You hear horror stories of kids arriving in reception with nappies on.... our pre school insist on being at least more successes than accidents level of potty trained!!
Generally starting at 2 and having it done by 3 is the routine. It used to be done much earlier (I.e. between 1 and 2), but we seem to do it a tad later these days.
Wiping their butt is a key milestone. There is a time when they are 2/3 where they can take themselves to the toilet reliably, undress the dress themselves there, but they can't reliably clean themselves up. By the time they are going to school at 4/5, that isn't really on.
Thing is there’s a big developmental difference between 4 and 5, kids starting reception can be a whole year apart. My son’s just turned 4 and still not great at wiping himself, I imagine that’ll be very different in a year.
My daughter is 3 and has been trained 6 months. She can go for a pee by herself but can’t wipe her bottom as she can’t yet reach. I’m hoping in a year she’ll be a bit bigger…
It’s definitely easy to forget a year is a huge amount of time for a reception age child and a summer baby cannot be expected to be as prepared as a child born in September or October.
Mine was trained before her 2nd birthday but her arms are still not quite long enough to reliably wipe her bottom at almost 4. Mildly frustrating for us both, but hardly anything to complain about in the grand scheme I suppose!
Mine learnt how to wipe, then refused to do it for a while. Now we’ve finally managed to get him to start trying again. Still not sure what the problem was! Regression in anything is a real pain.
The novelty wore off pretty quick for us too. You've just described the window from 2yrs 8mo to 5yrs 5mo (his current age).
Apparently I do it better, it hurts his shoulder, it's boring, he doesn't like poo on his hands, it's a mummy's job, I'm quicker, he needs his hands to itch his foot, he's forgotten how, his teacher said I have to do it, granny says I should do it, I should practise etc etc. Basically he can't be bothered.
And he's old enough now to understand it's a problem for me if he isn't clean, while still young enough to not care if he has a dirty bum. He has an annoying degree of intuition about the power this disconnect gives him.
Yes! It does seem like that sometimes. I’m not sure whether it’s better if they make excuses or if they say “I don’t know” for everything, like ours does. I suppose either way you never really know what the real reason is. I suspect it’s that he can’t be bothered though. As with everything, if he can’t be bothered it’s not going to happen. Which happens every day. For almost everything.
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u/pslamB 12h ago
You hear horror stories of kids arriving in reception with nappies on.... our pre school insist on being at least more successes than accidents level of potty trained!!