3.5 and 4 year olds not potty trained...how did that happen?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What does "being ready" even mean? Perhaps everyone is waiting for their child to say "I'm ready!" and that's why so many 4 year olds are gleefully pooping in their pants.

The idea of kids being "ready" is a good one in general IMO (I'm the ECer), but what's missing from this with PT in the US is the fact that kids' natural readiness is interfered with by disposable diapers and the lack of peer pressure at a young age... Also interesting is the "readiness" theory came up along with the advent of disposable diapers. It's not actually developmental, per se. I think it's fine if you wait, personally. But it's not some natural developmental milestone for a 3+ year old, and the fact that some of our parents/ancestors beat us into PT submission does not mean authoritarian parenting is the only way to do it BEFORE this "magical age of readiness" (which seems to have creeped up a whole year in just 1-2 generations).

[Anonymous]

I agree with PP.
Nothing like seeing a child climb a ladder, run across the top of the playground, jump from the height and land on 2 feet while singing the theme song to Nonja Turtles on their way to a Music class and lunch out at a restaurant ....and then their mom lays them down on a mat to change the poop and pew from their behind.
They don't tell you that they are ready to use a fork or spoon, or stop a bottle, drink from a regular cup, or say "I want to learn my letters now please" either but you teach these things anyways.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Is there a point to training them earlier than they want? Does potty training at 4 have any negative effect on a child?

Yes, four year olds notice that all the other children can use the bathroom and aren't wearing diapers under their clothes, hanging out of their bathing suits at the pool, etc. Do you think they are like infants and have no social awareness at 4?? Also, they will remember it because also unlike infants, 4 year olds are forming long term memories. Have you ever interacted with a child older than about 12 months?

If they notice other kids, all the better. If the kid isn't trained simply because he's resistant (no other physical or neurological problems), then seeing their peers using the toilet can be a good motivator.

This could apply to everything! Genius! Don't teach your kid to use silverware and hopefully he will feel like the odd one out and a little ape-like and start using it once he sees peers doing so! Shame! Who would have thought of this?! I am going to lay off all the teaching right now! Will save me a ton of effort.

No one is saying that PT shouldn't have at least been attempted by the age of 4. Yeah, the kid knows what a potty is and what it is used for but for whatever reason is not fully trained by the age of 4. I'm still not sure why a parent would owe you or anyone else an explanation as to why it is taking so long. Ironically, many times these issues stem from having attempted potty training too early - before the child was really ready/willing. I know that must be a hard one for the "I Potty Trained my baby at 9 months!" crowd to believe. But it happens.

If you potty trained your toddler - good for you!! But a kid isn't a freak if he/she is still PT in preschool.

It's not your kid, it's you. Someone else could have trained him. No one thinks your kid can't do it...

Gah! So what? It isn't a contest. It isn't a race. There is no competition, there is no trophy for getting your kid PT first. YOU are doing that for YOU and your own sense of accomplishment. If you want to spend a year of year life rushing a 2 year old to a little potty seat and changing crapped on underwear and britches - go for it. If you want your kid to learn to go potty all by themselves - wait until they are ready.

Some might be ready for the whole process at 2. MANY are not ready until they are 3/3.5. Some might not be ready until they are 4. Eventually - they do learn!

This is such an odd characterization. I'm not the PP you're arguing with, but that's such a false dichotomy (I have literally never met a person who PT by 2 or so do that-- rush or clean up inconvenient major accidents-- more than rarely)... not to mention, you know you're changing diapers and wiping poop off your kid for an extra year or two, right? I mean, that's the tradeoff. It doesn't come for free. We're not doing all this AND changing diapers for years.

I'm not even saying there's anything wrong with that, but it's not actually less work for you than for the vast majority of parents of kids who train by 2 or so.

I had a woman on DCUM tell me that having to stop briefly to take my PT'ed 16-month-old potty (at my DC's initiation) every 2-3 hours on a long road trip was "her idea of h*ll" and "why she waited until 3.5 for her kid to PT himself."

Huh?

I mean, if it's her idea of h*ll, I'm not going to convince her otherwise, but she was totally discounting all the work she had to do for an extra 2 years (wiping poop off a preschooler being just the most significant part) because it had become normal to her.

She was saying that she'd rather not have to make maybe one extra stop on a 9-hour road trip she took once or twice a year-- and this was such a deal breaker to her that she would rather change diapers for an additional 2 years instead.

