‘Ready for toilet training’

[JS1995]

I’m just curious what people think about children being ‘ready to be toilet trained’
my daughter is 2yrs and 2month. She understands what a potty is for. She will even play with her dolly and put it on the toilet, wiper etc.
she’s doesn’t really communication that she needs to go however, I think she will be one to hide it. Her speech is fantastic, speaking in long sentences and can communicate her need, tell me if she feels unwell etc.
I’m also not sure is she’s going 2hr without having a wee tbh. I’ve just not paid attention to that. But 2hr seems like a long time! I don’t even think so adult can do that 😂.
Im a first time mum and just wondering what other mums think about ‘being ready’. Did you wait for all of these signs or just some or just went ahead and if so what ages?

She sounds completely ready. People leave it far too late. My daughter wasn’t communicating that she needed to go — why on earth would she when she knew she had a nappy on? I led the potty training, not her. She was fully potty trained before 2, and for poos she was potty trained before 1.

you could just give it a go op. Every child is different, even siblings can be quite different in terms of readiness.

Your DD is the perfect age to start. I don't believe in this 'being ready' nonsense. Go for it when it suits you, the parent, between two and two and a half, when they're at the age when they want to please you and before they get too stubborn and don't want to cooperate. My lot were all done by two and a half, it took a maximum of a couple of weeks for them to be reliable, and the youngest got it in three days. This was in the 90s when it was really unusual for a child to still be in nappies at three. People leave it very late these days, it's laziness really.

My DD was potty trained for poos by 1 and out of nappies by 2. She could barely put two simple works together at two, and then went on to have intensive SALT in pre school/ reception.

This concept of being 'ready' to potty train, is madness. Every child poops and wees from birth, it is possible to introduce a potty from then, which is culturally normal in many countries, disposable nappies have not existed for much of humanity. So if course a 2 year old is 'ready'.

Sit her on a potty first thing in the morning, after every meal and at bed time, and bare bum around the house with easy access to the potty. Keep her entertained so she stays on it, praise her for any successes, and accept some failure and clean up without any drama. Persist at it, at she is definitely 'ready'.

Thank you for getting back to me. I find it amazing that some child were going at one. Mine was a little of a late walker, so I didn’t even cross my mind to try then. We’ve started a plan that I think will work for her. She’s really came into her girlie era and loves shopping, so we’ve taken her to buy her own underwear etc which she loved and had added excitement. I do work part-time and have time off really soon, so that’s when I’ve planned to go ahead with it.
I do also think that being ready to potty train is just crazy and planned to go ahead with it anyways. I just find it crazy that, that’s what the local health visitor advise.

Mine were trained at 18 and 21 months - they showed no potty-related signs but could both communicate well - that’s all that’s needed. At that age they couldn’t manage their clothes by themselves so I’d help them on to the potty/the toilet.

Night training is different though - my DS was in pull ups until 4 whereas DD was dry at night from 2.

Have just done this at three, after waiting for readiness. Which I now think is rubbish. We left it too long. It's a process, the 3 day stuff you read about is for a minority. DC1 took 2 months and we still have to remind him, and he had a minor regression last weekend.

Waiting until 3 meant he was much more resistant to it, very upset at the changes and found it hard.

I would recommend starting to add it into her daily routine. E.g. get up and sit on the potty for your first wee and every night before bed the same then see how she adapts. Then slowly build it into your day to day more.

Everyone said summer is the best time, but I disagree, as I prefer to be out and about and it's an added stress. Colder months when you're around the house and can get into a good routine worked best for us. Our DC does not enjoy being naked and we actually found they did better wearing nappies and using the potty for the first month was best for him, some prefer pants and others nothing. You'll figure out what works for yours.

@Momragei don’t think she will be dry overnight for a while to. She already does do morning before bath night or getting change etc.
Ive got time off soon, so I’m just going to do it then. She hate not wearing clothes and at the moment really loves her underwear and really excited to wear them. So I think I’m just going to have to stock up on underwear.

@JS1995 we used the oh crap method with both of our kids, and as I say they learned in less than a week with no regressions at aged under 2. In my experience it actually gets harder when the kids have more free will and are more set in their ways (the older they are).

Also, we didn’t do it gradually at all - we just went cold turkey with no nappies except for nap and bedtime from day 1. I think that is a lot clearer and easier for the kids to understand than doing it inconsistently or just once a day. I took a week off work to do it with DC1 who was 18 months and I did intensively focus on him for that whole time. With DC2 she was 21 months and we did it over a bank holiday weekend and sorted. DC1 has had one wee accident in his life, DC2 never.

However, everyone barring SEN is toilet trained in the end so there probably isn’t a right answer.

I don't believe in 'being ready' either. We just trained our recent 2-year-old with the Oh Crap! method like @Ifyouknowyouknowyouknow and it took a couple of weeks. He can't pull down his own trousers yet but he can say 'potty' when he wants to go and then we (or nursery) help him. He's four weeks in now and hasn't had a single accident for the past week. He wasn't that impressed at the whole concept initially, but we persevered and now he is very pleased with himself.

DGS is 2 and a month, he’s out of nappies. One day, when he was 22 months, he decided they weren’t for him anymore and that was that. He does still wear one at night but that’s fine.

