Toilet trained by 12 months

[AintHeavy]

I was born in 1980 to a teenage mum. I was looked after by an older (female) relative whilst DM went out to work. I recently learned that due to this relative hating nappies, I was out of them and dry as soon as possible. Definitely dry before I was a year old.

I am not a parent. Can anyone tell me what opinions on this would be back then, and also what is the accepted wisdom nowadays?

I am your age and my mom had me toilet trained by my 1st birthday (she tells me). My DD is now 2y2m and she is refusing to try the potty so am just going to wait until she is ready.

Catherine Ryan (apologies if wrong spelling) says she did this. She was on Room 101 and was quite vehement about it! Says that wearing nappies just trains kids to go in nappies and they can be toilet trained a lot sooner than people do generally.

It would be very very unusual for a child of that age to be toilet trained over night - ie able to manage without nappies for a full nights sleep.

It's quite easy (well, for values of quite easy) to do what's called elimination communication en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elimination_communication. Which is about learning to recognise the cues a baby gives that it is about to wee or poo and getting it over a potty or equivalent.

Modern potty training is about the child themselves learning to notice when they need to wee or poo and being able to ask a caregiver, get themselves to the loo and handle their clothes etc. it's a much higher level.

What does "it's a much higher level" mean in this context?

There's a big difference between seeing your baby looks like they're about to do a poo, you grabbing them, stripping them and carrying them to the potty, holding them on a d cleaning up afterwards Vs child recognising themselves they need to do a poo, understand that that means to move now and go to the potty, pull down their own clothes, sit on the potty and then clean up themselves after

I wonder if today's nappies are so efficient that children don't have the feeling of being wet and uncomfortable when they have had a wee.

Ah, thank you for the explanation. So "toilet trained" can mean different things in terms of independence, autonomy etc. Thank you for explaining.

I think that there is a confusion between being out of nappies and being toilet trained. Often, especially if one parent stayed at home, they could hover constantly over a child to lift them straight onto a potty and having accidents was just accepted to be normal. Now people tend to wait until children feel the need to go, take themselves to the toilet or potty and pull down their trousers independently.

Yes, some people think there is a status thing about having a child out of nappies at a younger age but why people actively want to unnecessarily clean poo and wee up is beyond me because if a child is too young to take themselves, then you are just toilet training yourself.

It was a busy household with teens and lodgers around, I am struggling to imagine anyone watching me that closely. I can't imagine her cleaning up too many messes, as that was the whole point of getting me out of nappies. (All terrys back then of course).

There is definitely pride in having me out of nappies so quickly.

Do you honestly believe that by 12 months you were walking, coherently able to take yourself to a room (that theoretically should be safeguarded to prevent you accessing), removed your clothes, sat on the toilet and wiped yourself clean? The average age (in the U.K.) for walking is 14 months to help put it into perspective.

I haven’t a clue, I can’t remember 1980. It’s literally my ignorance that has led to this thread, and me wanting to piece things together.

I would think that they’re probably misremembering actually, a baby of not even twelve months is extremely unlikely to be truly toilet trained.. vanishingly unlikely really.

Most 12 month olds cannot walk.

Some could crawl. I suppose it's possible that you could have crawled to the potty.

Most 12 month olds can't crawl far though and certainly not stairs.

Most 12 month olds are grabbing at toys etc. they can't usually undo poppers at this stage much less zips.

Just in terms of sheer physical development it's incredibly unlikely you were able to crawl to potty, undo clothes, sit on potty, wipe, etc and redo clothes.

It's genuinely not believable.

It's far more likely someone is misremembering.

I am one of many children and born in the 60's , and at one time DM had four under 5. With cloth nappies there was no way she would ever have more than one baby at a time in nappies. I was toilet trained in the day by 1 and DM remembers me climbing out of bed shortly after this around 15 months and using the potty at night.
My children born in 80's and 90's were potty trained at age 2 1/2 with no issues, all the parents I knew started at age 2 so that the children were clean and dry by 2 1/2 and attend the local play group without a parent. If they werent toilet trained they couldn't attend
GS was around 3 1/2.
My theory is that children can be trained much younger than the current trend but nappies are cheaper and better than they used to be, parents are often both working and children are placed with alternative carers which makes things so much harder. Toilet training was bloody hard work with one of mine but not the other, it needed me to be there with the child for a good few weeks. It must be so hard if a child is at alternative provision

My mother in law insisted my husband was out of nappies by 15 months - in the daytime at least. TBH if I had to soak and wash in a Baby Belling I think I would have tried potty training early. This was the 60's and a lot of people didn't have a washing machine

There’s elimination communication which is essentially watching for signs and timing it into a potty. Very possible to have done that with an 11MO. It used to be more popular but fell out of favour when disposable nappies and modern washing machines were invented because it’s loads of work and means watching like a hawk, so only worth it if you’re saving yourself hand washing terry nappies. It is not potty training though. It’s not my favourite method potty training method overall but if you’re interested Oh Crap has an interesting chapter on EC vs. Potty Training. For potty training it’s linked to the muscle tone of upright walking apparently so it’s possible with an 18MO but 11MO just doesn’t sound realistic at all.

