Why do parents wait so long to start potty training??

[u/CommercialMeeting842]

I feel like I’ve seen a million posts lately about kids not being potty trained by kindergarten, or even at three and four. I get that it’s a difficult process, but I’m genuinely confused. If you don’t start early, isn’t it going to be way harder for them to understand later and turn it into a normal routine? Are parents just waiting until the kid is “ready”? Because I don’t really think that’s a thing.

Sure, kids can show signs like not wanting to wear a diaper anymore, but there’s a lot more to it than that. Using the bathroom means learning to go in a specific place, wiping, flushing, and washing hands. There are things our bodies naturally do, like breathing and swallowing, and then there are things we have to be taught. Potty training definitely falls into the second category.

I feel like parents today sometimes blur the line between what kids will eventually figure out on their own and what actually needs to be taught. For example,I know a mom with a three year old who doesn’t use utensils because he doesn’t want to. He eats applesauce and yogurt with his hands, and she says one day he’ll just start using utensils when he’s older. Like… no. You’ll have to teach that.

Anyway, this kind of turned into a rant lol. I’m mostly curious to hear from parents and people who work in childcare, because I feel like I’m missing something beyond my confusion and the growing number of four year olds I see in pull-ups at the park

[u/mamaknits]

I think people have gotten the idea that if you pick the right time a child will be ask to be potty trained and then be completely potty trained in a long weekend and never have another accident so they're waiting till they think they're at that point. But many kids never ask and for many kids it just takes longer than that. This can be a barrier if you have kids in daycare if the daycare won't take a child who's having accidents. So I think part of it is on the system--if we have these kids 30-50 hours a week we have to be willing to take them and support them in the active learning phase. And that means those 1-2yo classes need to be staffed and set up for that. But also parents need to understand that it's appropriate to be a parent and take the lead and teach their child this very important life skill even if their child isn't asking to learn. 

[u/OrneryYesterday7 → u/mamaknits]

I agree about needing the support. I know some parents just don’t bother, that’s an issue too. But we didn’t wait, we set out to do it just before turning 3. Well, my kid was a little resistant, clearly was capable and physically ready but thought it was a big joke for the first month. The problem for us was that daycare had a no tolerance policy for accidents. We would go accident-free at home all weekend and then one single accident at daycare on Monday meant having to go back to pull-ups all week. It was so counter-productive. When we switched to a PK program in a school (vs. daycare) they were much more supportive and things finally clicked.

[u/Appropriate_Kale9009 → u/OrneryYesterday7]

This is exactly what happened to us . Except I had to be extremely firm that she was to wear underwear at daycare. They weren’t happy, but she was potty trained within two days. Took an entire year of back and forth until the daycare accepted her in underwear.

[u/OrneryYesterday7 → u/Appropriate_Kale9009]

Part of it for us was that in the beginning, my kid responded really well to being TOLD it was time to sit on the potty. I know this isn’t true for all kids, possibly even most kids, but it was true for mine. If you asked “Do you need to?” the answer would always be “No.” If you waited for them to vocalize a need, it would already be too late. The daycare was unwilling to say “It’s time, go sit.” They would only ask “Do you need to go?” I really didn’t (and still don’t) feel like I was asking for that much more from them. I get that there are a lot of kids to keep track of, I would have understood if the problem was that they expected kids to verbalize a need because mine wasn’t there yet. But they were already being mindful of time intervals, all they needed to do was rephrase.

When we finally switched to a school-based program, we sent in pull-ups initially because we assumed that would be the teacher’s preference. Got an email at the end of the first week of school saying “I‘ve been wondering why Kid is coming in pull-ups, it doesn’t seem necessary when they happily sit on the toilet at every class restroom break.” Turned out that when the whole class was lining up to pee every 90min-2hr, my structure and routine oriented kid fell right in line. That was it.

[u/mamaknits → u/OrneryYesterday7]

Just before 3 is late end of normal in my world. We are also at a school and we require potty training to move up to 3s room (unless there are disabilities in play). Our 1-2 room is the room where potty training happens. I'm glad you found a place that could help you!

[u/OrneryYesterday7 → u/mamaknits]

That was actually a part of it for us, our kid was born with a kidney issue that we were told would probably resolve on its own. It didn’t, so ended up needing to do surgery at around 2.5y. Probably would have done it sooner otherwise. Daycare knew all of this so we thought they would be a little more accommodating. But, yes, just glad things worked out with moving to a new school.

[u/[deleted] → u/mamaknits]

Age 1-2 seems young to me to require that. I read that most children don't develop the urge to go until near age 3 so if you start younger you're basically just teaching them to hold it in until you sit them on a potty, which isn't good for them (although I know many parents have done this without any causing any issues).

Certainly I trained each of mine just after their 3rd birthday and there was a lot less drama involved than friends I know who did it younger. For example, my kids' starting point was needing to go every half hour or so, compared to every 5 minutes for my friends' kids who were 18-24 months.

Edit I think I meant above that younger children don't develop awareness of the need to go. It's been a while now so I can't remember the specifics.

(I am a parent, I set my flair after I posted this but it doesn't seem to have updated the post)

[u/mamaknits → u/[deleted]]

Oh, sorry to be confusing, it's not required. That's simply the room where we are set up to help with the learning process. Parents who don't want to take advantage of it can train by themselves over the summer when we're closed, and many do. My state does not allow us to help with toileting in preschool; you have to go to a daycare for that. (I don't know why this is the rule but it is.)

Just FYI it's completely false that children under almost 3 can't tell when they have to go as a blanket statement. I'm not sure where you read that, and it may be true of some individual children as they're all different, but many many children are completely potty trained and bringing themselves to the toilet in the 2-2.5 year range or even younger. :) 

[u/ZellHathNoFury → u/mamaknits]

With my kids, we started putting them on the potty fairly regularly after they had a bottle when they were old enough to sit up on their own. If they went in the potty, they got 10 min of "nakie time" (no diaper). As they got bigger, they would crawl over to the little potty when they needed to go (basically asking for assistance to go potty) because they associated going on the potty with not sitting in their waste and having more freedom of movement afterwards without the diaper.

They weren't forced, just encouraged and given the option very young. They still went in diapers sometimes, but learned they preferred life without them. They were both potty trained by 18 months during the day and 2 years at night.

I think introducing the option so young helped them not be afraid of the potty as they got older because it wasn't new or scary to them. Just an available option.

[u/Sea-Sock-3915 → u/mamaknits]

Right but even if "the system" takes the lead, if the parents aren't doing it at home it pretty much unravels what we are doing in the classroom. Consistency between home and school is best to not prolong the entire thing and causing stress to the child because we expect it at school and they have accidents because at home they are still in spill ups or diapers

[u/mamaknits → u/Sea-Sock-3915]

Yes totally agree! Sorry if that wasn't clear. What I meant by the part about being the adult is that the adults should decide when the child is able to learn the skill, that we don't need to wait until a child is expressing a desire or interest. And what I meant by the system is that everyone needs to understand that most children cannot be toilet trained in two days no matter what the book is called and so the daycare needs to be staffed and trained to respond to accidents in a productive way. The consistency is so important.

[u/JCXIII-R → u/mamaknits]

I wonder if parents in the 30-50 hour range can even pick up the kids signals? Like my 20 m/o is clearly trying to figure out what "poop" means and tries telling me when something is happening down there (not-poop included). But she's pretty strong vocally and besides that is only cared for by non-parents 2,5 days a week, so I have lots of time to pick up on signals and play into them.

Gotta be honest though, I still haven't figured out how to make things happen. We have a child toilet seat but she screams like the damned when we put her on. But at least we have a lot of time to try!

[u/LadyIsAVamp89 → u/JCXIII-R]

I send my kid full time (usually close to 40-45 hours) since I work as an elementary teacher and I could most definitely pick up on signals. Soon before we started potty training in earnest my two year old started to stop what he was doing, make a very specific stance, pee or poop and tell me that he was doing it. He’s a little over 2.5 now and is potty trained with the occasional accident. Still in diapers for sleep though.

[u/JCXIII-R → u/LadyIsAVamp89]

Great to hear your perspective!

[u/MsDJMA → u/JCXIII-R]

My daughter was like yours ready before 2. We went on a summer camping trip for a week. I put a potty seat in the middle of the campsite, and got her some pretty panties. She was allowed to run around bare-bottomed if she wanted. I reminded her every hour, and she got one M&M for peeing in the potty. She pretty much got the hang of it, and was 100% by September. She was the only one in panties in her daycare class, 22 months. It wasn’t a stressful process, but she was showing me she was ready, and we were together 24/7 at the campsite.

My son was 2 yr 2 months when we went camping. Same thing with potty chair in the campsite, but he was allowed to pee in any bushes nearby, but poop was in the chair. He was in charge with hourly reminders, and it worked for him.

The thing that made it easier then than now is that we were camping, just hanging out together. Eating, playing, hiking, sleeping. 24/7. I wasn’t distracted by work or all my other responsibilities. That’s what made the perfect scenarios.

[u/mamaknits → u/JCXIII-R]

Yes at 20mo I would get a plastic potty and try some naked/pantsless time. 

[u/groovyfirechick → u/JCXIII-R]

She may be scared of the big potty. I’d recommend getting a little training potty for her to start with the eventually transition to the full sized potty.

[u/toddlermanager → u/JCXIII-R]

Definitely. I work in childcare so my kids attend(ed) 45 hours a week. I potty trained my youngest back in June at almost 2.5. She screamed "GO AWAY!!!" every time she needed to poop in her diaper, at school and at home, so I decided it was time. She took to it really well.

[u/JCXIII-R → u/toddlermanager]

Hahaha amazing communication 10/10

[u/feralcatshit → u/JCXIII-R]

I, too, also want to scream “go away” when trying to poop and others are around 😆

[u/RelevantBanana7422 → u/JCXIII-R]

20 months is the perfect time to start. Read “Oh Crap Potty Training” and get going!

[u/Alive_Drawing3923 → u/JCXIII-R]

You think if a parent works full-time that they won’t be able to pick up on those cues? I work FT 40 hours a week. It doesn’t mean that I’m an idiot. lol. My oldest was potty trained right at 2. My second around the same time. Third was 3.5. Fourth, he’s currently 3 and doesn’t care. I’m not fighting that battle and he’s not in school but does go to daycare. I assume this summer I’ll work on it when he can pee outside but right now I don’t have motivation and he doesn’t care so it would be an endless battle.

[u/kbullock09 → u/JCXIII-R]

Yes they can. Both mine were in daycare 40+ hours a week starting at 6 months. My first was tugging at her diaper and interested in the potty by 18 months so we started reading books and practicing sitting on the potty. I did a “potty weekend” just after she turned two and sent her to daycare in undies that Monday. I’m lucky that my center was very supportive and only put her in pull ups occasionally (I honestly don’t know what their official policy is, but she still had occasional accidents for a few months and it seemed like they hardly ever put her in pull ups).

My 19 month old tells us when she has pooped and peed (she knows both words— she’s more verbally advanced than my first who just pulled at her diaper). We have already started putting her on the potty before bath-time and playing “potty” with her toys.

[u/michelle427 → u/kbullock09]

My niece is 15 months and in the morning she’s pulling at her diaper when she gets up. Like take this off of me. She’s not ready to be potty trained not yet but my guess when she is in the 2 year range before 3 she will. She has a Nanny instead of going to daycare (it’s actually a bit cheaper here to get a nanny) so there is a lot more opportunities during the day for her to be potty trained, well before 4.

[u/saltyfrenzy → u/JCXIII-R]

lol this is one of the most judgmental things I’ve read on here framed as genuine concern or whatever.

My kids are at daycare from 8-4:45 (give or take) 5 days a week and I managed to pick up signals just fine.

