We need your thoughts on late potty training

[rachel(mumsnet)]

BBC Radio Newcastle have asked us for our thoughts on This article featured today in The Mail. It claims that the average age of potty training is now three - four yrs and argues that there are big risks - both health-wise and psychologically in leaving it so late. There is also the question of why - are the nappy manufacturers to blame for creating more and more 'toddler-sized' nappies?

Other question put to us are:

What do mums think is an ideal age to get a baby out of nappies, or will it be a decision that varies with each child?

Do mums feel social pressure from others in their peer group or their own parents to get their kids out of nappies?

Any tips for getting kids out of nappies?

Many thanks in advance for your input.
MNHQ

I don't think nappy manufacturers are to blame - they are presumably filling a gap in the market.

To answer your other questions (imo)

1. Each child is different and therefore potty training will vary with each child, the perfect age also varies dependent upon the parents and what is important to them.

1. Yes, mums deffo feel social pressure to get their kids out of nappies, but they shouldn't.

1. nope. They will "get" it when they are ready to.

4 (I know you didn't ask four other questions, but I'm answering it anyway) The DM is scaremongering crap

What has changed in recent(ish) years is the extended family being on hand to share experiences of this kind of thing. Mums (and dads) don't have the wealth of experience to call on so don't necessarily know when they are "supposed" to potty train, also if you've been at work all day, when you get home you want to play with your toddler, not teach it to poo on demand.

There is waaaaaay too much to worry about without them giving us more stuff to think about

I think the pressure we are putting on children to become potty trained early is often the cause in them being 3 / 4 by the time they are fully trained. I worked in a playgroup with children from 21/2. The amount of mothers who came to us worried sick whether their child would be accepted if they weren't trained was ridiculous. One childs mother was that adamant about her becoming potty trained she badgered her constantly about whether she needed the toilet. In the end the child ended up holding it in and crying through the stress she was being put under. At the end of the day, every child is different and I don't see the big rush. I was totally relaxed with my daughter. I waited until she chose to use her potty which was around 27 months. I coninued using nappys at night time until she told me she didn't need them anymore. Was really simple and she's hardly ever had an accident since. I do think other mothers are a nightmare for putting pressure on each other. Especially those that go around bragging " he was dry from age 2 " !!! Reality Check, I doubt it, and if thats th case, good for you but so what ?? Got loads of tips but rambling on now so will shut up. Main piece of advice. RELAX. If you're stressed about the situation, your child will pick up on this and won't enjoy using their potty.

I'm with squonk each child will potty train when its ready and not before. my Ds was very easy to train when he decided to do it about 6 months after he'd shown signs he was able and i could have got him started. my DD wanted to get going earlier to be just like her brother,she was ready before i was prepared to start her. i have had friends who have tried earlier before their DC wanted to and it has taken longer because it has become an issue and a battle of wills. Mind you DD2 not so far off the whole potty training thing and will probably teach me all i have believed in is rubbish and will make my life hell to prove me wrong

xposeted agree with welsh too

I agree with squonk and welshlinz. I have 2 kids who have both potty trained at completely different ages.

I find the older generation (well my mum anyway) put the most pressure on to potty train early.

Well, as someone who has been trying to potty train my now 3 year old ds who shows absolutely no interest whatsoever in potty training, I am likely to be just a little defensive.

Having said that, I would love to know the DM's source for their claim that late potty training leads to dire physical and psychological consequences, so that I could see if there was even the remotest grain of scientific truth. Because it sounds like DM scaremongering shite to me.

All children are different. The age they will toilet train at is different. I feel a slight peer pressure to get ds out of nappies, but you know what, if I make more of a fuss about the whole toilet thing and force ds before he is ready and upset him, that I believe is likely to give him more lavatorial hang-ups than late toilet training.

The decision has to vary with each child.. and not with what other people think should be happening.. I was confidently told that DD would / should be out of nappies at 2 , as girls are so much quicker .. however she is 3 next month and in nappies.

Developmentally ,she is normal, but has been slow to eat, sit, crawl, walk and talk.. so i am not surprised she is slower to toilet train.

i am putting her on the toilet several times a day and doing lots of positive praise, but until she is physcially and physiologically ready and recognises she needs to wee /poo before it is coming out of her body, we are on a hiding to nothing

I don;t feel any social pressure as i know my child well enough to know that she will do it in her own sweet time. HV agrees with me.

they will go at their own pace. DS was 3 when toilet trained and was dry , day and night in one week as he was READY!!

i buy cheap pull ups and nappies from lidl.. she is still in size 4 / 4+ as she is petite... if nappies were not made big enough and children still needed them, mums would find a way around it

there is so much competitiveness in child rearing and so much heartache to be had, unecessarily, but forcing or pressing a child to do something before they are physically able.

should be by forcing, not but !

x-posted with welsh who expressed herself better...

the most hilarious thing about it , is that when DD does do something on the loo, we do big thumbs up and clapping! she cannot do thumbs up, so sort of cocks her forefinger at us, like a cheesy playboy would... and now, when i go to the loo, she claps me ,and announces 'well done, mummy do a wee wee, clever mummy, now wash hands..'

I read this piece of crap subjective journalism today (in a coffee shop, I wouldn't actually pay money for the DM) and I suspect it is a load of scaremongering rubbish.

You can toilet train your lo as early as you like but it will be you who is being trained to predict when the little darling needs to go. It is normal for children to train themselves (ie 'get it') at around 3, a bit later for some, a bit earlier for others. Stressing about it is a pointless waste of time.

And btw, not one child in my dd's pre-school class of 27 is in nappies. When she starts her infant school in September, out of the 90 children, a couple may well be still in pull ups but I suspect that is how it has always been.