To each her own-- absolutely. But I think some people get so wrapped up in the possibility of rare accidents or "rushing" occasionally (usually for a couple months-- if that-- not a year)-- while totally discounting the thousands of extra diaper changes, etc. (which I'm sure all bigger kids totally 100% tolerate without argument).

It's just kind of myopic, frankly. And I'm talking only about THIS aspect of the argument ("it's so much easier to wait an extra 2 years than deal with occasional accidents for 2 months"). Because if my kid has 4 accidents a week for 2 months, and the training pants are absorbent/waterproof like mine were, it was literally no bigger a deal than changing 32 (pee) diapers during a period which you'd be changing at least, what, 336? And then you'd go on to change another 4000+, when I'd be done. It's not about my sense of accomplishment. It's about my kid for the most part-- but if it's about me, it's about it being easier for me. Or my perception that it's easier-- and that's all yours is, too-- perception-- definitely not a fact.

If your kid is wetting his/her pants 4X a week and you feel the need to put these super absorbent training pants on him/her...you really think that is potty trained? Sounds to me like you were just using a super fancy "training" diaper on your kid and calling yourself done. But you were not done. And usually when you forge ahead like that you aren't done for another year or so.

When my own kids switched to big kid underwear it is because they were ready to pee/poop every time in the potty. They were big enough to get on the potty by themselves. They knew how to pull their pants up/down. They knew how to use toilet paper (although I helped at first). And they knew how to wash/dry their hands.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because parents are gone 10-11 hours every day and it's way easier on the weekends to just put them in pull-ups and let the daycare deal with it. It's time consuming and requires large blocks of time, patience and staying inside to do it the "fast" way (3 day method) and no one is taking days off work to potty train. Or running to spend their only family time I the weekends about potty training. So it gets put off until the daycare starts to apply pressure or kindergarten is looming.

Bingo.

[Anonymous]

Here's what happened the first and last time I had an untrained big kid, age five. He came to me announcing he pooped in his pants. I said get some clean clothes to put on. He brought them to me expecting me to clean him. I told him he needed to clean himself. It took forever, but there were no more "accidents" after that.

Apparently mom and dad took turns cleaning his pants. Gross. They had their boy spoiled rotten in more ways than that.

The epitome of neglectful parenting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For me it is because I wanted them to learn to read first so they can read on the toilet. We're a zero screen time house.

What? why do they need to be able to read on the toilet? Business on the toilet should take less than five minutes.

and you think the rest of us are watching tv on the toilet?

[Anonymous]

Is there a "Toilet Training for Dummies" book?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's what happened the first and last time I had an untrained big kid, age five. He came to me announcing he pooped in his pants. I said get some clean clothes to put on. He brought them to me expecting me to clean him. I told him he needed to clean himself. It took forever, but there were no more "accidents" after that.

Apparently mom and dad took turns cleaning his pants. Gross. They had their boy spoiled rotten in more ways than that.

The epitome of neglectful parenting.

Tell us about another time you were the big strong Winner and you put the stupid little Loser children in their place. Adults who show off their power over children in their care are so impressive!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is there a "Toilet Training for Dummies" book?

You can google "3 day potty training" method and that's basically it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is there a point to training them earlier than they want? Does potty training at 4 have any negative effect on a child?

Yes, four year olds notice that all the other children can use the bathroom and aren't wearing diapers under their clothes, hanging out of their bathing suits at the pool, etc. Do you think they are like infants and have no social awareness at 4?? Also, they will remember it because also unlike infants, 4 year olds are forming long term memories. Have you ever interacted with a child older than about 12 months?

If they notice other kids, all the better. If the kid isn't trained simply because he's resistant (no other physical or neurological problems), then seeing their peers using the toilet can be a good motivator.

This could apply to everything! Genius! Don't teach your kid to use silverware and hopefully he will feel like the odd one out and a little ape-like and start using it once he sees peers doing so! Shame! Who would have thought of this?! I am going to lay off all the teaching right now! Will save me a ton of effort.

No one is saying that PT shouldn't have at least been attempted by the age of 4. Yeah, the kid knows what a potty is and what it is used for but for whatever reason is not fully trained by the age of 4. I'm still not sure why a parent would owe you or anyone else an explanation as to why it is taking so long. Ironically, many times these issues stem from having attempted potty training too early - before the child was really ready/willing. I know that must be a hard one for the "I Potty Trained my baby at 9 months!" crowd to believe. But it happens.

If you potty trained your toddler - good for you!! But a kid isn't a freak if he/she is still PT in preschool.

It's not your kid, it's you. Someone else could have trained him. No one thinks your kid can't do it...