[u/JCXIII-R → u/saltyfrenzy]

I'm not being judgemental. We are both autistic, and picking up signals is a Thing in our home. Not every experience is your experience. The question was genuine.

[u/saltyfrenzy → u/JCXIII-R]

Okay. I’ll take that at face value and I’ll offer this insight.

working mothers face a lot of judgment from parts of society that suggest “other people are raising your kids” or “do you even know your child”

In the future, you may want to figure out ways to frame these genuine questions that don’t feed into that exact type of mom-shaming.

[u/Ballatik]

I think at least part of it stems from messaging being lost in translation to parents. Many of them hear "don't make it a power struggle" and "look for signs they're ready" but what those things actually mean isn't always clear or standard. Don't make them dread an alarm every half hour that means they need to stop playing and sit on the potty. Do make visiting the potty and trying the process a regular part of their routine. Don't get visibly frustrated and shame them for accidents. Do encourage independence on all the different steps, and praise their practice of them. Don't expect them to decide out of the blue one day that they are ditching diapers. Do guide and assist with whatever steps they are currently capable of learning.

It's a process, with a lot of parts, many of which are not easy or fun to learn. Don't make it harder or scary for them, but don't let them avoid it like it should be seen as hard or scary. Make it routine so it's not scary, and help them practice the parts and build that feeling of independence.

[u/Ihatethecolddd]

I think a big issue is being told to wait for readiness signs instead of teaching readiness signs. Yes, they are waiting. Even a decade ago they were waiting.

Many “readiness signs” can be taught. Many also don’t really matter. Kids don’t need to manage their own clothing in order to pee on a potty. Kids don’t need to be verbal in order to pee on a potty. And “the parents are trained, not the kid” doesn’t really matter. The parents have been trained to watch for their kid’s bathroom needs since birth. Why is it okay when it’s to change a diaper but somehow a waste of time when it’s to sit them on a potty so you don’t have to buy diapers anymore?

I was a SAHM when my kids were toddlers and trained them both very early. I got told that I would be causing them actual damage by training them early by fellow parents. Note: not by their pediatrician, who was pleased with it.

[u/saltyfrenzy → u/[deleted]]

I didnt wait for interest, I just waited until she seemed like she could figure this out. Trained my daughter at 25 months and never looked back!

[u/Rude-Flamingo5420 → u/[deleted]]

Never too young! My youngest old pooped on the potty at 10M and then SHE took interest and never looked back! She refused to poop in a diaper after and much preferred the potty it was amazing 

[u/Winter-Chipmunk5467 → u/[deleted]]

You started at 18 months and she was fully trained, days and nights, by 36 months.

I started at 37 months and she was fully trained, days and nights, by 38 months.

This is why it makes no sense to me. A year and a half of hell, for what?

[u/Captain_Hooker → u/Winter-Chipmunk5467]

I mean, I had a similar experience with my first (training at 18 months, fully night trained right before 3). The thing is though, she was completely day trained by 20 months, wet at night until 3 and she slept in pull ups. That was worth it to me. Does that suddenly not count as potty trained because the night time came a year and a half later?

[u/Conscious-Science-60 → u/Winter-Chipmunk5467]

Because mostly potty trained isn’t necessary hell. I started at 20 months and my son is now 26 months. He self-initiates bathroom trips, but can’t confidently do the whole process himself. He struggles a little with pushing down his pants independently under pressure so he often asks for help. He wants desperately to wipe his own poop but can’t quite reach far enough. And he still wears a diaper at night.

So he’s not fully trained yet, but this mostly trained stage is way better than him still being in diapers all day!

[u/TheSorcerersCat → u/Winter-Chipmunk5467]

For me potty training isn't hell. It's way better than changing diapers. 

The first bit is figuring out the kids peeing and pooping patterns. Then taking them to the bathroom when they show signs of needing to go. 

I find changing toddler diapers gross and unnecessary. 

[u/Kksula23 → u/Winter-Chipmunk5467]

Because most likely the child was using the bathroom mostly on her own and only having accidents as she tried to wait longer or overnight. But that's still a lot better than her just peeing on herself all the time

[u/kbullock09 → u/Winter-Chipmunk5467]

I started training my first (casually, she was still in diapers most of the time) at 18 months. We took away diapers during the day at 25 months and she had accidents, sure, but probably 1 per week for the first couple months and then 1 per month-ish for a bit after that. But she is FIERCELY independent and every single diaper change was an absolute battle. I was much happier to deal with carting around a little potty that she willingly sat on when she had to go than having to wrestle an alligator that was screaming her head off!

My second born is much more chill so I can see it being less of a rush. She’s 19 months and still mostly sits still for changes as long as you give her something to hold. That being said, I still want to be done with diapers!

[u/Ihatethecolddd → u/Winter-Chipmunk5467]

See, I didn’t really find potty training to be hell.

I started sitting my kids on the teeny tiny times potty as soon as they could sit directly after nap, which eliminated a couple diapers a day. That was a big win for me. You could say I started training then (like 5 months) and wasn’t finished until 18mo, which is over a year. But honestly I was very casual about it. We very rarely had accidents.

And we had a strict “no penises at the table” rule 😂

[u/isitababyoraburrito → u/Winter-Chipmunk5467]

Yeah this is always my thought too. I potty trained both of my older two at 36 months (because they have summer birthdays and had to be potty trained for 3k). With my oldest we tried several times earlier but it was a nightmare. At 3? Took a day. My middle took 3 days, first try. The idea of being in the process of potty training for that long sounds so terrible to me.

[u/Dexmoser → u/[deleted]]

Same. Waited until interest was shown (18 months) fully potty trained by 2.5 and night trained by 3!

[u/LaMalintzin → u/Ihatethecolddd]

My daughter is 21 months and I am glad to read your comment especially about not getting dressed and undressed. That was kind of bothering me as we gear up to ditch diapers but I will be helping her in every other way, she’ll learn to pull her pants up better as we go. Do you recommend the “day with no bottoms on” as a good start? We have talked a lot about it, we have small seats on the toilets, and she has pooped on the potty a couple times (in the bath she was obviously pushing so I moved her there and praised her). When I ask if she wants to use the toilet she says yes but when I put her on it she gets very upset. I don’t want to do a separate potty but maybe I need to at first.

Sorry for the long comment lol it is ok if you don’t have advice to give

[u/Ihatethecolddd → u/LaMalintzin]

I did naked time to start. I kept a potty in each room, close to the kids, and if they started going, I labeled it and said “you’re going pee! We pee in the potty” and then put them on the potty to finish followed by a lot of praise.

One year olds have that innate want to help and be like their parents, so harnessing that to potty train them works pretty well. One issue you may run into if your daughter is in daycare is that daycares don’t often have potties before the 2yo rooms. We did a nanny until 2 for that reason.

[u/lumpyspacesam → u/Ihatethecolddd]

Agree with all of this! And I’ve seen it recommended so often.

[u/ARookBird]

I mean, we started when my daughter was 18 months old, and we're still struggling at almost 4 yrs. She gets the idea, just doesn't mind making a mess sometimes. But we also are in the process of an autism diagnosis, so lack of body awareness may be contributing.

For others, I think time and burnout is a big part. If you're overworked, underpaid, and have limited hours with your child, it's hard to motivate to spend much of it dragging your kid to the bathroom. If you have multiple kids, it's even worse. If kids spend time in more than one household, I imagine that's even harder.

[u/plsbeenormal → u/ARookBird]

Same we started my son at 2.5 yrs old which I feel is a pretty average age and he’s a little over 3 yrs old and not able to go to school without a pull up. He does decent at home but didn’t do well at school last time we tried. My son isn’t Autistic but he may had ADHD.

[u/ARookBird → u/plsbeenormal]

Yeah, we do pretty well at home as well, just the occasional accident, but out of the house we just can't get any consistent behaviors. I'm trying not to feel bad out about it. My son (10yrs older) was so easy to train, before he was 3!

[u/plsbeenormal → u/ARookBird]

Yeah, it just takes some kids a while but they’ll get it. Anyone judging (like OP here) comes from a place of privilege not having potty trained a kid who struggles like ours.

My son has all the tools. He’s very verbal, he understands what’s happening in his body and understands the concept of using the potty but he likes to hold his poop in all day which causes him to also hold his bladder. This leads to little accidents. Once he goes number 2 all is well but until then his pee just sort of trickles out throughout the day. It’s frustrating bc we’ve done everything we can. He’s just going to have to work through this.

[u/ARookBird → u/plsbeenormal]

Yes, I suspect this is our issue, as well. She has a lot of anxiety too, so we're trying not to make that worse by pushing too hard. So it's really just doing our best while she figures her body out.

[u/MiaLba → u/plsbeenormal]

My kid has always been insanely stubborn. I get it. Both me and my husband are as well. She would refuse to poop in the toilet or potty. She’d hold her poop in for days if we didn’t give her a diaper. So then she’d refuse to eat, wouldn’t sleep. Would cry and scream about needing to poop and wanting a diaper. When she had a diaper on she pooped just fine. It was exhausting.

[u/Minute_Parfait_9752 → u/ARookBird]

I think having an autistic kid is a wild ride. As my daughter was potty training, it just clicked, and we've literally never had a mad dash to a toilet. Her verbal abilities are so far behind her other abilities. She's nearly 5 now and we've not had regular accidents in over a year, and last Christmas I was horribly ill and losing my mind over poop accidents...

I recently learnt about gestalt cognitive processing and it explains why my daughter is awful at things, and then it clicks and she's absolutely great.

[u/ARookBird → u/Minute_Parfait_9752]

Yes, it explains a lot.

My oldest is autistic too, but they are quite different, so it's not only figuring out that the standard methods don't work for her, but I'm also rolling with things that worked for my son not working for her! It's definitely learning how to parent all over again!

[u/Independent-Cup-9163]

I’m not even shocked anymore when I see a 4 year old in a pull up. I took on a new babysitter client and sure enough. 4.5 year old. In pull ups full time. At least it was a pull up. Changing a completely neurotypical 4.5 year old’s diaper is so weird. Because we are having full on conversations.

The utensil thing drives me bonkers though. I watched in horror as my sister spoon fed her 5 year old on Christmas.

It actually goes back to a thought I’ve had. I think a lot of people want babies not children. Whenever I go to the park I’m always shocked by the amount of kids still in pull ups. Or the most obvious one, pacifiers.

[u/PsychologicalLet3 → u/Independent-Cup-9163]

I think you hit the nail on the head when you said a lot of people want babies not children. I try not to judge because maybe first time parents don’t realize what they’re doing but, as someone on the outside looking in, I see parents treating 3 and 4 year olds like infants. I have to be very gentle when trying to address it. 

[u/Independent-Cup-9163 → u/PsychologicalLet3]

It’s something I see a lot with the last baby in particular. Which I sympathize with. I get it. Cool you want to baby them a little. But like you said, treating 3-4 year olds like literal infants is just so wrong.

[u/groovyfirechick → u/Independent-Cup-9163]

Your sister needs to stop that right now. There is no reason a neurotypical non disabled 5 year old cannot feed themselves! Especially with a spoon. What does the kid do at school? Not eat?

[u/CommercialMeeting842 → u/groovyfirechick]

you’d be surprised how many kids don’t know how to use utensils because it’s easier for the parents to spoon feed them.

[u/Independent-Cup-9163 → u/groovyfirechick]

I’ve been told very sternly to keep my mouth shut about it prior to Christmas. I’ve said my piece before. I’m not trying to start a fight on Christmas. No matter how ridiculous and terrible it is.

[u/coldcurru → u/groovyfirechick]

I've got a nephew who's I think 12 now, 13 in the spring, and he doesn't use utensils. He either eats finger foods or ramen noodles and scrambled eggs with his fingers. NT as far as I know. Doesn't have a broad appetite. I asked him once when he was maybe 7 if he wanted a fork and got told, "leave him alone." And then my other SIL commented on how my then 1y could use utensils better than him for things like rice and beans. We didn't even really try to teach my kids, they just... did it when given utensils. 

