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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.

Potty training 3 year old girl. How to send into nursery tomorrow?

56 replies

indecided · 05/07/2026 08:36

Started training 36 month old DD yesterday, she’s actually done very well and only had 3 wee accidents and one poo accident yesterday.
I was so worried she’d be difficult to train like my DS was a few years back but she’s surprised us so far!
Anyway, she started a new nursery last week (having been at another one since she was 1), and she’s settled in well, so I felt like it was a good time to get her potty trained but wondering what the nursery will think and how we send her in. Shall I just send in with pants on and say there you go! Or send in a nappy and explain that we want to potty train.
Am I over thinking this?

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
aberturret · 10/07/2026 13:57

Put her in knickers with a pull up over the top. She will know if she is wet.

MeetMeOnTheCorner · 10/07/2026 13:58

@Dovecare it’s only recently that anyone thought 2 was optimum age. It’s absolutely not. Potty training between 2 and 3 is normal because dc develop differently. They really don’t need to start at 2 when language might not be great or understanding of requirements, let alone any bladder control. It’s simply not great to push any child at just 2 and most observers are against trying too early and then getting upset. That can last for months and does no one any favours. However just before nursery start is too late.

aberturret · 10/07/2026 14:07

Looneytune253 · 05/07/2026 19:28

As a childcare provider I would find all this incredibly unfair. It’s definitely worth chatting to the carer ahead of time so you can make a plan together. No provider wouldn’t want to help the child and go
forward With their development BUT the least you could do is discuss it with them in advance so you can make a plan together. It’s very unfair to just show up in knickers. Personally I would suggest you keep her off a few days and really get to grips with it before sending her in. It’s not fair to spring it on them. I wouldn’t suggest stopping now that you’ve started but please put in the groundwork before you send her into the busier environment. If that’s a few days off that would be what’s best for the child. It’s also not recommended to have big changes together. I’m concerned the little one has had a change of nursery and then potty training in a short period of time.

Depends on the child and provider I suppose. Mine just refused to wear a nappy one weekend. Went barmy. No more nappies! Still lots of accidents but he was absolutely adamant. Had to call nursery first thing on Monday to say I would keep him off as I was worried they’d be annoyed, they just told me to send him in wearing pants with loads of changes and they’d see how he got on. Said they see it a lot with younger siblings who suddenly decide to refuse nappies.

indecided · 10/07/2026 17:44

Update!!

So I sent DD into nursery Monday with a pull up on (I did listen to the outraged comments), and I mentioned on drop off that we’d done the whole weekend at home and would like to start it at nursery soon too.
Picked her up Monday afternoon, was told she’d done a poo on the toilet, and asked to do it, so her key person said “bring her in in pants tomorrow”, so that’s what i did. All week she has done amazing, the odd accident where she’s missed the loo by a couple of seconds, no poo accidents and what’s even crazier is she’s gone dry overnight too. Her happy has been dry every morning and when she wakes up she does a massive wee on the toilet. I am in disbelief after my son who took 2.5 years to get dry. I know there will be more accidents yet but I guess my instincts weren’t completely wrong Sunday when I posted the original post. So they needed a bit of notice but the fact she was new there didn’t seem to be an issue at all, if anything I think they wanted to mould her into their toileting routine whilst it was all still new!

OP posts:
2chocolateoranges · 10/07/2026 20:39

@indecided that’s brilliant. Well done your little one,

any decent nursery will work with you even if you haven’t been potty training long.

StolenTeapots · 11/07/2026 00:18

That's fab op

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