap is that obviously nursery can't do no clothes from the waist down, and they are unlikely to let you send DC in just trousers with no pants ether, which I think is the second step with that method?

We started DC1 off over Christmas then sent back to nursery with washable absorbent training pants and plenty of spare trousers (don't forget spare shoes!)

Currently making a plan with (different) nursery for DC2. Their nursery slightly annoyingly doesn't use potties at all, they have little toilets so we will be trying to go straight to toilet at home to minimise confusion.

Most nursery care has training/approach to toileting as part of what they do. The criteria for moving up a room on a nursery is often toilet training based and the nursery will usually guide you through. Kids often learn the how to’s better at nursery. Most of us went through the 5 wet outfits at beginning of a fortnight and one or none by the end of it at nursery as the mainstay of the training process.

Also all this sitting at certain times of the day doesn’t really work. Once they start to recognise the signs and figure out there’s no nappy/pull up, they start to get it. I’ve not heard of anyone taking time off for training, but heard some people confine their kids to the house for a few weeks to achieve something.

Probs depends on the child, if they're ready they may not need much time anyway. We potty trained my DD sort of accidentally at 26 months. I got the potty out for familiarity one evening after nursery, she was bare bottomed did a wee on it. She did this 3 evenings in a row, then I was off with her and I gave it a go bare bottomed at home all day and she used it fine. Next day we added trousers and a few accidents at first til she understood. Third day was fine with no accidents and we even did a quick trip to local park where she used the travel potty. Day 4 she was back at nursery. Interestingly she started having soiling accidents at nursery then which she hadnt done at home, staff were super supportive though. This went on just at nursery a few times for the first two weeks, so I offered to put her in pull ups as felt this was onerous for staff, but they insisted she was getting there and not to do that. They were right, as by week 3 she had stopped that completely too at nursery and that was that.

We took the lead from nursery about how they approach it. We didn't take time off- had a potty kicking around for a while and encourage them to use. Then went for it for a couple of days over the weekend and then back to nursery. DD's were both successful on the first attempt and DS had a couple of failed attempts. Nursery will have seen it all before and I took their lead on whether to go back to nappies. The potty Vs toilet thing never seemed to be an issue for mine (often potty at home and toilet at nursery).

Back to nursery today and I am gutted.

He's got to grips with it much better than I expected over the weekend and today at nursery sounded like a disaster. This isn't to say I thought it would be perfect but he had no success whatsoever and the nursery staff gave me no words of encouragement at all. They sort of put it to me like he'd failed when really what I wanted to hear is, we'll get there with some perseverance. Since he got home he's been weeing on the potty provided I prompt him.

Read the Daycare chapter of the Oh Crap book. Make sure he knows who can help him with the potty at nursery and ask for a longer conversation about their methods.

My eldest was the same on her first day. Then I think she had a day where she held it all day. And then she had it figured out.

I followed nursery's lead. DS2 was ready and it took no time at all. I wasn't going to take annual leave to toilet train.