Gah! So what? It isn't a contest. It isn't a race. There is no competition, there is no trophy for getting your kid PT first. YOU are doing that for YOU and your own sense of accomplishment. If you want to spend a year of year life rushing a 2 year old to a little potty seat and changing crapped on underwear and britches - go for it. If you want your kid to learn to go potty all by themselves - wait until they are ready.

Some might be ready for the whole process at 2. MANY are not ready until they are 3/3.5. Some might not be ready until they are 4. Eventually - they do learn!

This is such an odd characterization. I'm not the PP you're arguing with, but that's such a false dichotomy (I have literally never met a person who PT by 2 or so do that-- rush or clean up inconvenient major accidents-- more than rarely)... not to mention, you know you're changing diapers and wiping poop off your kid for an extra year or two, right? I mean, that's the tradeoff. It doesn't come for free. We're not doing all this AND changing diapers for years.

I'm not even saying there's anything wrong with that, but it's not actually less work for you than for the vast majority of parents of kids who train by 2 or so.

I had a woman on DCUM tell me that having to stop briefly to take my PT'ed 16-month-old potty (at my DC's initiation) every 2-3 hours on a long road trip was "her idea of h*ll" and "why she waited until 3.5 for her kid to PT himself."

Huh?

I mean, if it's her idea of h*ll, I'm not going to convince her otherwise, but she was totally discounting all the work she had to do for an extra 2 years (wiping poop off a preschooler being just the most significant part) because it had become normal to her.

She was saying that she'd rather not have to make maybe one extra stop on a 9-hour road trip she took once or twice a year-- and this was such a deal breaker to her that she would rather change diapers for an additional 2 years instead.

To each her own-- absolutely. But I think some people get so wrapped up in the possibility of rare accidents or "rushing" occasionally (usually for a couple months-- if that-- not a year)-- while totally discounting the thousands of extra diaper changes, etc. (which I'm sure all bigger kids totally 100% tolerate without argument).

It's just kind of myopic, frankly. And I'm talking only about THIS aspect of the argument ("it's so much easier to wait an extra 2 years than deal with occasional accidents for 2 months"). Because if my kid has 4 accidents a week for 2 months, and the training pants are absorbent/waterproof like mine were, it was literally no bigger a deal than changing 32 (pee) diapers during a period which you'd be changing at least, what, 336? And then you'd go on to change another 4000+, when I'd be done. It's not about my sense of accomplishment. It's about my kid for the most part-- but if it's about me, it's about it being easier for me. Or my perception that it's easier-- and that's all yours is, too-- perception-- definitely not a fact.

Keep in mind that 2.75-3.5 year olds don't need frequent diaper changes. You have to stop the car every 2-3 hours to make sure your 16mo could pee, lest she have an accident. However, if your kid were in a diaper, you wouldn't have to stop so frequently. You could just change her diaper whenever you stopped for gas. Poop is a different story, and different for every kid. My kid was very regular, so stopping the car to change a poopy diaper was very very rare. Also, when you talk about accidents, most people think about cleaning pee from the rug, the couch, the car seat, a restaurant seat (you used absorbent and waterproof training pants, which many people don't use).

I trained late. I believe we all do what works best for us. I've argued my point on this thread, but only because the idea of training late is being challenged. I've never once argued with somebody about this in real life, because I don't care one bit what anybody else does. You think people get too wrapped up in the idea of "rare" accidents. But you yourself got wrapped up in the idea that it's easier to potty train than it is to change diapers. That wasn't the case for me and my kid. I too went with what was easier, which for us was changing diapers until age 3.

Oh, and we'll both be slaughtered on DCUM for opting to do anything the "easy" way because that means we're lazy.

[Anonymous]

Both of my twins learned around 3.5 and are still wet at night at 9.5. We had no idea that they had severe,Chronic constipation.

[Anonymous]

Special needs. My delayed kid doesn't get it. But thanks for judging me and making me feel bad!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Both of my twins learned around 3.5 and are still wet at night at 9.5. We had no idea that they had severe,Chronic constipation.

What are they eating?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Special needs. My delayed kid doesn't get it. But thanks for judging me and making me feel bad!

The vast majority of parents today would not judge you for that at all, they would feel for you. We all have our own battles to fight and none of us appreciates being judged and looked down on for it. Hang in there. Your little one will potty train in time.

[Anonymous]

My question is where are all these preschools who are ALSO willing to change diapers until kids are 4? Every school I ever looked at for my kids wanted them potty trained before they started. It that meant getting my 2.5 year old ready because the school prioritized kids who could start before their 3rd birthday, then that's what we did.