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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

How much should nursery help with potty training?

14 replies

igglepiggle599 · 13/03/2025 19:59

Just that, really.

If a child goes to nursery several days per week and doesn't really have more than a couple of days to start off potty training with their parents, should nursery help out with following the routine right from the first stage (i.e. while there will still be several accidents and soiled items of clothing per day), or is it unreasonable to expect them to help until the child is reliably using the potty independently, taking off their clothes, saying when they need to go, etc?

OP posts:

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ScrewedByFunding · 13/03/2025 20:02

The answer will always be in the nursery's policy, this will let you know how much they expect to help.

There is no 'should' in this scenario.

woolflower · 13/03/2025 20:04

Nursery will deal with accidents, but IMO you should do the slog work and have them mostly dry before sending them in.

If they are ready it shouldn’t take too long to get them to this point. We used a bank holiday weekend plus one extra day off, within the 4 days DC were mostly dry and just had a couple of accidents at nursery.

Mew2 · 13/03/2025 20:08

We sent our child in on day one of potty training and she did fine. Her keyworker was happy- we had phoned them (she refused to wear a nappy at 2.5 because nappies are for babies and I am not a baby anymore). She had 5 accidents that afternoon and reduced them over the week!!

TartanMammy · 13/03/2025 20:14

Parents would usually take a few days off to crack it and nursery will take it from there. But they should be mostly dry before being sent to nursery in pants. It's better if you can send them in loose joggers that they can pull up and down themselves easily.

Saying that I was very lucky with my eldest and they had a group of boys who were all ready at the same time so they trained them together, but we still put the work in at home.

user0987637829 · 13/03/2025 20:15

Our nursery is a private nursery (so not a preschool) and they help out from the start. She goes 4 days a week so there is just no way I could get her full trained before she needed to go back in. I took a Monday off and did 3 days of it then sent her in with pants on. The fully support and take her the toilet every 30 mins. Naturally there has been accidents but they are totally fine with that and understand it's part of the process (and most of her room are in various stages of potty training anyway)

Looneytune253 · 13/03/2025 20:43

Well parents need to give it a good start (after discussing with nursery) and then take a minimum of a long weekend to make a start (preferably a week, it's easier on the child that way). Then keep nursery updated and they should support the little one as long as the parents have done the groundwork first.

LivingLaVidaBabyShower · 13/03/2025 20:50

If a child goes to nursery several days per week and doesn't really have more than a couple of days to start off potty training with their parents…

then the child’s parents should use some of their annual leave to potty train their own child.*

*which combined is approx 50 days!?!?

Hall84 · 13/03/2025 21:27

Oh crap book, the long Easter weekend going nowhere to get started and then dresses/joggers/leggings for easy access. We did a bank holiday after nappy refusing kicked in. Naturally there were a couple of accidents but nursery were really supportive and no big deal to get changed

Kaleidoscopic101 · 14/03/2025 11:14

The kids often do better at nursery than at home as they copy eachother and line up for toilet breaks etc...there isn't such a battle of wills as everyone else is going

Overthebow · 14/03/2025 11:18

Parents should start it off and then the nursery can help carry it on. But a child should be ready before starting potty training, they should be able to say when they need to go/take themselves to the toilet and be able to take their pants down. No nursery is going to have staff on hand to monitor all the time and deal with many accidents in the day.

Topseyt123 · 14/03/2025 11:28

I assume you mean a daycare nursery that you use for childcare while you are at work rather than a preschool.

I used a private daycare nursery when my DD1 was a baby many years ago now. They were very supportive of potty/toilet training although we had to do as much of the groundwork at home as possible, at weekends, in the evening etc. Sometimes taking time off work to work on it and encourage things along.

If you mean a preschool which the child generally starts at from 2.5 or 3 years then in my experience they will want them to be reasonably reliably toilet trained although will still help out with the odd accident etc. I seem to remember that in cases where it was taking longer then a nappy or pull-ups were still used. That didn't happen with my three girls as luckily they seemed to just plough on with it and trained very quickly.

Surferosa · 04/04/2025 08:40

My son goes to a private nursery 3 days a week but we always felt it was our job to be doing the hard work and not nurseries. But before we started potty training we discussed with them that we were starting and what their expectations were and what their policy was.

I took the first week off and my husband the 2nd week off so he had two full weeks to get used to the idea of the potty. Once back at nursery, he was still having accidents but they were happy to support with this. Yes it's a pain using annual leave but it's part and parcel of being a parent and something me and my husband knew we would have to do to dedicate our time to support the potty training properly.

Frostynoman · 04/04/2025 08:43

Are there any books, resources or methods that people can recommend?

SJM1988 · 04/04/2025 08:49

My DD goes to nursery full time. We started potty training in the summer when we knew we had a long weekend planned but she was back in nursery on the Tuesday-Friday.
Nurseries are use to it and ours encouraged us to do it when they had a group of them being potty trained. Its like herd mentality - they all go together at nursery.
It took my DD weeks to reliable go without being prompted. Although didnt have to many accidents as nursery asked every hour for the first few weeks

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