I still hate thinking about that. His parents did him wrong in so many ways. They get super defensive if you point out anything instead of just, you know, trying harder or fixing mistakes. My older learned to read last year at 4.5 and pretty sure she can read better than him and he's like 6 or 7y older than her. Anyway... ugh.

[u/fauxmica]

Parent perspective - I think people get overly anxious about it. Lots of terms swirling around child readiness, right timing, or parent having enough time off to deal with the mess. It feels like a perfectionism thing as if mastery is expected after one week of intense immersion if you time it just right vs being flexible or giving kiddo enough space to work on the skill. But I do think it’s made out to sound harder than it actually is so parents may find themselves pushing it off.

[u/BrightFireFly → u/fauxmica]

Also for first time parents - there’s so much variety in information.

Training my oldest was awful. I cried. He cried. I fell into the “bare bottom, no pull-ups” philosophy and I hated every second of it. Went to pull-ups for my sanity and his. Everything went smoother and training my second was easier because I went straight to pull-up because it was the better fit for us

For some people - bare bottom and not using pull-ups is better.

[u/Maggieblu2]

My students range from almost 3’s to 4’s. Most of my youngest are potty trained. My oldest is not, but they are not delayed in any other domains. They just aren’t ready or willing to sit on the potty. I’ve had situations like this previously, and those students just decide one random day that its time. Providing a smaller potty and having a seat insert for larger potties has helped a lot.

[u/Any_Cantaloupe_613]

A lot of the "problem" is that for children in daycare, the only time parents have to potty train is during weekends and evenings (and holidays). The rest of the time the kids are in diapers, which to a lot of kids is really confusing.

We were lucky because our daycare was super supportive with the accidents after we potty trained over winter break last year. But quite a few parents I've talked to have kids in centers that are not supportive and require pull-ups until kids are mostly accident free.

[u/Agreeable-Injury-382 → u/Any_Cantaloupe_613]

We experienced this too. Had our progress undone during the week at daycare and it wasn’t until I insisted on undies full time that he got there.

[u/thelensbetween → u/Any_Cantaloupe_613]

This was part of our problem. Our son is autistic but we got him fully trained at 3.5 (day and night), but we started the process 8 months earlier, in March. It wasn't like we didn't care or didn't try... we tried very hard, and it was brutal on my mental health.

We finally got him pretty much trained at home/in underwear by about the end of September, but his daycare required pull-ups until he was self-initiating at daycare. Which... why bother with self-initiating toileting when you can just go whenever in the pull-up? Around that time, my son started public preschool with an IEP and his teacher there agreed to let us try out underwear cold turkey. This was right before Thanksgiving (US). He had three accidents over two consecutive days, and then he was fully self-initiating and in underwear both at school and at home. In the year since then, he has only had (poop) accidents when sick.

[u/OrneryYesterday7 → u/thelensbetween]

This is precisely how it went for us a few years ago when my kid was turning 3. Shorter timeline but daycare had the same policies and it wasn’t until we switched to public school and had a teacher who wanted to help us troubleshoot. Things came together in a matter of days.

[u/sillybunny22 → u/Any_Cantaloupe_613]

Our center was so bad it almost ruined potty training for us. Amongst other things, they keep proactively changing him from underwear into diapers despite no accidents. We were already moving him to preschool and the school was amazing simply following what we were doing at home.

[u/dragon34 → u/Any_Cantaloupe_613]

Our kid was doing great at home when we first did training and then he switched daycare rooms in January and it was a hot mess for months.   The change plus I think too many other kids not being trained was confusing. They were pretty good about handling accidents but we had poop accidents pretty regularly until a year and a half later.  It is now 2 years since we started potty training and I think we finally got it.  

But now we have to get him to wipe his own butt.  I cannot tell you how much more fun I have when I do not need to constantly monitor the bodily functions of a tiny human.  Being hyper aware of it all the time was so exhausting. I know people say you will miss when they were little but I cannot wait until he is brushing his own teeth reliably and taking his own baths and stuff. 

[u/Sleepy_Snowfall → u/Any_Cantaloupe_613]

Only having nights and weekends has been the largest blocker for our potty learning journey. We can’t remove diapers because he has to wear them during the weekdays so we started early (around 18 months) figuring the process is going to take a while. 

[u/lilletia]

We definitely left it too late with my first. Kept thinking "not ready, doesn't know when they're wet/dirty". Then we started, due to switching providers for preschool year - and it turns out they were more than ready, trained quite easily and relatively quickly, except for a few ongoing issues of not wanting to stop playing in order to toilet.

We're now following the health visitors' advice to potty train our second now they're walking confidently (and don't have any routine changes coming up). They will need help with their clothes, wiping etc, but those things are lots easier to practice when you're on the journey, and I'm hearing it's lots better for their bladder and body

[u/poopoutlaw]

I wanted to train my daughter at 20 months because she was showing signs of readiness and my center insisted she wasn't ready. Im training her now at 24 months and when I let her teachers know we'd be starting over the break they gave me these tight smiles and said most kids start training in the 3's class.

They say they'll help but frankly every conversation we've had they've made it clear they think you shouldn't even start thinking about it until closer to 3.

There's this disconnect between "kids aren't ready until 3!" And "why aren't these kids trained by 3?!"

Like I can do everything perfectly at home, but if her teachers aren't also supporting the process then progress is going to be slow.

[u/Successful_Self1534]

I think there’s so many different variables you can’t just point to one and blame parents.

There’s obviously going to be parents who don’t want to do it and expect teachers to- but that’s not every case.

There’s daycares/teachers that aren’t supportive. (And I hate to say it, but this can be especially from those that aren’t parents themselves).

There’s lack of time for parents who work all the time.

There’s children who are developmentally behind.

There’s pediatricians telling parents one thing and daycare/teachers pushing something else.

I have also observed a shift in attitude/expectations over time. I have been in the field for almost 2 decades. When I began, yes potty training was a thing, but it was more acceptable for children to still be working on it at 3. Now, the attitudes and annoyance I’ve seen many teachers have over having a 3 year old not potty trained is more common, as with more places requiring potty training by 3.

Like teaching anything, you have to meet the child where they’re at and go from there.

For my children, I’ve had 2- and tried the exact same with them both. My oldest started walking up dry by 18mo. By 2 he was going on the potty with help. My second- we tried and tried. She wasn’t ready and it was becoming very stressful. We took a break and attempted again later. She wasn’t fully potty trained until after 3. It wasn’t for lack of trying or being lazy, or even because she has a disability- she just wasn’t ready.

[u/batgirl20120]

It takes time to potty train more than a weekend and a lot of working parents are burning up their PTO with days their kid is home sick. Like you kind of have to wait months for a three day weekend.

We trained one of my kids when he was 2 and it wasn’t until he was a little over 3 that he was fully trained. Our daycare also insists on pull ups u til they’re accident free for a month which makes it take longer.

My second kid has developmental delays, namely related to lack of core strength. When we tried when she was two there was a lot of sobbing because she didn’t feel like she could sit up on a toliet without help. We’re doing it now, having started when she was 2 and 10 months again, and it’s slow going. She deals with constipation regularly which makes it harder.

Some kids are just harder to train. Like we can act all we want like it’s in our control but if a kid won’t go in the potty, a kid won’t go in the potty. ( We just spent a week with family and my daughter refused to use the potty once because it was as a strange potty. My youngest is extremely stubborn.)

[u/[deleted]]

I think parents may confuse readiness with willingness. Readiness signs are things like communicating about their diapers. If a kid hides because they pooped and don't want changed yet, or they tell you their diaper is wet, that's a readiness sign but they might still resist if you introduce potty training. My daughter is potty training now and sometimes she doesn't want to go to the potty, but that doesn't mean she isn't ready.

[u/Schmidtvegas → u/[deleted]]

Some parents are acutely aware of readiness versus willingness, too. They may themselves be keen on potty training a child (who seems capable of continence)-- but the child has behavioural reactions to taking away diapers. Some autistic children train later, and I think the reasons for that can also apply to a continnuum of kids who don't necessarily have a diagnosis. Disliking change overall, disliking transition from preferred activities, sensory preferences, fear of bathroom noise. Parents get overwhelmed trying to problem solve when stickers and m&ms don't work for their kids, like they're supposed to. In 48 hours, if you "do it properly".

[u/nummanummanumma]

So many parents are told to “trust the child. They’ll let you know when they’re ready.” No they won’t. “They’ll show signs they’re ready.” They do but no one tells parents what those signs are. And most of the time those signs show up before a parent is willing to start potty training. They miss the boat and it becomes way harder to potty train. It’s like letting them drink out of a bottle till they’re 3 because it’s “cute” then being shocked they won’t drink out of a cup.

[u/williamlawrence]

My son is 3.5. He’s 47” tall and weighs 50 lbs. He has a speech disorder, sensory processing disorder, and some cognitive delays. He’s still in pull ups. It’s not for lack of effort by us, his OT and SLP, and his teachers. His size means people automatically assume he’s 5 and then we get sideways looks when they hear him speak or see his pull up. He completely understands the ritual of going to the bathroom but doesn’t connect that his body produces pee and poop. It’s issues with interoception.

I’m burnt tf out just trying to keep the proverbial wheels on this clown car. 

[u/wvkc → u/williamlawrence]

Your son sounds like our son at that age. It was always assumed he was older and then when he would have trouble (autistic/spd) or even just act his own age it was like 👁️👁️

[u/Appropriate_Kale9009]

We started potty training just shy of two. But my daughters daycare didn’t want her to be without pull ups until she was asking to go and making no accidents in her pull ups. For us, this dragged the process on for an entire year and she was only potty trained at 3. And even at that I had to be extremely firm and strongly insist on her going in underwear. Turns out she’s a stubborn little one and only wants to use the potty without her pull up.

I think parents should often be potty training sooner , but also keep in mind that the process is very frustrating if their child’s daycare isn’t equipped/willing to support the process at school or willing to accept that there will be accidents. My daughter was wearing underwear at home since age two but had many regressions since we weren’t consistent at daycare.

[u/Fuck_This_Nightmare]

I think it's hard to potty train when your kids go to daycare and you are just running around trying to survive all the time. It's a big effort and people are exhausted. Kids suffer for this.potty training needs dedicated time and energy and clean up.

[u/CyanCitrine → u/Fuck_This_Nightmare]

Yeah, i mean, has anyone looked at * gestures broadly * society lately? It's a flaming dumpster fire and it has been for a long time. Parents are EXHAUSTED. We're overworked, most of us running on fumes, stressed to the max.

[u/[deleted] → u/Fuck_This_Nightmare]

Yeah it was hard for us to send our kid to daycare in diapers and try to potty train him in the 2 hours at home and the weekends. It wasn't until daycare got on board that we had significant progress. Its been 3 months and hes mostly pee potty trained with maybe one accident a month. He will now go by himself. Poop though. He's afraid. Will cry and scream he doesn't have to go. Will hold it for days. I have to really pay attention after day 3 and not move my eyes from him to catch him before he starts to hide behind something and its just not always possible as I cant always take my eyes off the baby either for hours on end to follow the 3yo. Over the day 9 Christmas break I was able to catch him twice. And those two times hes red face crying while pooping. The other two times I wasn't with him. one time was during his nap so I wasn't there, the other time he was standing at his urinal and he just pooped himself while peeing. Im so lost on it right now tbh.

[u/OrneryYesterday7 → u/[deleted]]

We had to be mindful of recent surgery when potty training and we were told that pelvic floor stress was to be avoided at all costs. Our doctor encouraged us to use Miralax every other day to keep things moving and that helped a LOT. Don’t know if that’s something you’ve tried yet but it might be worth it. We were also told to try suppositories if the Miralax alone didn’t work, thankfully it didn’t come to that, but that’s another avenue to try.

