Nursery won’t help with pants - is this normal?

[Mel2023]

We’re on day 6 of potty training and it’s DS first day back at preschool. He’s 2yrs 5months. We’ve been off and had 5 days at home so took the time to start potty training. He’s been showing signs for a while. Beforehand, I told preschool that we were going to potty train asked was there a certain way they do things or things he has to learn before coming back to nursery, and they said no they will follow our lead and just to bring loads of changes of clothes.

We called them last Friday because we’d introduced pants after 2.5 very successful days with nothing on, where he’d used the potty consistently with only 2 accidents. Introducing pants meant he went completely back over and started just treating them like a nappy. I asked if they were ok with him still coming in while he was having all these accidents - they said yes - and I again checked if we needed to do anything specific. No.

Then today we took him in for his first day back. I told them that he’s done very well, has done so much better in the last couple of days since he started with pants, and didn't even have one single accident yesterday, and we even took him out the house for a few hours. I told them that he knows when he needs to go but he can’t hold it very well, so he may start to go in his pants a little on the way to the toilet. I asked them to make it clear to him which staff member(s) he had to tell when he needed a wee, make sure he knows where the toilets are (sometimes he will just take himself if he’s really desperate) and remind him/ask him if he needs to go regularly as well because no doubt he’ll get distracted playing with his friends and not realise.

DH picked him up tonight and he hasn’t had a single wee in the toilet, he’s wet through 6 pairs of trousers and 7 pants. I expected some accidents but not this. They then said they won’t take his pants down for him and that’s the problem as he can’t do that himself - so he’s basically stood by the toilet peeing himself with them watching! I’m furious. Of course he can’t take his own pants down. He’s 2 and is barely a week into potty training! Of course we’ll work on that but it absolutely should not be a barrier to him using the toilet. The better he gets at holding it will give him more time to work on getting them down.

I spoke to them before we started training about anything we needed to know from their end, and they said nothing and that they’d do what we do. Well, we help him take his pants down. They won’t.

It would have been useful to know that bit of info. Is this usual nursery behaviour? Are they not allowed to help him with his pants? Until 2 weeks ago they were changing his nappy and they of course changed him out his wet clothes today, so I’m not sure how that makes sense!

This sounds really weird, your poor DS. I've had two kids in nursery (one still there) and our nursery have been amazing both times with supporting toilet training. They definitely initially helped both my kids to pull down and pull up their underwear and trousers until they could do it themselves pretty reliably. Well, my youngest is about to turn 3 and has only been toilet trained for less than 3 months and he has joint hypermobility and a hip condition and so on , so his motor skills are not the best and occasionally he still needs support with this.

Well yes, it is part of potty training. We are 6 days in and he spent 3 of them not wearing anything, so he’s only worn pants for 3 days. We’re showing him how to pull them down and he tries with varying degrees of success. He will get there eventually. But we’re 4 days into wearing pants when he’s never worn them before, and we’ve mainly focussed on getting the wee in the potty.

He needs to be able to pull his own pants down for potty training. If he can't do that he's not ready for it. What signs had you seen? Being able to be independent enough to get them selves to the loo is one of the signs.

We definitely help with pants, sometimes until they are quite old (4). I usually start by teaching them to pull trousers up - when there's less rush!! Why would they let him wee himself, I don't know? It's such a pain to clean everything (shoes!!) and change them. For the first few days I would also be taking them to the toilet at regular intervals in the day to see if anything comes out (it's OK if nothing comes out), and not relying on the 'need to go'/ rush to the toilet. It's a less pressurised way to get them used to the toilets, flushing, washing hands - and when they are used to that, we can begin to rely on them to tell us when they need to go.

Very odd behaviour. Are you sure they weren't just busy and forgot to prompt him then made up an excuse? Surely they don't expect children to make such massive leaps all the time. That's like giving a 3yo a pen and paper and saying: write your name. Maybe use the word 'scaffolding' on them!

I agree with this I'm afraid, which is clearly written by someone who has worked with a lot of children. My own children were potty trained at exactly 2 and were taught to pull down their pants as part of the process; I think your exasperation that a child your son's age could do so is misplaced as I'd certainly think this is something most children, at a good few months younger, could do. Nursery have clearly not helped but realistically this is something you could teach your child in the next day or two so it needn't be an ongoing problem.

Gently, I think this is going to be the situation until he's good at taking himself off to toilet and doing own pants. Sounds like you're just getting past catching what comes, it's early days. Not the done thing nowadays but when mine were at this stage and full time in nursery they had pull ups on for a fair bit of the time at this stage until they were reliable at home. Just not workable otherwise, you'll have no clothes left to send.