I’m another who doesn’t believe in waiting until they’re ready. I think around the age of 2 is about right because after that children start to know their own minds and get stubborn. My two are nineties babies so they had to be out of nappies so they could start preschool at 2 and half, and special needs aside, the vast majority of children were.

It wasn’t something that I ever identified with my children. They were between 24-26 months when I potty trained them. None showed signs of being bothered by a wet / dirty nappy nor seemed to know that they were going / about to go (hiding or telling me etc).
I cracked on anyway and all were done and dusted (by day) within a few days. They were night trained about a month later.

Oh and re. stubbornness, we trained our older child a bit later (2 and 7 months) because that's when we had the time available. He was way more verbal and more confident about using the toilet, and picked it up quickly, but once he had the basics, he got very defiant about going when prompted, would say he didn't need a wee when he obviously did, then piss all over his shoes 20 minutes later. Obviously he did get through it but we felt at the time it would have been better to have seized the moment when he was younger and more biddable.

Another one who doesn't do the 'ready' bollocks. I always eye roll when I see posters on here talking about not being 'ready.'

small children need to be taught things. You wean from 6 months, they don't have any communication skills then to talk but we still teach them! A child learns from behaviour around them. Far too many capable children are going to school in nappies, not eating a decent diet and don't know what a book is.

go for it OP, we skipped the pot and went straight to the toilet. She was dry on her second birthday x

As soon as DD could sit up i started sitting her on the potty, so 5 months ish. By the time she was on solids at 6 months she was getting about 50% poos on the potty, which was 50% less weaning nappies to deal with!!

I don't think she was ever a fan of pooing in a nappy, even when she was tiny she frequently only pooped when in the car seat, either with the vibrations of the car or the movement if the pushchair. She stopped pooing at night from 2 weeks old (other than after vaccines). So i think that all went in our favour.

But it's definitely got nothing to do with their ability to talk or walk, and there really shouldn't be a need for game playing like choosing underwear. We don't apply that kind of tactic to any other normal developmental milestone. We certainly don't prevent children from trying to move until they are 'ready' to walk, and then try to bribe them in to doing it.

I would say she doesn't communicate when she needs to go because she hasn't needed to, she's been trained to go in a nappy. I don't buy into signs of readiness at all. Some of the signs can be taught, which to me suggests they're kind of meaningless.

On the Pampers website the signs are things like able to talk and dress themselves, which you absolutely don't need to wait for! You can do different elements of toilet learning at any age and adjust the amount of support you give them based on what they need. As an analogy, nobody is feeding puree until their kid shows signs of readiness to cook a meal and wash up the pots.

Did both my DD's between 1 and 1 and half, one was a bit early, one a bit later. They were walking and talking so why not?? I put them straight on the loo too no faffing around with pottys. Put them on regularly they get the idea.

I tried DS around 2, he wouldn't wear pants and completely refused to sit on the potty or toilet. Tried again every few months after that and it was a complete disaster every time. Oh the lengths I went to to try and get him trained! He was three when he finally decided he might entertain it. It turned out much later that he had Aspergers syndrome but I wish I hadn't put myself through all that and had just waited till he was 3.
He was never biddable though, weaning was also hell.

Parenting, for me, isn’t about removing excitement from a child’s experience — it’s about shaping a confident, happy child who feels supported as she learns. I genuinely don’t see how enthusiasm and pride are framed as drawbacks. A majority of a child learning is through play.
I was just simply sharing a positive experience, that contributed toward my child having a positive view on potty training.
I respect your approach and how successful this was for you. But ultimately, it’s about meeting individual children where they are.

We plan to use the same method! I’m glad to hear that’s others have had a positive experience with it!
I don’t believe in waiting till they’re ready either.
We would have started slightly earlier however, she had a fairly significant health issue, which then caused a delay.

Absolutely. Pampers have a VERY clear financial interest in making out you need to toilet train very late…

The readiness signs were made up to keep children in disposable nappies for longer.

They are ready for toilet training when you're ready for toilet training.

Agree you don't need to wait for lots of readiness signs. We also skipped the potty and used a toilet seat reducer with my DS which was great - we were able to use a folding one on public toilets about 3 days into training, so no carting a bulky travel potty around either.

Not sure that training earlier/later really makes that much difference with regression/stubbornness though. We had the same issue with insisting he didn't need the toilet and then having accidents shortly after. I think for some kids knowing how long is too long to hold on for is another skill to learn. They also need to develop the executive functioning skills to pay attention to internal signals during play and then interrupt something they are engaged with to use the toilet. For some kids that just takes a bit longer to click.

I'm not judging you as an individual for using that method to potty train an over two, at this stage you have to do what you have to do. But as a society we are being sold a lie for the financial benefit of the disposable nappy industry that kids need to wait and be 'ready', whatever that means, to do something that is a normal bodily function very very early in life. This is at the expense of the environment, at the expense of kids health (disposable nappies increase risk of UTIs), and in my opinion actually making more work for parents (i will have changed a tiny fraction of shitty nappies compared to the average parent!). This isn't fair, and it definitely isn't fair that health visitors support and encourage this approach.