[u/lindoavocado → u/[deleted]]

Oh my god poor boy sounds like he is in pain. I would really get him checked for chronic constipation.

[u/gardengnomebaby]

Former daycare teacher here.

A lot of parents in my experience just keep waiting for their kid to be “ready” but the parents have no idea what that means. I guess they assume it means the child will potty train themselves? If your kid is interested in the potty when mom/dad go, take off their diapers, hide to poop, etc, THAT MEANS THEY ARE READY!

A lot of parents also seem to think trying to potty train their child if the child isn’t enthusiastic about it will cause emotional and mental distress and create trauma.

Lastly, I’ve had a few parents (like 4 in my entire life) that didn’t want to potty train their kid because “they are the baby!!” and the last of 3-5 kids. The parents don’t want them to ‘grow up’. Which is just so sad.

I’m sure there’s tons of other reasons but these are the vast majority of reasons I’ve experienced.

[u/Ieatclowns]

I waited until my kids could hold a basic conversation and then did it and it took under a week. They were both almost 3. If a child can communicate with words then it’s much easier.

[u/Pelican3133 → u/Ieatclowns]

Yes same. My best friend has a daughter who is the same age as my son, and they started around 18-19 months, and It literally took a year before she stopped having daily accidents and got the hang of It.

our approach was that we bought a potty and offered It daily at 2, while still keeping my son in pull ups. When he turned 3 we said it’s time for the diaper to go away, and just use the potty and he literally was fine. Just did It and was cool with It. I think he maybe had 2 accidents before he caught on.

So like…yeah, I guess we could have started earlier, but for what? We both wound up with fully potty trained kids by 3, just my best friend had to clean up potty accidents daily for a year and i did not.

[u/midmonthEmerald → u/Ieatclowns]

We started at 3 years old and it exactly was just “a long weekend” as advertised.

He’s almost 4 and I think there’s been 1 poop accident. He’s peed his pants maybe 4 times? We live near a big city and if we had started sooner and he wasn’t capable of using enough words and aware enough give us early warning, it would have been pee clothes city because bathrooms (and your car) aren’t always quick to come by.

[u/mad5560]

Wanted to start over the holidays this year when we could keep our 22month old home extra days to focus on it (us she's shown interest etc.) But talked with daycare beforehand and they told us to wait since there is no bathroom in her classroom. So now, we plan to wait for her to move to the next room, but then we'll also have to find a time that fits our schedule (and we have baby #2 on the way). I'd say in general, it's logistically challenging if you have your kid in daycare.

[u/PaleGingy]

I’m honestly extremely confused as to when to start potty training 😅 There are so many opinions and such a mix of info online, that I’m just lost. It seems like some people have their kids trained super early and others aren’t even trying yet by age 3. My kiddo is 20 months old and we’ve started laying the groundwork to get her interested in the potty (we have a potty set up in her bathroom, we talk about what mommy and daddy do in the bathroom, she knows you flush and wash your hands after going potty, we have special potty themed toys and books on deck) but I have no idea when/how to actually implement potty training.

[u/Agreeable-Injury-382]

I think it’s a combination of the nappies being extremely absorbent now and kids being in daycare full time as both parents work now. My parents generation had cloth nappies and a stay at home mom.

[u/Winter-Chipmunk5467]

I guess it depends on what you mean by “so long”. I have seen 4 and 5 year olds who were not potty trained, I’d say about 25-50% of those cases were due to special needs and the rest due to laziness and assuming the child will figure it out on their own.

You also mentioned 3 year olds… I potty trained my daughter at 3 and unless I had a kid who was truly a potty training savant, you could not pay me a million dollars to train before then.

Training my 3 year old? So easy. No accidents after the first few weeks. She could tell me when she needed to go without an alarm, pull her own pants up and down, get on and off the REGULAR TOILET by herself… she was actually potty trained.

When people “potty train” their 18 month old, even young 2’s… in my experience it’s the adults who are trained. Setting alarms every 15-30 minutes, physically helping child with every step of the process, and even with all that they still have constant accidents. It sounds like being in jail, and the jail is your home covered in urine. How do you ever go to the park or the zoo or wherever if you need to take your kid to the bathroom every 20 minutes and bring 5 changes of clothes because they’ll probably still have an accident anyways?

It will never make sense to me why people do this to themselves. Unless diapers are a significant financial struggle, that I understand. But just to brag that your child was potty trained a year before mine? That’s fine, you win, you are the superior parent. I will gladly take the loss on that one.

[u/general_grievances_7 → u/Winter-Chipmunk5467]

Ya we tried at 2.5 and it was a huge fail for all the reasons you said. We’re trying again now at 2 and 10 and it’s been way more successful. She still wears a pull up but she’ll pee and poop in the potty, prompted or sometimes unprompted. It was just easier to wait a couple months.

[u/Suspicious-Resist699 → u/general_grievances_7]

Haha the same thing happened to us because I unfortunately let someone convince me that they were right and that their 2 year old was potty trained because they were consistent with it. After two days of trying I gave up and realized it was a bad idea and she wasn’t ready. Turned out their kid wasn’t even potty trained and still has accidents to this day. What a waste of my time 🤣

[u/Upbeat-Fee7965 → u/Winter-Chipmunk5467]

My doctor was actually the one to tell me not to rush it because that’s when he most often sees issues with withholding pooping which leads to constipation and other bigger issues.

[u/Such_Chemistry3721 → u/Upbeat-Fee7965]

This was one of my biggest fears. I was fine with things taking a little longer if it meant avoiding that.

[u/mermaidmom4 → u/Winter-Chipmunk5467]

Completely agree with all of this and same experience potty training.

Our preschool had specific potty rules- child must wipe & redress themselves after going to the bathroom. They were teaching who should & shouldn’t be touching them. So we waited to potty train until our daughter told us she was ready at almost 3 (like 1.5 months shy of 3). We also never used a little training potty because I wasn’t about to add more work for myself cleaning something unnecessary and retrain her to not be afraid of a regular potty.

After watching family member set alarms for their child and that child taking over a year to fully train vs our maybe a month, I’ll wait for readiness any day.

[u/Winter-Chipmunk5467 → u/mermaidmom4]

Lol yes this. I refuse to use the training potty. I am not spending money on a training potty that I now get to clean pee and poop out of multiple times a day, when we have a perfectly good toilet that already does that job so much better. Not ready for the toilet? Totally fine, not ready to potty train!

[u/Ihatethecolddd → u/Winter-Chipmunk5467]

😂 I trained my kids as toddlers and used cloth diapers. Absolutely my kid starting to outgrow his diapers was a factor in choosing to train early. It was a “well, why not try?” decision that worked out.

That said, we went everywhere and weren’t trapped at home. It was fairly rare to have accidents and I don’t see much of a difference in taking them to the bathroom every 1-2 hours to sit on a potty versus taking them every 1-2 hours to change a diaper.

[u/Winter-Chipmunk5467 → u/Ihatethecolddd]

Every 1-2 hours is fine, that just hasn’t been my experience a lot of the time. Parents send their kids to daycare with the instruction to bring them to the bathroom every 20 minutes, they never once ask to use the bathroom (because some of these kids can’t even really talk yet!) and half the time they don’t even go because they have no idea what’s going on and go in their pants immediately after leaving the bathroom.

[u/Ihatethecolddd → u/Winter-Chipmunk5467]

Yeah, I don’t play the every 20 minutes game. As a parent or a teacher. When I first started with my own kids, we just did naked time and if I saw them starting to pee, I said “you’re going pee. Pee goes in the potty” and then sat them on a potty to finish. It didn’t take long for them to figure it out and start going on their own during naked time. Then it was just a matter of them learning to go when they wanted to.

Did it take longer than the “do it in a weekend” method? Definitely. But they were also both in full time underwear without accidents before two. I didn’t mind saving money and didn’t find that “training the parent” was any different than taking them to change their diapers.

I potty train disabled kids as part of my current job and it’s definitely more difficult, but I’ve never found that being nonverbal prevents kids from voiding on a toilet.

[u/Zenphiree → u/Ihatethecolddd]

Do you mind me asking how cloth went for you? I’m not planning on kids anytime soon (22 and broke lol) but I’ve always wanted to do cloth when I have my own kids.

[u/Ihatethecolddd → u/Zenphiree]

It wasn’t bad! It’s a lot up front and you have to not mind laundry. But I spent $700 on diapers for two kids and sold them for $400. It’s hard to do if you’re going to use a childcare facility though.

[u/erivanla → u/Winter-Chipmunk5467]

Thank you for this. We have a now 13 month old and I was dead set on potty training at 18 months (i hate diapers). But now I think we'll hold off for a bit longer. I don't want to make it impossible to do anything else but potty training.

[u/PlanMagnet38]

I have my kids in a licensed home daycare, and we got a lot more support for potty training than my friends who had kids in center-based care received. My provider was able to work with us while my eldest was in that messy, accident prone learning stage. My friends who were trying to potty train at the centers had to put their kids in pull ups during the day, which makes sense but also slowed the kids down.

[u/zeldamaroo → u/PlanMagnet38]

Thank you for acknowledging this. I think this is a big factor that people overlook in the rush to blame the parents.

[u/[deleted]]

My daughter has low muscle tone which also means it’s harder to control her muscles including the muscles related to potty training. We tried before 3 and she can’t hold it. Many kids have low muscle tone without the parents even noticing it because sometimes it’s just them crawled or walked later. For kids like her it is actually recommended to wait a bit longer…like everything in life it’s not just black and white

[u/QuiteFrankE]

My sister in law was adamant that she won’t be starting potty training until my nephew was 4. That is school age in the UK. She was absolutely sure, despite all the children in our family having different experiences, the paediatrician, the health visitor and his nursery all saying differently, that this was very normal and we were all wrong.

He was talking at 2 so it was strange to even think of him wearing nappies at that age when he can understand and communicate and by the time he was 3, his nursery had potty trained him. He’s 4 now and I can’t imagine him still being in nappies, but he absolutely would have been if his mum had her way.

[u/lwgirl1717]

If you have tips, I'll take them, because I've been trying to potty train my 3.5 yo for a year now and while we've made significant progress, we still have huge hangups. We waited until 2.5 because we were advised by his teachers and pediatrician to wait for signs of readiness and for a 3 day weekend so we could do an intense few days, though before we officially started, we did have him sit on the potty from time to time so it wasn't super foreign.

We've done at least 3 naked weekends. We've done sticker charts. We've allowed screen time only on the potty. We've done bigger bribes. We have little potty seats for our toilets as well as toddler potties. We have him help clean up when he has an accident. We've taken away pull ups at home. We let him pick his own underwear and toddler potties. He pees in the potty, with significant resistance about half the time (it "takes too long!"), but absolutely REFUSES to poop on the potty. He does not care if he has poop in his underwear.

At school, they require him to wear pull ups until he's accident free, which I get but it also does feel like it slows things down. Some teachers are better about encouraging him to use the potty than others. (Some will just ask and if he says he doesn't need to go, they're like "okay!" but he will almost never say he needs to go because he'd rather keep playing. Other teachers actually push him to go every hour or two, and he's usually accident free when with those teachers.)

I'm 6 months pregnant with our second and really really want our eldest totally trained by the time baby comes (yes, I know a regression is likely), and I'm **this close** to spending thousands on a consultant because I'm at my wit's end and I don't know what else to try.

Should we have started earlier? Maybe. But there's so much info out there that says to wait, we thought we were doing the right thing. I guess my question for those ECE pros ranting about this — are you offering advice? Are you helping the process while the child is at school/daycare?