Some friends of mine started potty training at about 10 months old. I'm not sure how well it went tbh, but they were trying.

I'm sure it's possible once they're walking.

I couldn't have faced it tbh and dcs weren't showing any signs of readiness at that point.

The difference might have been that I think nappies were a bit more faffy back then if using cloth nappies. I used reusable cloth nappies part time with one of mine, but the modern ones are pretty good. If I had been using terries, nappy pins and those awful big plastic pants, I might have considered potty training a bit earlier!

My mum always says I was out of nappies by 18 months too. Then about how I "regressed" when my brother was born and I had to go back in nappies until I was 2 (like it was all my fault!). So basically what she means is she had me out of nappies and was able to catch when I needed to go and put me on the potty, she didn't work as was normal in 1981 so I guess she was with me every day all the time. But then when she had a newborn she couldn't do this anymore and guess what I wasn't actually toilet trained at all!
Toilet trained to me means able to communicate when they need to go and independently go to the toilet or potty and take own clothes off to be able to use them, with very minimal accidents. I waited until mine were ready and enthusiastic about trying, they were 2.5 and 3 and were toilet trained within 5 days.
Obviously easier these days with disposable nappies, I do understand wanting to do it earlier when babies were in Terry nappies and parents sometimes didn't even have washing machines and usually no tumble dryer.

There was more pressure to do it earlier back then too, being a "good mum" if you could say your baby was potty trained at 12 months!

Ok. (Possibly TMI for some)

To use an analogy:

I have cats.

They have a regular schedule of when I feed them and they have a regular schedule of when they poo. Wees are more random.

If I wanted to train them to poo in a particular place then I would move them to that place every time I know they are going to poo. (First thing in the morning and after the evening meal in case anyone is interested).

This sort of thing is very easy to do with babies as well. If (if!) you can get them on a routine of food, they often get on a routine of when to poo. You can then put them on a potty regularly at the time of day when you expect them to poo.

I did this with my kids when I trained them at age 2. You can easily do it with kids much younger as well.

But children under a year old, some of them will still be immobile. Mine did not crawl and didn't walk until about 18 months. They couldn't have got the potty themselves at that age because well, they just couldn't move much.

I think in the 80s and earlier there were babies who were toilet trained earlier than today as washing nappies was so awful. I was out of nappies early. Not sure when. But I wore plastic training pants and had lots of accidents! So some of it does come down to the definition of toilet trained.

Both my two were out of nappies by 14 months in the early 90s. Pretty normal for playgroup pals. Very very few accidents. Had a potty in the room which they would run to when needed.

Didn't use disposables. They were very expensive and extremely bulky - there was no vacuum packing then - and I'd no car to fetch them from the shops. I did always have damp nappies hanging everywhere. I think @eddiemairswife is spot on - with terries children would definitely know they'd poo'd or pee'd. Disposables are now so good and comfortable I don't know that they send the signals to the brain.

Not better or worse than current practices - just different times.

My mother claims the same about me and clearly she's misremembering. Sometimes she says I was trained at 12 months. Others it's 9 months. Then 14 months.

In my opinion, it was he who was trained, not me.

Accepted wisdom varies by culture and time period.

The current norm in the UK seems to be to let a child continue to pee and poo themself (in a nappy) long after the point in time at which they could be helped to use a potty or toilet. Waiting for a child to be capable of managing the whole process by themselves before starting to learn about toileting seems a bit odd to me. I'm struggling to think of many other skills where people generally wait for a child to be able to manage the whole thing end to end before trying to teach them. e.g. I wouldn't wait for my child to be capable of hosting a dinner party (or even of being able to make toast independently) before getting them involved in some elements of cooking and baking. I think there's a value in helping a child to undertake the elements of a task that they can manage, rather than deferring all the learning until they can do everything themself.

Children who were using potties reliably and were dry in the day at a year old probably weren't toilet independent at the same age - they'd need help to undress and clean themselves up. Adults who need help to use a toilet / commode tend to prefer this to being left to soil themself in an inco pad. So I imagine it's probably nicer for young children to be helped to use a potty or toilet rather than being expected to do their business in something they are wearing.

There are various drivers for the age of daytime dryness getting later. Is it less convenient for the caregiver to have a young child who needs help toileting to be out of nappies? Yes. Would Pampers / other nappy brands like parents to delay getting their children out of nappies for as long as possible? Also yes. Disposables were relatively new and not so widely used in the early 80s, and less absorbent, so children were able to, e.g., feel wetness and connect that sensation with the sensation of peeing. Modern disposables, and modern cloth nappies, are more absorbent and/or have better stay dry layers, which reduce the opportunity for learning.

With 1980s cloth or disposable nappies, I think it's entirely likely that you were dry in the day around a year old. (Night time dryness requires production of vasopressin, and usually occurs later, up to many years later, than when a child can be reliably dry during the day.)

Most parents who say this are talking absolute crap.

Funny I was going to start a thread about this today!!

My mum and dad tell me both me and my brother were dry by 18months and can't understand why our 4.5 year old still wears night nappies and our 2.5yr old still isn't potty trained.