It's not always that easy. Often they have trousers which are tricky. It girls have leggings which are difficult if they're not stick thin. It's better to get the confidence in using the toilet and then teach independence more gradually, which will be quicker or slower depending on the child.

He has been accurately telling us when he’s had a wee/poo for months now and was bringing us his changing caddy. Before he realised what a potty was for, if he didn’t have a nappy on and needed to go he’d cry for his nappy and say “quick quick” as he knew he had to wee somewhere, and he’d get upset if he then had an accident on the floor. He’s constantly walking up dry and has been practising sitting on the toilet and potty for months. Within a day of starting potty training properly he was going and sitting on the potty himself for a wee and a poo, and was accurately telling when he needed to go. We only had one accident in the first day. He still wears a pull up to bed and for a nap and the moment he wakes up he announces he needs a wee and runs to to the toilet and then does the biggest wee. He cries for his nappy to be off as soon as he’s woken up. He’s ready.

I just didn’t realise being able to pull his pants down before even starting potty training was a prerequisite. I thought it would be something he learned as part of the potty training process. Which he is. I’m not expecting him to have mastered it in 3 days just like I don’t expect him to have nailed potty training in 3 days. I’ve already gone out and bought him bigger, looser pants and joggers. I’m annoyed because I have asked nursery beforehand - and even a few weeks ago when we discussed potty training in passing - and not once was it mentioned he had to be able to pull his own pants down immediately off the bat. If I’d known that we could have started working on it ages ago.

I agree that they should be helping him if he can't do it, but I feel that being able to deal with pulling pants down is a sign of readiness to potty training. I've potty trained 12 children as a nanny and managing clothes is one of the skills I work on for a couple of weeks beforehand when it looks like potty training is imminent. Loose joggers and pants that are slightly too big are ideal for pulling down in a hurry.

This is terrible, of course they should help. It won’t take him long to get it!

I also don’t understand why they would want to deal with 6/7 changes of clothes over helping him pull his clothes down. Surely that’s much more effort?

Of course he isn’t fully potty trained. He’s learning and doing amazingly well. But he’s not quite there yet. It takes time. As does learning to take his pants up and down. I asked nursery if he could go without pants and they said no. I’ve provided bigger, looser pants and joggers - went out and bought them all before we even began training - which are easier for him to pull down, but the poor kid is only 3 days into even knowing what pants are. We’ve been getting him to try and take them up and down each time - and even when he doesn’t need the loo - but he’s still learning, it’s part of potty training and I’d like to think his nursery would understand that. If it was a requirement that he could master pulling his pants up and down before we even began potty training, they should have told me when I asked so we could have started with him a lot earlier. I understand they can’t give him the same level of attention he gets at home, and I totally expected more accidents, especially as they can’t stop everything to take him to the toilet when he needs it, and he’ll be distracted playing with his friends.

OP, obviously it's a skill he'll need to master at some point. I agree though, I'm not planning on delaying potty training until my daughter has it down to a fine art.

One thing I will say, I read in the Oh Crap Potty training book that it can be really confusing asking toddlers to 'pull down' their pants and that push pants down is much more logical. We've tried to prompt my daughter to do it and she's got it pretty much every time when we've asked her to push them down.

I could have written this a few weeks ago. DS had been potty trained 8 weeks and has no accidents at home (aside from one in the car and a few in the first week). He’s dry at night too. BUT 2 weeks ago nursery gave me 6 pairs of wet clothes, and then called me in the office the next day to say he had run out of clothes. I was fuming. Apparently he has accidents in the garden (he’s moved rooms and is upstairs/ its too far to the toilet) and after his nap (I’ve asked them to take him before the nap).

I spoke to them again last week and only came home with one wet set of clothes for each nursery day. We will see how it goes tomorrow.

If I were you I would ask how you can work together on this. It’s still very early days but sounds like he is doing great.

Loose jogging bottoms and size up for pants. Show him how to pull them both down together.

He has been accurately telling us when he’s had a wee/poo for months now and was bringing us his changing caddy. Before he realised what a potty was for, if he didn’t have a nappy on and needed to go he’d cry for his nappy and say “quick quick” as he knew he had to wee somewhere, and he’d get upset if he then had an accident on the floor. He’s constantly waking up dry and has been practising sitting on the toilet and potty for months. May be my bad but I didn’t even think of starting showing him how to use pants as part of the prep. Within a day of starting potty training properly he was going and sitting on the potty himself for a wee and a poo - did it a few times when I was out the room and proudly came and told me - and was accurately telling when he needed to go. We only had one accident in the first day. He still wears a pull up to bed and for a nap and the moment he wakes up he announces he needs a wee and runs to to the toilet and then does the biggest wee. He wants his nappy to be off as soon as he’s woken up. Ironically he can wriggle his way out a pull up when he doesn’t want it on! But not pants yet. I’m sure he’ll come but it’s only his 4th day using them.