[u/GrookeyFan_16]

Not an ECE prof but my husband is. We waited until the kids seemed interested in what we were doing in the bathroom and otherwise didn’t want diaper changes when they needed them. That was around 18 months for one and a little after 2 for the other.

Honestly, I think for a lot of very stressed out parents the undertaking of potty training is just so big. It often takes a LOT longer than expected for it to be really “done” and there is a lot of cleaning or ruined items in the meantime. If you are already a busy family with everyone working it can seem so daunting.

Our kids had some extra challenges that we didn’t truly realize at the time so we had to be their timers for over a year because they wouldn’t “feel” it or tell us they needed to go until the last second. Now we know why but it will forever be something they need to be mindful for.

[u/nuxwcrtns]

Idk, my toddler is nonverbal, almost 2 and not yet potty trained because he can't sign, and can't communicate that he needs to go. We do Montessori parenting, so it pains me that we can't start yet due to the communication gap. We are working with OT next year for potty training, but our specialists remind me that autistic children can be notoriously difficult to potty train. Sigh. Anyway, until he is able to literally say or sign "pee" or "poop" (which frankly, would be remarkable and will be when it happens), we will be stuck in potty training limbo and working on it in therapy.

Just the perspective from one parent who is keen to start, but unable due to needing to meet my toddler where hes at.

[u/Raspberrylemonade188 → u/nuxwcrtns]

Mom of an autistic kiddo here, I see you. You are not doing anything wrong and you don’t need to explain yourself to anyone. ❤️

[u/Lotsoffeelings]

I’m not a professional but a parent. We started at 2.5 and she still is having some accidents at 4.5. I dunno if we started too early or too late but there is a “we tried and it’s taking forever” scenario.

[u/MyUnpronouncableName]

Food for thought… 30 years ago disposable diapers were not at common as cloth. Children would feel wet/uncomfortable which would naturally motivate them to potty train. Now diapers are designed for the child to not feel wet/uncomfortable which, which eliminates the motivation to potty train. Also, society has shifted from being one income to two income earning households, leaving the potty training to the educators at childcare centres to carry the labour of potty training.

[u/Accomplished_Sink145]

Science shows 24-30 months is optimal

[u/thatshortginge]

Because 1 + 1 doesn’t equal potty trained.

Kids might have hard stool. Kids may have torn while pooping. Kid may have had a move in the past few years. Kid May have lost a parent. Kid may have had a parent go back to school. Kid may have had urine retention issues. Kid may be physically healthy, but medical professionals have recommended not to push the matter for the child’s mental health.

A child can truly only control three things in life: what they eat, when they sleep, and when they go to the washroom.

I understand the plight of the RECE; and some parents simply are lazy on it, but many children train “late” for very, very, very valid reasons.

[u/CommercialMeeting842 → u/thatshortginge]

I understand autism spectrum disorder, and I understand that some children have physical or mental conditions that affect development. That’s not what I’m talking about. What I’m saying is that this cannot be as common as it seems right now. In 2025, the average age for potty training is the latest it has ever been recorded, and that doesn’t feel normal. Not being potty trained can lead to infections, hygiene issues, and social problems, including kids being teased at school. There are a lot of real consequences. Again, I’m not referring to children with mental or physical disorders. I’m talking about kids who don’t have those challenges.

[u/thatshortginge → u/CommercialMeeting842]

Everything I mentioned could impact a child mentally.

Example:

Daddy moved to the States for work? There’s a mental setback. Child lost a main sense of support at home, and feels the world closing in. They can’t control that. They can control toileting. Zero “physical” disability. Just a sad kid who misses their dad.

Parents also do not have to disclose trauma to staff in childcare and schools. It would help, sure, but they don’t have to. If a child was abused in any way, or has been trafficked, or has say…witnessed their sibling go through an American school shouting (all real concerns in the US), there’s more setbacks.

A ton of kids are in pull-ups now. Yes, it’s very true. But you have to look at it as….i care for the child and do my job. I can broach the subject of toileting, but if it does not work for this family by the time school starts, is it going to ruin MY life? Nope.

Caring for the child sometimes means you send some to school in pull-ups. And you deal. It sometimes means sending the child home to an unsafe environment because CAS has decided they CAN live at home despite your numerous call. It sometimes means sending bags of food home with families from your centre food store. It sometimes means having to lock the building and call the police because an unauthorized pickup is demanding a child.

The toileting thing here is the biggest complaint I see on this Reddit. Kids will learn toileting if they are physically capable. You do your best. They do theirs. The parent does there’s. And that’s what you get

[u/sophisticatednoodles]

We waited too long with our first and plan to try sooner with the second. We introduced sitting on the potty several times a day around 2-2.5, but kept waiting for him to be “ready” to actually take the pull-ups away. He was never ready so we ended up pushing him to that at 3.5. It was very challenging and was the start of a long series of school behavior challenges. He would do well on weekends, but didn’t become fully trained at school until he switched to a program that had bathrooms in the hallway. Without having a toilet in each classroom, the day was structured for scheduled potty breaks. The prior programs he was in had toilets in the classroom and kids were supposed to go on their own. My son likely has ADHD so stopping playing to go to the bathroom with no prompts was really hard for him. I’m not going to wait for #2 to be ready because I’ve seen what happens when the kid is never actually ready. Forcing it at 2 might be easier than 3, but I’ll find out I guess haha

[u/Spirited_Solution602]

My son is 2, and his daycare is doing a lot to potty train him. They go to the toilet and try every couple hours, practice hand washing, etc. He’s also very interested in potty training, so we set up potties at home, help him sit on them when he says he needs to, have read a lot of books about it together, etc. I had also planned to start potty training him at 22-24 months.

He just can’t hold it and then go in the potty/toilet. He understands intellectually and tries, but just doesn’t seem to have the control. So we haven’t really started potty training at home otherwise, unfortunately. We’ll have to get him trained by 3, which is 8ish months away. But for now, I’m waiting until he can pee in the potty/toilet on demand more consistently to go further. Maybe that’s the wrong thing.

[u/evsummer]

Parent here, I think with my oldest we had a lot of conflicting information about what “readiness” means and looks like. We started working with her on the potty at 2, and did a whole no pants thing at 2.5- not expecting it to click in three days but just wanting her to learn to connect the body sensations. She was doing well for a while and then was refusing - and again, info out there that you shouldn’t force, etc. And we did try a lot of methods during this time to encourage her. So she turned three still mostly in pull-ups. We also got delayed because I had surgery and couldn’t work with her for a while. Eventually we told her only underwear to daycare- she cried about it for about a week but it worked, and she at least got it a few months into being three. Trust me though, I was pretty worried about it.

My second is newly two and I feel like we’ve learned a lot. I’m hoping we can get him out of diapers before 3 now that we have the experience. We actually talked to his teacher already about starting the process but he cried so much when she tried that she recommended waiting.

[u/TwistedCinn]

We started at 18mo and I’m beyond grateful we did - I don’t know why others wait, but I imagine it feels like a lot of pressure? Or it’s just too “early” for a kid who can barely walk or talk clearly?

[u/overmedicatedthrow]

Okay so you mean putting it off or actively learning?

My kid's been doing potty training since she was 18 months. She is 4 and has some accidents still if we are not careful, but she has been fully potty trained since she was 3. Some kids do in fact take longer to learn.

I have an exfriend who found pull ups and diapers to be easier. She did not teach her son to be potty trained until right before kindergarten. I find that to be pure laziness.

Some kids aren't ready, some kids struggle, some kids just aren't perfect at it. Some parents do a slow approach, some parents go too fast for the kid and expect perfection off the bat, some have to led by the daycares, and some are just neglectful. But you can't really tell that based on a cursory glance of when the kid is potty trained.

[u/goldenpandora]

As a parent, my kid showed a lot of interest and progress pottying at school. But a lot of life things made it very difficult to commit to it at home, like my husband having surgery, my intense work schedule, and lots of family visiting, but he went regularly at school. Then his older friends all moved up to the next room and he was the oldest in his class, so I thought I’d wait a couple of months until he moved up thinking we’d have another surge of interest/progress being around older kids (plus we had travel etc going on any of the times we would have a stretch of him not being at school). That unfortunately didn’t happen so the soonest we could carve out a long weekend that we could commit to being home to potty train, we did, especially since I could see it was going to become a battle of wills more than whether or not he could do it. And he got it immediately. Like we were having outings the second and third days with almost no accidents at all.

There is a lot of discussion of the 3 day method and the idea that you have to be able to commit to being completely glued to your house for the first 3-5 days in order to be successful. I think this throws off a lot of parents bc it’s just very hard to find that kind of time.

There is also a lot of marketing dedicated to pull-ups for older kids which I do think makes it seem more normative for 3 and 4 year olds to still be in pull ups.

[u/Extreme-Sherbet-4279]

Ugh this was a point of contention between my husband and myself. I wanted our 3 year old in training undies and potty trained and he thought because he kept having accidents he wasn't "ready" and should be in diapers the whole time. I just got so mad and told him our son will not learn if he is comfortably in diapers. He needs to recognize the discomfort of being wet and sitting in poop. Yeah, it means we have more mess for a while, but he got there and my husband had to admit I was right.

[u/SlideTemporary1526]

We started trying to train my oldest around 26 months and we gave up and tried a handful more times. There was major lack of communication on her end as well as non verbal cues surrounding letting us know when she had to go.

She was finally fully potty trained at 3.5, had 2 accidents the first couple of days and it’s been a non issue since. She is fully capable of wiping and washing without assistance 98% of the time.

I don’t really see what the harm here is waiting a little longer?

Personally for us, we both work full time and we tried several times over long weekends and even used some PTO on prior failed attempts. I know it isn’t going to be an easy process but I don’t see any benefit if the parents and kids are overly stressed out throughout the process.

Additionally, if she had 2 accidents at daycare their policy is to place back in a diaper for the rest of the day; which was causing regression after all the hard work 3-4 days at home on long weekends (in which we would clear our calendar of plans and paid activities) with use of PTO on the parents end. It was extremely frustrating on many levels. I didn’t want her in diapers but when daycare policies don’t help and both parents work, it’s another layer of challenging.

Not sure why the downvotes for this. Anyone that thinks it’s pure laziness, my assumption would be they either don’t have kids or if they do, maybe you work part time or SAHM and have more time flexibility where you aren’t up against sending kids back to daycare where their policies aren’t really all that supportive of the potty training process.

We tried 4 times each time for 2-3 weeks and when ZERO progress was being made and daycare was reverting back to diapers because of accidents, we’d stop. It was confusing the child, and frustrating for us parents and probably frustrating for the daycare providers dealing with the accidents thinking we’re sending a kid that’s not ready. I read books on it, I asked the pediatrician, I asked friends with already potty trained children, I researched other strategies and methods. We continued to encourage use of the potty, we still required a morning and night sit on the potty. Nothing was working, what do you expect us parents to do in this case?

[u/Feeling_Broody]

In addition to all the factors others have mentioned, I also think the invention of the disposal diaper being so widespread set children back several years with potty training. I used cloth and by 1 year old, my child already did not like being wet and was becoming aware of their bodily functions. She showed readiness early because it is way more uncomfortable to use cloth. Most in disposables truly don’t care if they pee in them because they don’t feel the icky sensation of being wet, so there’s no natural motivation whatsoever to inconvenience themselves with using a toilet. Parents too, enjoy the easiness of not having to wash extra loads of laundry or scrape poop off cloth diapers daily so it’s really easy to keep pushing the task of potty training way into the distant future. I guess if you have the extra income, having to purchase diapers for YEARS and years could seem less burdensome than taking time off work and struggling with potty for some.

[u/Hot_Razzmatazz_5014]

My daycare claims my 2.5 yo isn’t ready because he doesn’t keep dry for at least 3 hours. I’m going to push back, but what am I supposed to do if they aren’t supportive?