Oh, and I love their conclusion: "In the meantime, the expert consensus is that parents need to be encouraged to potty train their children at 18 months."

Which experts say this?? As the mother of a nearly 17m old (as well as the 3 year old!) that is ridiculous! I might have liked ds1 to be potty trained before 3, buy the idea of starting to potty train ds2 now, when the git darling can't even bother himself to say mummy and daddy (though he will say tractor and calendar ) let alone "I need a wee-wee"..... Words fail me.

So if nappies at school is a problem, maybe the school starting age is really the problem?

Sorry no help, but an anxious soon to potty train mum of PFB, whom can stand up in the bath and accurately aim and pee on all his toys floating in the bath.

Nappies are much more 'efficient' than when my dbs and I were born which is one reason why our parents trained us earlier than in recent years (same goes for washing machines and tumble dryers). Disposable simply didn't exist when I was a baby (early 1960s).

WHen you decide to train your child does vary - on the individual child and on your circumstances. For example, when I was pg with my second I couldn't deal with pooey nappies anymore so I trained her at 2.5 - fortunately she got it in a week and was using the toilet full-time 3 months later. Ds was 3 and a bit when he was trained, again got it in a week, never used a potty BUT a year later will still not poo in the toilet.

Another issue is that her playgroup wouldn't change nappies so it was either train her or lose the place (and dd was as keen to go as I was for her to go!. I believe pre-schools can no longer discriminate on these grounds alone.

Did the Daily Mail not blame working mothers? It's usually our fault...I suppose they did, implicitly, by pointing the finger at nurseries, which obviously wouldn't be needed if we all stayed at home looking after our children (and potty training them at 18 months). This is the worst kind of journalism - based on anecdotal evidence they report "huge increases", which I note are not given any back up or justification. I'd like to see some statistics...is it really a problem on the scale they indicate?

I am highly amused at the idea of the average 18 month old being ready to be potty trained. Properly potty trained, to me, means that the child understand the sensation of needing to use the loo or potty, is able to communicate that need, hold on (if necessary) and understand in some way why it's considered important (i.e. has an aversion to being in a wet/dirty nappy and understands it's preferable not to be). Show me an 18 month old capable of all those things...I'm not disputing the fact that some 18 month olds are out of nappies, but I suspect strongly that the parents are trained to spot the signs and whip them to a potty. My friend had her son out of nappies by 12 months, but couldn't leave the house without a potty and a change of clothes until he was nearly 3.

To answer the other questions:

What do mums think is an ideal age to get a baby out of nappies, or will it be a decision that varies with each child?

Most that I know were trained between 2 and 3, though 3.5 isn't unusual. Surely it depends on the child - some may be ready sooner than others. My hunch (and it's no more than that) is that early and high pressure training is more likely to result in psychological problems in the long run.

Do mums feel social pressure from others in their peer group or their own parents to get their kids out of nappies?

There is pressure, I think it is (wrongly)seen as a developmental indicator. I ignored anyone engaging in competitive potty training.

Any tips for getting kids out of nappies?

Let them run around naked. They soon get the idea.

It would be interesting to know the average age in the days before disposable nappies, though.

My MIL insists that all the children born in her generation were toilet trained by two, because mothers got sick of doing the laundry. Maybe she's right .. but my son certainly wasn't ready until about 2.6.

I feel under no undue pressure. DD is interested in the loo and flushing her poos away when I empty her nappy but I'm expecting another baby so there is really little point in trying now and I expect she'll still be in nappies in a year. If they aren't at nursery, who cares when you potty train.

Unless the actual child is aware of them being unusual, it's just normal for them.

Besides, my child is naturally developing her own neurosis (she hates having dirty hands) without me attempting to distill others on her by prematurely insisting she controls her bladder and bowels!

Oh and DD is 19 months old. She will wee on command and now knows when she's pooing but that's a far cry from potty training!

Also frankly, I have no clue how to potty train other than read a book by SWMNBN and I'd rather not throw any money in her direction. All the other advice seems to involve holding babies over potties and hoping

not only do kids have to be physically ready but they have to be interested in using the potty. my ds (2.9) can hold his pee for ages but refuses to sit on the potty. so diapers it is for the time being.

all of his friends (who are younger by 3 or 4 months) are all trained so it does make me feel bad that he is behind. but i know there's not point in forcing him.

Oh God. An dI thought I already knew all the reasons to feel guilty. My boy is three and he bloody hates the potty. "No potty! No potty! No potty!" when I smile swwetly and say do you want to use the potty?

I'm afraid it isn't up to me. However, he is going to nursery in September so there will be an attempt at Gina Ford's crash course in potty training over the summer break. But.... it may or may not work. God I hope he doesn't go to school in nappies. But, he might have other plans.

Ha. chin up Sir Digby. My boy was 3 in May.

Mercy, I'm amazed a playgroup refuses to change nappies !! The children are only 2 and a half when they can start going. It's a huge thing for them to be seperated from their parents ( some for the first time sine birth ) without the added pressure of forced toilet training to be accepted into the place. Is there no other playgroups in the area without this kind of conduct ??!

sorry Mercy, just re-read your post. I noticeed this wasn't recent and they can no longer get away with this attitude.

Funnily enough, NICE just released guidelines on urinary infections in children - obviously looking at all the up to date evidence etc. As far as I can tell, potty-traing and lateness thereof does not get mentioned anywhere in it.

Dire health consequences my *rse. You'll always get a few so-called experts who'll rent-a-quote to rags like the DM but I'd love to see the hard evidence.

Liath - it must be the same dire health consequences that mean that if you haven't weaned your baby by week 18 he will never eat and die of starvation

My MiL thinks the DM is the gospel truth. Sadly I don't think she's alone.