This wasn't the case at my childrens' nursery. Staff were great at helping them. Surely it makes their lives fast harder in the long run having to change soaking wee covered children all day when they could just help with their pants in the early stages and avoid any of that.
It's not fair for your child to be constantly covered in wee because of this. If they don't help, send him in trousers without pants, I'm sure they would rather that than constantly be dealing with clearing and changing.

Haha we tried taking him at regular intervals yesterday and all I got was “I don’t need wee!” And he got very stroppy about me suggesting he did when he didn’t! And then when he did need it he looked at me and said “I wee now mummy” and took himself over to the potty! Nursery did say they would remind him/take him regularly today as he would no doubt be distracted and forget, so I’m really hoping they did do that!

Gently and kindly, it’s not a nursery’s job to teach potty training, and for a child this young, I’d say 6 days is not enough for him to be ready to go back into a nursery environment.

I would allow a minimum of two weeks at home to really nail potty training before putting him back in the nursery environment

that way when he’s at home he can go pant-less every day, which is so important- so they learn the sensation of peeing and connecting that to going to the toilet

this stuff is really hard, and it’s really common to have a couple of false starts.

I would start again when you can get a good long stretch at home together to focus on it

My 2y4mo old has been potty training for 6 weeks and this definitely wasn't the case at his nursery. I'd say it's only in the last 2-3 weeks that he's really proficient at pulling his pants and trousers down. And I still do it sometimes in an effort to hurry him along and get on the toilet, whilst he's faffing about.
He had 4 accidents at nursery the first few days despite having only 1 a day at home by the time he went on day 5. If they hadn't helped with pants it would've been more for sure. Despite me trying to teach him beforehand, he took a while to do it on his own.

Same

That’s the thing, we don’t have the luxury of taking that much time off work at once. It just won’t happen. We both work full time and DS is in nursery 5 days a week 7:45am-5:45pm. I don’t believe it’s nurseries job which is why I took the time off I did to kick start it and they can continue. He’s doing fantastic at home and even when we’re out and about. If he wasn’t and it was going badly we’d stop. But as he’s doing so well and actively talking about the toilet, I’m not stopping it and confusing him. Again, I spoke to nursery about potty training and how I can’t take weeks off work to do it and they said I don’t even need to take any time off - start it on a weekend and they’ll carry it on the next week! When he’s at home he accurately tells us when he needs to go, and if he doesn’t manage to get his pants down (he tries bless him) then we help. And when he’s not needing a wee we’re encouraging him to practice with his pants. He’ll get there but it won’t happen immediately. As I type this he’s just woke up shouting for DH because he wants a wee and won’t go in his nappy, so he’s had to take him to the toilet. I wouldn’t say that’s a false start.

"If it was a requirement that he could master pulling his pants up and down before we even began potty training, they should have told me when I asked so we could have started with him a lot earlier."

I don't think it is a requirement though, it's simply a case of if the child can't do it himself, then he holds it till someone is helping.
You'd rightly be annoyed if your son pee'd into his half pulled down trousers while the staff member opened a child's drink, or helped them turn the tap off, before they got your son fully de-trousered!
Equally another parent wouldn't want their child unable to drink or soaked from the tap, because the drink had been half opened or the tap just turned down a tiny bit, but not properly, before the staff member ran to help your son. Unless you fund him having one to one, he's got to either do his trousers himself or be able to wait for a minute until someone is free.

So I would say a couple of things:

1. Your son isn’t ready if he can’t pull down his own pants.
2. Boys on average potty train about 3. While every kid is different why are you rushing this. Wait a few more months.
3. It isn’t the nursery’s responsibility to potty train your son. Why do kids turn up to school not potty trained? Because parents think it’s someone else’s job to do it.
4. 6 days isnt enough and your time expectations are too quick for a two year old who clearly isn’t ready.
5. maybe take a step back and instead of blaming someone else take responsibility the situation and realise it isn’t time yet.

Two weeks plus off using annual leave is quite a logistical hurdle and therefore not appropriate advice. Nursery need to support the parent with potty training otherwise they could end with 4 year olds still in nappies, and I’m hoping that as EYFS professionals, that’s an outcome they would rather avoid.

The nursery rules seem to be that the children fend for themselves. So I would send him with no pants until he’s more comfortable with the whole routine of just getting his joggers down. He’s so little and if he can manage to get to the loo on time and get his trousers down, he’s winning.
Plenty of time to learn about pants later.