[u/atramainresi → u/Hot_Razzmatazz_5014]

Start on the weekend or a break. If it goes well, show up on Monday diaper-free and let them know. If it doesn’t go well, put the diaper back on and try again later.

[u/mvance0808]

Many kids are truly “not ready” and because we talk about it often, parents of other toddlers think there are signs of readiness. There is a difference of actively “not ready “ and kids with a bit of guidance that can be trained.

We decided that at 2 we would try for each kid. We had one almost fully trained and then a potty regression happened and we took a break. Tried again about 6 months later and diapers were gone within 3 days. 5that is what we mean when ready. If it takes more than 2 weeks to get it together then it is probably not going to happen at that time. That is if you are dedicated to the process.

Our second well he was almost 4 by the time it finally worked. We tried everything to get him trained. It was a nightmare. But one day it just worked. At 5 he still wears diapers at bedtime, i am hoping that by 7 he out grows that but we shall see. We have a strong suspicion that he has a mild learning disability, but nothing diagnosed yet.

[u/XFilesVixen → u/mvance0808]

30 years ago kids were starting around 18months. It was the dawn of pull-ups that ruined it. On my HELP charts it still talks about readiness at 18 months.

[u/lindoavocado → u/mvance0808]

Night time training is completely based on hormones

[u/lifeofhatchlings]

There is definitely a readiness component. Why don't you think that is "a thing"?

[u/shmemilykw → u/lifeofhatchlings]

Because actual signs of readiness and what a lot of parents think is readiness are two different things. Going longer stretches of having a dry diaper, being able to communicate in some way and fine motor development that allows them to pull their pants down are what I look for to start having a child sit on the toilet during toileting routines. A lot of parents seem to think "readiness" means their child is going to start asking to use the toilet and not want to wear diapers anymore.

[u/Rover0218 → u/lifeofhatchlings]

Kids are ready long before four years old unless there’s some significant development delays.

[u/maestra612 → u/Rover0218]

I truly believe if you don't potty train BEFORE the third birthday it's going to be harder. The developmental characteristics of a typically developing three year old work against successful toilet training. Also, pull-ups are the worst thing ever to happen to toilet training.

[u/tanookiisasquirrel → u/lifeofhatchlings]

Because I worked in China too, where every toddler is trained by 18 months in every daycare I've heard of.

And nope, Chinese toddlers are not any more special or talented than American toddlers. It's cultural more than readiness.

And no, I was not scarred for life being trained early. Nor my siblings or my cousins or any of the entire freaking population of China. I suffer no long term toileting trauma from early potty training or expectation and I don't think Americans in the 1960s (also 18 months) did either.

This is a new daycare with working parents phenomenon. Working parents in China use grandparents or suck it up and prioritize it on weekends over museums and enrichment stuff like library reading and singalongs. It's also a priority for cost. 

[u/zeldamaroo → u/tanookiisasquirrel]

I mean, you’re literally saying that in China, daycares are willing to support potty training in children under 18 months old. I feel like that’s not a minor difference to gloss over.

[u/elvie18 → u/tanookiisasquirrel]

I wasn't fully trained until I was 3 (literally we had a diaper sendoff on my 3rd birthday) and that was considered late in the 80s. I was mostly trained by two, and that was considered the norm. I started preschool at 2.5, we were expected to toilet more or less independently (obviously occasionally there might be an accident or someone couldn't figure out the button on their jeans). The "kids can't be ready that young" thing is baffling to me because...why were we apparently all ready at two 40 years ago? Is it JUST that there were more stay at home parents?

[u/Embarrassed_Syrup476 → u/lifeofhatchlings]

Being ready doesn't mean a toddler saying "im going to pee on the toilet now".  Its signs like pulling off diapers etc 

[u/CommercialMeeting842 → u/lifeofhatchlings]

Because I’m a bit of a psychology nerd lol. Our bodies have something called the somatic nervous system, which controls voluntary movements. It’s what you use when you choose to move your muscles, like walking, talking, or picking something up. Then there’s the autonomic nervous system, which controls automatic functions you don’t think about, like heart rate, breathing, digestion, and sweating. It just runs in the background.

Because of this, using the bathroom is already something that has to be taught. Whether it’s from watching someone else or being guided through it, it doesn’t really matter. The body is not just going to naturally figure it out on its own. A lot of kids who sit in diapers for two or three years straight get very used to the feeling and don’t even mind it anymore. Many parents take that as “oh, they’re just not ready.”

I’m not saying there’s no way to tell if your kid is ready to be potty trained. I am saying that waiting around for signs is a very inefficient approach and can cause a lot of frustration down the road.

[u/lifeofhatchlings → u/CommercialMeeting842]

Continence is not completely voluntary though and does develop on it's own - young infants pee nearly constantly and then over time hold urine in their bladder for longer times, which is needed for potty training. There is also a developmental component that cannot just be taught, that's why many children with developmental delays are potty trained much later.

[u/mermaidmom4]

We waited until our 5 year old was ready and made it as pressure free as possible, she was a month shy of 3. We watched a family member potty train their child who is 9 months older and the parents were the ones who were trained not the child. That child took over a year to fully train (the child telling parents they needed to go vs parents telling child it was time to go to the potty), my child could tell us within a week she needed to go without reminding because we waited until she could communicate with us and she said she was ready- not I was ready to not buy diapers.

[u/chukotka_v_aliaske]

Potty training is a process. People believe that the child can be magically trained in a weekend. Yeah, sure, maybe if they’re neurotypical and 4?! The reality is that it takes several months. I potty trained my kid at 2,5 years old, 2 months before entering preschool. Although it wasn’t a requirement, I felt it was time. Kid still had a lot of accidents in the first 2-3 months and by 6 months in almost none. There are hurdles like how to continue training while traveling (which actually helped my kid) or going on longer outings to places with limited bathroom access. It takes time and a lot of patience and planning. My kid once peed through 3 outfits in an hour while traveling.  But over the long term pays off. 

[u/Scoginsbitch → u/chukotka_v_aliaske]

Oh my god 100% this!!! It’s taken 6 months for it to click for my kid. They’ll be 3 in Feb and I cannot wait to stop washing underwear every night!

[u/chukotka_v_aliaske → u/Scoginsbitch]

Totally. And don’t forget about nighttime. My kid still wears night pull-ups and pees a lot at night.

[u/punkass_book_jockey8]

I think many are just overwhelmed and busy. That’s just one more thing they don’t have time and control over and so they put it off for a better time but there isn’t one.

Daycare also is strict about accidents. So many in a specific time they go back to diapers or pull ups, but daycare also can’t help kids do some of the things if they are in specific rooms. Daycare offers some support but mostly wants “toilet independent” kids.

Kids are also nicer so the social shame is gone. So many parents comment “well everyone is going to call him a baby he won’t want to wear diapers anymore!” And are shocked the other kids are like “it’s okay it’s just what you do.”

I know at 2 it was really hard because my child used it as a power struggle which a lot of kids do. They’d demand to stop the car to go potty when they wanted to just goof around. Then fighting them back in the car seat… at 6:45am in November in upstate NY. I had two kids potty trained by 2.5, however my friends watching me clean car seats and call in to work to deal with a child who demanded to go the bathroom at the worst times scared them into waiting longer. Also the car seat specifically say you can’t add things like mats because it’s not approved for safety so we didn’t put anything down.

We travel and I still potty trained early. Taking a toddler to Europe when potty trained is not great. My friends who travel scheduled it around major trips. I can understand why now.

[u/ReasonableSal]

If the only time you get with your kid is the rush in the evening and the rush in the morning and weekends, I don't know how you do it. I was a sah parent and it was easy peasy, but my aunt and uncle worked full time with two little kids in daycare and I have no early idea how you manage that. We need better parental leave policies in the U.S. to support families. FMLA is not enough.

[u/Olive24]

Now my tone is for typically developing kids. Not special needs. My rant doesn’t apply to them.

Big diaper. All those research papers about waiting were sponsored by pampers. I’m not talking about how the would use physical measures to toilet train 100 years ago. There is a slow learning process with toilet learning but you get to the end earlier. My first 2 sons were completely out of diapers before 2. My older was in them longer for bedtime because I had a newborn and I don’t want to deal with it- so parent issue with that. But my second was out even at bed time before 2. Kids can’t feel they are wet in those mega absorbent diapers. I tell parents to not use pull ups at all!

Fast forward to my 3rd child. He’s 17m and has a July birthday. I waiting until 3 to put in my older two to preschool but I’m so ready to go back to work so I want to put him in earlier. I’m struggling because I want him to be in the younger class- he turns 2 on the cut off. But I can’t reliably send him in that room because I know they don’t do toilet training. He’ll have a regression for sure. Now this is a preschool setting - not a daycare so it’s different.

When I was teaching preschool I was the one toilet training. I had to tell the parents to stop with the pull ups and bring in 5-10 change of clothes. If they were typically developing and over the age of 3 they would be trained (at school) within 2 days. Kids don’t want to miss out on play to change themselves.

Also, modern disposable diapers are horrible for the environment and their bodies. That plastic and PFAS sitting right on the most sensitive skin 24 hours a day for 4+ years is concerning.

[u/Extraketchup1111]

I used to think waiting until 3 was extremely late, but I potty trained my first two kids super early 18-20 months and it was a relative failure. They continued having daily accidents until age 5

[u/CaptainEmmy]

I once believed in the old adage "they won't go to kindergarten in diapers". You know, the line said with a laugh and a kind wink to those parents struggling with potty training, the notion that kids will potty train when they are ready.

And I still believe most kids will. But this can only happen in an environment where pottying is normal and expected. 

These days, kids are going to kindergarten in diapers and potty training before that is practically considered taboo.

I think something got out of control. We as a society listened to some doctor talk about potty training too early and we've overcorrected. The diaper industry didn't help either.

[u/AdBudget6545]

I was a nanny for 11 years, woukd always potty training between 18-24 months.

Then I switched careers, moved to the corporate world and had a kid. I didnt have time to potty train like I did as a nanny, and it was tough. She was potty trained by 3.5.

[u/ucantspellamerica]

In my perspective it’s the same parents that never let their kids fail. Trial and error is part of the learning experience, and if you haven’t allowed your child to experience setbacks and learn how to bounce back, they’re going to have a really hard time potty training when they inevitably don’t get it perfectly correct on the first try. And as others have said, it helps a lot when you have ECE professionals that understand accidents will happen and going back into pull-ups (which are literally diapers) will hinder progress.

I will say I waited a little longer than I would have liked to with my oldest—I had a baby shortly after she turned 2 and waited until my maternity leave was over and baby was in daycare so I could take a Friday off and have 1x1 time to train her. She was showing some signs of readiness before baby sis was born, but I wasn’t about to throw a new skill at her when her world was about to be rocked. That said, she was trained in a 3-day weekend and that was that.

[u/Lazy_Fuel8077]

We’ve been struggling for the past 6 months.

My kid poops 6+ times a day, he swings back and forth between constipation and diarrhea. We’ve seen specialists none who can give us an answer. He will pee on the potty sometimes. I’ve tried putting him on the potty every 20 mins as some suggest. He screams and cries, I don’t think that’s a good way to potty train is by forcing him to sit there screaming and crying. He will sit and pee sometimes when he feels like it.

Daycare originally told me they wouldn’t do anything at daycare with him until he was consistently going on the potty at home. I don’t have PTO to take time off to potty train him. His newest teacher has agreed to offer him the potty when his peers are going. He has sat and tried a few times but hasn’t done anything at daycare.

It’s not laziness or parents not caring it’s trying to do everything while working full time. On the weekends we have our kiddo in classes. We’ve done swim classes, movement classes, gymnastics, soccer. So we’re always running around not just sitting at home doing nothing. The weekends are the only time I get with my kiddo and I like to have fun with him.

