What Age Should you start toilet training

Stylesclash1702

We have a two and a half year old and we are trying now and it seems to be working.
But what age do you think they should start

embee

There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to toilet training. You will know on your child whether or not they're ready to start using the toilet. They'll show signs of not tolerating nappies, being able to undress themselves reasonably well, being curious about adults going to the toilet. Around 18 months old or so they will have more control over their bladders. Sometimes you find that a child will train well to do wee's, but might hold poo's until a nighttime nappy. or vice versa. It is always easier afaik to toilet train a child when their vocabularies are such that they can communicate effectively that they need the loo, and also that they have a level of comprehension that they understand why they're going to be using the loo. If your child isn't very vocal yet, it might be best to wait. Girls are generally quicker to talk than boys and for that reason girls are sometimes toilet trained earlier than boys. Each child is an individual case though and the people best placed to know whether the child is ready are his/her parents.

My daughter was 2.5 when she was trained and she was doing wee's and poops in the toilet within seven days, but a lot of it was self-led, in that she was sorta making noises herself about going to the "big" toilet and being a girl who was "far too big" for nappies etc. She always uses the toilet now, won't even use a little seat or a potty, she's been going on normal toilets since she started training which has made it far easier to bring her to the toilet when we're out and about.

Three words are key when it comes to toilet training :

Patience
Persistence
Consistency

There will be accidents, damn sure, and you'll find initially that laundry gets down twice as often as usual if not more, but this is all normal. It's a huge learning curve for a small person who has spent their entire short lives pooing and peeing into a nappy. Always be positive and praise galore, don't make a big deal out of accidents, recognise signs your child needs the loo etc. Reward charts can work with children who perhaps need some sort of incentive to take the big step of using the toilet. Always follow the same routine - into bathroom, trousers and pants down, up on the loo, do your business, off toilet, flush, wash hands. You can make games out of going to the toilet. Early on my daughter tended to only sit on it for about 15 seconds and would try to jump off mid-stream, she didn't get that she had to wait for the wee to stop before she got off the toilet, so I'd have some childrens books (I had a great Dora the Explorer book about toilet training that I kept in the bathroom) at the ready, we'd chat or even sing songs, talk about their day - distraction is a great thing as if too big of a deal is made out of the toilet then it can scare them off altogether. If you're going off in the car, get them to go to the loo beforehand, minimise drinks given etc. Nighttime wise, they tend to go a while after the daytime nappies do, as keeping dry all night is not something a lot of kids will just do immediately. Mine won't, it is proving very hard to try to stop her looking for a drink of milk to bring to bed (and of course, she's only in that habit cos of her parents giving it to her in the first place!), but I'm working on that. I'm in no rush anyways, she has started waking in the night, asking for the loo, nappy she's wearing is dry anyways and she gets back into bed and straight to sleep again so I would imagine a week or two more and I'll attempt to put her into bed in no nappy, but there's no set rules about these things.

Buy dozens of pairs of knickers and put the child in clothes that are easy to pull up and down - I was washing knickers every day for the first couple of weeks or so!

Best of luck - it's wonderful to be free of nappies but you'll find that your trips out and about will be punctuated by "Mammy, I need to go loo loo".

Lizzykins

Both my lads were three but the two girls were 2.5 and they all trained in a matter of days.

Stylesclash1702

thanks for your help. she doing well after about 3 days i know its not much but she is asking for the potty for "wee wee's" . shes good
Thanks again

deisemum

I'm a childminder and I've helped toilet train a fair few children at this stage.

If you follow a child's lead then it will be so much easier. Try not to get too hung up on the age of the child. I have found that girls tend to train a bit younger than boys. 90% of the boys I've trained were 3 years of age, girls a bit younger, this reflects the toilet training ages of friends children. My second son took me by surprise and toilet trained in 1 day and only ever had 1 accident. His older brother took a lot more effort.

Some people get toilet timing and toilet training mixed up but they're 2 different things.

Praise the successes and ignore any accident.

Redpunto

mine were both 3 and apart from the odd accident they were fully trained in a week - i dont think theres any need to rush these things and you really do take the lead from teh child - youll know yourself if they are ready.

Shooters

yeh my little girl was 2 and a half when we started. she was very fast! but what i found really helped was a reward chart...especially for the number 2's!! she used to get a little dot sticker for her wee wees and a star when she did a number 2! and at the end of the week, if she got so many stars...she got a little treat. really worked for her. we put the chart right beside her potty and she put the stickers on herself!! night time training took a bit longer but we just cut out the drinks after 7.30 and made sure she went to the loo before she went to sleep.

there's going to be accidents but they soon get the hang of it!

best of luck with everything!

Davidth88

Our little one ( nearly 3 ) has been out of nappies since about Sept.

What we still find is that , esp in the afternoons she gets very engrosed in what she is doing and only asks the the potty when she has ' leaked ' a little bit. ( any suggestions welcome )

We found bribery the way to do it , esp for ' number 2's ' . If she did a number 2 in the correct place she got to see a bob the builder video, of course we did get her then trying to do a poo and producing what can only be described as a pebble just so she could ' watch bob ' , this was easily coped wit however.

She sometimes now gets very reluctant to ' perform on demand ' ie when we are going out and we need her to go for a wee first , but I think a lot of that is just her being self assertive .

Gabsdot

My son was 3 1/2 when we started with him and he picked it up within 2 weeks. Although the number 2's in the toilet took about another 2 months to get the hang of. He's 5 now and still wears a pull up at night

lostinnappies

I began INTRODUCTING potty training to mine at about 1.5 years old. I would literally sit him on the potty just before he had a bath, and thats it. It really was to just get him used to the potty. I didnt start potty training him properly until he was 2.5 years and he had it very quickly. A month later he was potty trained at night .... all by himself.

Hector Savage

Sorry for posting in this old thread but it's a timeless issue !!

We are potty training our 2.5 year old and it is a nightmare, he doesn't seem to realise when he's weeing and can hold it for a long time.
He will sit on the potty but I think he thinks he's just playing some game, he's only weed in there a few times .

My older boy was the same age when we trained him and was done in a weekend !! - and had very few accidents after that (1 maybe 2)

But it's been a week now and pretty much zero progress.

deisemum

It doesn't look like he's ready. You've been trying for a week and it's not clicking with him. If it were me I'd stop for now and try again in a month or two. He's a different child from your older boy.

One thing I have found that can affect training with boys is the shape of the potty. When they sit on a potty a lot of boys don't like their testicles touching a cold plastic surface which can affect performance.

Moonbeam

When they are ready they are ready and it should only take a few days . They will show an interest and ask to use the potty/toilet. It is different for different children. My son was the easiest ,he was a big boy and that was it and about a month later he was fully trained day and night.
The girls had a much bigger gap between day and night.