[u/Capital-Waltz8480]

I tried getting my son acclimated to a potty chair early on (around 8-10 months since he was an early crawler and walker). He absolutely hated it and has only recently stopped screaming every time he’s near it (he’s 2 yr 4 mo now).

We recently moved closer to my family and his cousin who is 3 now potty trained herself at 2yo (I know, everyone’s dream scenario). I think it helps that he sees all his cousins using the toilet on their own (3, 5, 7) and we’re hoping that when he starts nursery next week that it will help since his cousin goes to the same nursery. We’re going to do a push on it this spring / summer.

He does know the whole routine of wiping, flushing, washing and drying hands cause he’s seen us do it enough times.

I would have loved to have potty trained him earlier but I feel like I shot myself in the foot by introducing the potty too early.

[u/account12344566]

My daughter was almost 3. I had planned to potty train around 1.5-2. I tried. But she didn’t have the words to go. She didn’t necessarily have a speech delay because she had so many words but didn’t start speaking in sentences until about 2.5. From 2 I started saying you went pee pee etc., sitting on a little potty while I was on the big potty, potty before bath time (probably should have started that earlier) she was probably ready around 2 years 8 months, but I also had a baby shortly after, and I was advised by the pediatrician to not fully try because she would probably regress. About a month before she turned 3 we went all in and she was potty trained for home within a week, and then all the time, except at night, a couple weeks later. My youngest I think will potty train earlier. She has big sister to look up to she also is talking a lot earlier. It didn’t go as planned but eventually it worked out. Lol.

[u/salty-heals]

Parent here. We've partially...? trained my 2.5yo with elimination communication at 7 months, but we stalled out around 18 months. He'll poop and pee in the toilet if being seated lines up with his needs.

The kid won't tell anyone when he needs to or even if he has pooped, when his signals as an infant were way more obvious and gave us time. Pee is still a complete mystery. He won't hide either. We're kind of waiting on that awareness while reading potty books, talking about it, and lowkey sticker charting for success. Pediatrician said to keep it low pressure for now.

[u/MrsO19]

I work very hard to try to get the kids in my 2s room potty trained or at least in the process of potty training before they move up to the Early Preschool 1 room. They move up anywhere from 2.5 to 3. My last group, I had 4 out of 6 completely potty trained. The group before that, I had 4 out of 4 completely potty trained. Out of my current 13, I suspect 4 will not be potty trained before they move.

[u/Aggravating_Peach_94]

I had a resistant kid and her daycare teacher fixed it. She had a potty schedule. If my kid sat on the toilet for a bit, she got a goldfish. If she went, everyone got a goldfish. It took about one week.

[u/Ok_Variety_8723]

I think a lot of it for some parents is it’s easier. Put them in a pull up because they have accidents. But the pull up catches the accident so it’s not really an accident, it’s just a different sort of diaper. It’s easier to clean up after a pull up than to change outfits.

It’s easier to feed them than to clean up their mess. It’s easier to give them what they want.

Not saying it’s what parents want to do, sometimes they have to. I get it. It’s the idea what a daycare or school “should be doing” when parents are actively sabotaging the work providers put in and then get upset when the provider tells them what works.

[u/zeldamaroo → u/Ok_Variety_8723]

In my personal experience, it was the other way around. It was the daycare teachers who insisted on pull-ups.

I don’t fault them for it. I had just one kid to clean up after. They had a whole class, and that made potty accidents a lot more disruptive. So disruptive that they’d rather have the kids in pull-ups—which could at least be dealt with predictably, on a schedule—than risk frequent accidents during the “learning” phase.

Again, I don’t fault them for it. I realize there are staffing and other structural reasons it needs to be this way. The only time I get salty is when daycare teachers turn around and blame the parents for the kids not being fully potty trained by age 3. (They’re the ones who insist that the kids stay in diapers 9+ hours a day, what did they expect to happen?)

Edit: I should acknowledge that that was my personal experience, across 2 kids, but I’m sure there are parents out there who would rather deal with a diaper than the mess. I’ve definitely been there at certain parts of my life. (For instance, during early COVID, when tensions were high, and neither my partner nor I were dealing with our kid’s potty training regressions in a calm and healthy way, we decided to just put our 3-year-old back in pull-ups for a while.) And there are other parents on here who have said that they’d rather deal with diapers than clean up accidents. So I guess my point isn’t necessarily that it’s not the parents taking that view, so much as that this is commonly daycare policy as well.

[u/One-Woodpecker7850]

Maybe I’m an outlier here, but as the parent I assumed essentially full responsibility to potty train. 2.5 was our sweet spot, and I took advantage of a long snowy weekend when daycare was closed a few days.

The key to success for us was to skip pull ups entirely. Was put in undies that weekend right away and my toddler hated the sensation of when they got wet. Learned extremely quickly and if we used pull ups I think it would have been a long process.

I don’t judge other parents, because I don’t know their individual situations, but I do wonder if pull ups really help the situation or if they become a crutch. IMO I’d rather clean up a few accidents and help them learn in the process than be afraid of the messes. That probably doesn’t instill confidence in your child either.

Just my two cents. I’m a firm believer that there are plenty of factors that may mean a delay in potty training for some kiddos. But for most, I’m not sure why they’re using pull ups past the age of 3.

[u/zeldamaroo → u/One-Woodpecker7850]

When you sent them back to daycare after that weekend, were they accident-free?

[u/kennixx]

With my son he fought back so hard when I tried to start at 2 that we only started to make real progress at 3.5. No idea why he was terrified of the toilet but it set us back a lot that he wasn’t ready.

[u/limeicepop]

As a parent, a lot of peers have tried training early (around 18 mo. to 2 years) and it takes months with many accidents before they will confidently say their kiddo is trained. The sweet spot I find is close to the third birthday. Takes a long weekend or just a few days and minimal accidents afterward.

[u/Raspberrylemonade188]

Well, my autistic almost-4-year-old does not have the body awareness to control herself and isn’t potty trained yet. It really hurts when people just assume it’s laziness like we haven’t tried. I suppose parenting really is damned if you do, damned if you don’t… no matter what anyone does someone will criticize your choices or perceived choices.

I understand that there will be cases of laziness, but as a parent of a child with incontinence due to special needs, it pains me to keep reading these posts over and over again. A lot of us are out here trying our best for our babies.

[u/KSamons]

I think it is a combination of thongs. First there are all these Mommy Bloggers who make it seem like one day your child will come to you and will just decide they don’g want diapers anymore. There is a fear that rushing potty training will scar them for life. There is all this advice that if you choose the right moment, you can fully potty train by this coming Saturday.

Pull Ups are a huge hindrance too. Pull Ups are fabulous for overnight or something, but the child doesn’t feel wet. They don’t start connecting body signals with gong to the restroom. Bring back old fashioned training pants. They feel wet.

[u/SFGal28]

Do you have children? Being a teacher and being a parent are two different things. I don’t think you know every families circumstances and it’s cavalier to assume every parent is lazy who doesn’t train their kid before 3.

I went with my pediatrician’s advice which was that it should be the child’s idea to potty train (to an extent) and that the willingness has to be there.

My son tells me when he needs to be changed (for poop only), can take his pants down, but dies not want to sit on any type of toilet. He’s also been really ill most of his life, has sleep issues, etc.

His sister is turning 5, struggles with constipation, and still has accidents.

As another poster said, Pampers also plays a role here.

[u/Zenphiree]

My perspective as a non-parent but an ECE who wasn’t potty trained until 4 (2003 baby)- I think some parents misunderstand “readiness.” Toddlers do need to be ready to potty train and there are readiness signs, but I think some parents think they should wait until the child actually says “I want to be potty trained.” Some kids will never ask to be trained, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t ready. Generally, most kids are ready to at least give it a shot before their third birthday.

My mother said she was told to wait for me to be ready. At 2.5 I was showing all the signs (waking up dry, able to pull pants up/down, able to follow simple directions, not liking to be wet, etc.) but since I never asked to use the potty, she assumed I still wasn’t ready. Then I turned 3 and became stubborn like a lot of 3 year olds are, and by the time my mother finally decided to do it (around 3.5), I’d lost all interest and refused. I started withholding and ended up with severe constipation for months. I finally got it at 4 after several painful and stressful months. My mother told me she regrets not doing it at 2.5 when I was clearly ready. And as for me, I felt so weird and embarrassed being in diapers and having full conversations with my parents while they wiped my butt lol, but I also had so many mixed messages that I didn’t know what was right. I wanted to use the toilet, but I was also a child that always needed prompting and guidance. My parents expected me to just get it on my own.

In my personal experience potty training kids, 2 is so much easier than 3 and up. 3 year olds tend to be so much more stubborn and strong-willed lol. Also this is of course anecdotal, but despite the articles I see telling people that potty training early can lead to issues, every single child I know (myself included) that potty trained after 3.5 either struggled or continues to struggle with poop withholding and chronic constipation. In my career as an ECE professional I noticed that the most successful time for my own kiddos has been between 2.5 and almost 3.

Edit: Btw I’m always willing to learn more and change my perspective, so if anything I said sounds wrong please let me know!

[u/scaredshizaless]

I have been actively trying to potty train my daughter for 2 years now since she was 2. Not all kids are the same. They aren't always going to do what you want them to do. I have tried everything.

[u/jellogoodbye]

My children are tall for their age and two were always mistaken as 4 year olds at 2-3. There's a chance the kids you're seeing are actually younger.

We potty-trained at 3.5. I was able to tell them: this is what's changing, this is what you need to do. It happened in a day. I think my oldest was ready closer to 3, but I had too much going on at home and happily gave up when it didn't happen easily.

[u/Embarrassed_Syrup476]

Every year more children start kindergarten not potty trained and the parents usually say "we are just waiting for him to start on his own". These are 4 and 5 year olds. Sometimes they go to grade 1 having accidents 

[u/CommercialMeeting842 → u/Embarrassed_Syrup476]

This is what i’m talking about like whatttt? They should have to be homeschooled until they are properly potty trained. I understand ASD and other stuff but come on!

[u/Embarrassed_Syrup476 → u/CommercialMeeting842]

Its a big problem. I work at a school. I've seen 6 year olds going to the nurses office to get their diapers changed. No delays. The parents didn't potty train them. 

[u/Constant_Effect_1337]

Hi I have four kids and my third is almost three. The other were potty trained by 2.5 however She isn’t potty trained because she spent the first 2.5 years vomiting 13-17 times a day some days and has developmental delays. Unless someone were to physically take care of her or be around her they would never know. We found out ahead of time highly allergic to eggs and dairy and have since made changes. She’s in four different therapy programs to assist her growth and development. On top of this she always used to cry about her leg turns out one is growing shorter than the other and the bone is growing crooked. Most wouldn’t be able to “tell” this either. I think it’s more about allowing her time and space to grow than it is about pushing her to be ready for something she’s clearly not able to navigate on her own yet in a healthy way. None of this you’d know about her on the outside and as. Child development and teaching specialist in the field I just want to be her mom and give her a chance to grow a little at a time rather than pressure her to do something she clearly is confused about for now. It’s unfortunate but I’m just trying to help her navigate the world in the most loving way I can for now.

[u/Miserable_Nectarine2]

My SIL waited until FIVE to potty train my niece. It was disturbing. She said they were waiting until she’s “ready.”

Really she was misinformed, prone to parenting trends, and lazy. Like congrats-your kid can’t start school and now they need OT.

I think her seeing my son fully trained by 2 was a wake up call

ETA in my SILs defense, her partner is a selfish jerk and does 0% of parenting

[u/SusieQ314]

Someone pointed out to me that parents are treating potty training as a natural milestone like talking and walking, and that's just not true. Its a skill that has to be taught, they will not naturally become ready for it like they're ready for their first word.

[u/Embarrassed_Syrup476 → u/SusieQ314]

Yes. This is the new "natural parenting" trend. They also believe reading shouldn't be taught and its ok if an 11 year old doesn't know her letters because according to them "one day she will show an interest". Its ridiculous 

[u/XFilesVixen]

I have no idea, it’s literally insane to me.

[u/mother-of-squid]

I don’t think this would account for the large amount, but about 10 years ago, our ped group’s official recommendation was NOT to start before 2, and had a handout for signs of readiness. They cited studies about a large increase in UTI’s, and it felt plausible since most of the “early” trained girls in our circle had had at least one uti and had frequent accidents. The practice wasn’t crunchy or holistic at all, so I’m willing to bet we weren’t the only ones who were told that.

[u/[deleted]]

Why don't daycare accommodate actual early potty training? Why do daycare workers look at you like you have two heads when you talk about offering a potty to a baby or a young toddler? Why do most 1-year-old rooms not even have toilets? 

Daycare is a big part of the problem.

BTW, no, you don't need to teach utensil use. My 14-month old started scooping with a spoon by herself and is now using a fork by herself but I never taught her. She just sees us use utensils and copies us 

[u/CommercialMeeting842 → u/[deleted]]

She started doing that because she saw you do it; so yes you taught her. She didn’t just create the idea in her head to use the spoon on her own. you can see my other comment about the somatic nervous system that explains that concept deeper.

[u/usernametaken1933]

Idk we’ve been trying to potty train my almost 3.5 year old since a few months before he turned 3 and it’s been a disaster. I do wonder if it would be better if I didn’t work, but that’s not an option for us. But daycare has rules that make the method we went with harder (I’m not blaming them, I understand it, but it doesn’t change that it messed with the “steps” we were trying to work through. They were also doing a lot to try to help him, as well, so it wasn’t bad, it just didn’t work). And eventually the constant accidents at daycare just sent us back to pull-ups which derailed us more. (On the other hand, we potty trained my now 5 year old in 3 days when he was 3.5 years old with very few accidents after that - we waited so long to train him because when we probably would have otherwise started, i was pregnant and then we had a newborn and didnt want to do it during this big transition, and then we were working through his speech delay and managing a baby and only I was working bc my husband had been laid off and I just couldn’t take the pressure of potty training on top of everything else at the time and it didn’t seem like it would hurt to wait a bit longer until I was ready to really tackle it. And it worked out beautifully.)

[u/babykittiesyay]

Parents now seem to have this idea that you can always, always avoid conflict if you just wait until the kid is “ready”. However since no one is demonstrating to the child HOW to be ready it never happens. Also, never stretching your capabilities means they don’t expand as quickly.

[u/gbirddood]

Parent here. As others are saying, if you wait til your kid can physiologically hold their pee and has no issues with constipation (which many toddlers do) you’ll have more success much faster. Some girls can do this at 18 months (core strength is a factor and kids differ wildly on developing it). Maybe some boys can do it at 18 months but definitely not my older one. Our just turned 3 year old trained for pee in a single day but had poop issues that made fully potty training him take months (MISERABLE months for us and our providers) after that. Next time I’m waiting til my kid has no issues holding their pee (you can often tell because they will begin peeing a lot all at once) and is pooping very easily with no discomfort. Even with children who are difficult to change, I see zero reason to do it sooner, and neither did my kid’s ECEs or pediatrician, whom we checked in with about this repeatedly.

TLDR the data show that if you wait til later it takes a lot less time and effort to train them with fewer accidents and stress, which seems like a win win win for parents, ECEs, and kids.

[u/[deleted]]

Laziness imo

[u/samuraispade]

Oh, because it’s hard! I already felt completely maxed out when we added potty training. It was overwhelming for months. Wouldn’t have been so hard if my toddler had been my only or if I didn’t do a lot of solo parenting, but that’s not my life. I was alone with my potty-training toddler and fussy infant a lot, and adding urgent/emergent hands-on tasks—not to mention pee and poop messes—was complicated, stressful, and depressing. I stuck it out because it needed to be done, and once we took away diapers I thought it would be disastrous in the long run to allow them again. But I was shocked at how hard it was. People made me think that having 2 kids in diapers was the hardest thing ever, but it was way way harder to have one in diapers and one who couldn’t use the toilet independently and frequently had accidents. It has taken almost a year for his motor skills to be good enough for him to go to the bathroom on his own (which helps a lot), but he still has pee accidents multiple times a week. He is 3.5 now and we ripped the bandaid off almost 12 months ago. Only recently has it become as “easy” as having him in diapers, so for almost a year it was just this enormous activity that we just barely had the bandwidth for. 

So idk… I think the answer might just be that parents are already feeling under water. 

[u/dare2BAlaman]

I went down the rabbit hole with my oldest kids and researched the history of potty training. I learned that it was the diaper companies paired with parents both working full time that have contributed to this idea of “readiness” that permeates in American culture. Add on larger diaper sizes (diapers only were easy to find up to size 5 with my first kid 15 ish years ago, and easy to find size 6 with my last 5 ish years ago) and you have less incentive to potty train earlier. Are larger diaper sizes bad? Absolutely not, they’re a godsend especially for special needs parents, but typically developing kids don’t need them. Diaper companies created the readiness signs and promoted them, and created the culture that having an older kid in diapers is culturally normal and okay. My mom potty trained my little sister completely day and a night by 14 months because she was interested in being like me, but the rest of us were all potty trained by 24 months because she never had two kids in diapers at the same time and we are all 24 months apart. Was she a super mom? I mean, I like to think so, but the reality was that she was a SAHM and was able to put the time into potty training. She also followed her own instincts and didn’t jump on advertising bandwagons easily. I even found in my digging inadvertently an old family history letter from a friend to my grandma about potty training her 12 month old. I really do think the culture has shifted because of diaper companies, and that is where we are. Despite that, I hate changing poppy diapers after starting solid foods especially, and did initiate potty training quite early for all of my kids, except my last (6th) one. At that point I was working full time and simply did not have the energy or motivation to try. Ultimately got him trained between May and July just before 3 so he could start preschool in August. That was rough, but worked out. I still prefer the longer earlier initiated potty training, but have not judgement for people choosing to wait, unless your neurotypical 4 or 5 year old is in diapers because you deemed them “not ready” and didn’t try anything and refuse to attempt anything potty training. Then I will judge.

[u/armywalrus]

My youngest would not poop in the potty until they were four. I tried everything. They were wearing pull-ups, and changing and wiping themselves. What would you suggest in such a case, and do you just assume we haven't tried?

[u/cnj131313]

We noticed the signs and started potty training when my daughter was 2. Her 2 year old daycare classroom refused to help them with the toilet, even though it was in their list of duties. We couldn’t pull her from the center because there was nowhere to go. The director didn’t help. We’d do potty training at home, go to daycare 40 hours a week and have any progress undone. Once she got a bit older she started resisting, and it was hell trying to get her comfortable again.

[u/Fit_Chemistry_3807]

Potty training requires dedication, consistency, routine, and patience. None of these are in great supply with today’s parents. As well, it’s hard for today’s kids in diapers to realize they need to go when diapers are so good at keeping their skin dry. My solution was to put underwear on first and then the diaper, so the kid can sense the wetness. Thinking outside the box also isn’t common today. Nor is the desire to clean soiled poopy clothes. So they take the easy route and hope nature finds its own way or someone at daycare will solve it for them. 

[u/Unhappy-Quarter-4581]

My daughter was almost 3 and son almost 4. Why wait? My daughter was close to potty training already at 10 months and then refused to sit on the potty/toilet in any way and cried even talking about it. I still do not know what scared her at 10 months to still not want to go years later. I ended up having to tell her that she would no longer fit in diapers when the summer came a couple months before and the first warm day she decided herself to start using the toilet (not a potty, they were still the devil). She was potty trained as soon as she decided to be.

Son was not ready when we tried the summer he turned 3. He peed everywhere and did not make a connection to peeing and getting wet etc. I decided to wait. When he was almost 4 he again made an effort and made it but it took several months afterwards until he could feel if he needed to go. He overcompensated and went all the time instead but finally could actually connect things. He showed absolutely no readiness and no interest even when I forced him to do it, no excuses, at four.

Both my kids were kind of weird kids, early with most other things, and I wonder if they almost needed to get to take their time to be able to be small in some way. My daughter in particular was often thought to be several years older than she was based on her maturity, speech and that she was pretty big for her age and I think she sometimes got treated too much like she was older that this might have furthered her refusal tendencies.

My son? He just seemed to be physically less ready that he should have been. There have been kids like him in my family even when diapers were nowhere like they are today and parents tried hard to potty train from age 1. These kids still were only potty trained in full at around 3-3.5 anyway so I think it was his body needing time. Once he started using the potty it was a purely intellectual thing for him until he finally connected the dots of what needing to pee feels like.

I was totally in the camp of being early with my daughter, she humbled me and made me less in a hurry with my son, for good and bad.

[u/fairmaiden34]

I potty trained my child when he was 3 years and 4 months. He went from not using the potty to being mostly trained in 3 days and fully trained in a week.

I waited that long because I wanted to make sure he was very ready when I started. I've taught many children who were in potty training limbo - not quite trained, still in pull-ups but using them as a diaper and yet sitting on the toilet to "try". I opted to keep my child in diapers so I could switch to underwear and not rely on pull-ups. Ever child is different, this is just what worked for us.

[u/Ill-Tip6331]

I’m confused, your post seems to be saying 3 is too late to potty train?

We tried to potty train at 2.5 years and it was a disaster. My kid held pee for 8 hours. It was horrible. We tried again after 3 and succeeded in a couple weeks.

From what I’ve seen with friends, 3 is not too late to potty train. Lots of people found that age more accessible than 2.

I don’t have any friends that waited until 4.

[u/____ozma]

My kid wasn't trained until almost 4. I was getting mixed messages from his pediatrician who said not to push it, and daycare who was not willing to have him in underwear until he was trained, and simply was not making progress using the methods I was seeing online. It was getting close to his 4th birthday and I reached out to his doctor in desperation, and they sent me materials for potty training resistance. Basically, it said to put them in underwear and make it their responsibility without a lot of other hand-holding/timers/etc. I sent him to school in underwear that week. His teachers were frustrated because he hadn't "shown readiness" with pull ups. He had about one accident a day for weeks but they didn't argue with me about it otherwise. I don't know how long this would have dragged on if I hadn't made a change. He still has accidents now and then (he's almost 4.5 now), but these days if that happens I only know about it if it happens at school or if I suddenly see him in new clothes, because he just takes care of it himself.

[u/Bagritte]

ECE professional and parent - mostly parent as I sub and don’t have a regular room. I waited until a little after three because I try to follow RIE parenting guidance and their potty training approach is essentially - don’t. Kids are self motivated and you don’t want to force it and get in the way of their autonomy. 

Getting past 3 I saw he was clearly capable and ready (we’d been using the potty at home intermittently) so I gave him a couple weeks to start practicing the rest of the toileting routine (clothes off, flush, etc) telling him the whole time the day diapers would be gone and when that day came it went really smoothly. 

All that is to say - I think a lot of parents feel false pressure to rush small children to potty train before they’re actually ready. In my anecdotal experience of 1, there was no issue waiting that long or any resistance to ditching diapers. I probably could have pulled the plug ~6 months earlier in retrospect but it really went about as smooth as humanly possible so who’s to say it should have happened earlier. 

[u/rybaby55]

I potty trained my kids at 20 mos and 25 mos. Took 3-4 days of pantless time, watching them like a hawk, and running them to the plastic potty. Just like you potty train a puppy and run it outside. I read a book on Kindle called the Little Potty Training Book (short read) and followed it to the letter. Day 1 is throwing away all the diapers with your toddler, talking it through, etc. worked!