Earlier Potty Training

I'm almost 29 and am the youngest of 5 children. All of us were totally day trained at east by 2 and a half (I was the late one but I have a bladder issue). In our generation almost no kids were still in diapers after 3. We plan to buy Levi who just turned one a potty as soon as he starts walking. That doesn't mean we expect him to be potty trained by the end of whatever week that is but we want to get him ready. Already pretty much as soon as he's wet he takes off his diaper. We would like him to be potty trained by two years old. Did anyone else potty train by two?

My oldest trained a little after 2, but she was in day care full time at the time, so they did most of the training for me, lol...also, she was surrounded by a lot of "big" kids so there was a peer pressure factor that played to our favor.

My youngest was just after 3...but we were really laid back about the whole thing. We let her lead, and it was a really stress free experience for all of us.

I think all kids are different...and as long as parents are understanding that some kids may be physically and mentally ready by 2, but others may not, then I think it's all good.

Best of luck. Wow, can you believe he's a year old already??? Seems like just a little while ago you were pregnant...time flies, doesn't it?

Hmm well my son's going to be 2 in two weeks, and we're working on potty training but we don't want to push him. For some reason "they" say boys train later. If you want, you could try the EC approach, that works from infanthood and can help early train. My friend ECed her son and went without diapers early.

What's EC?

Anyway, my son was 3 before he was out of nappies. I tried earlier but it was too stressful on both of us, so I just let it ride and kept on washing dirty nappies for another year. It was much less stressful than putting the pressure on and cleaning the carpet.

With my daughter, she is 13 months and not walking yet so I can't even imagine buying her a potty, I am not worried about when she is out of nappies, although she turns 3 in Winter, so I am thinking maybe I will try her at 2 1/2 which will be at around Christmas time, and in Australia it's HOT at Christmas time. Perfect for toilet training.

No matter what you decide to do just don't stress yourself out and don't stress out your child.

We were much more laid back. My son has some issues which generally meant later potty training...he was 3 1/2 to 4 by the time he got it. My daughter potty trained just after 2 1/2 years.

Neenie1 said:

What's EC?

Anyway, my son was 3 before he was out of nappies. I tried earlier but it was too stressful on both of us, so I just let it ride and kept on washing dirty nappies for another year. It was much less stressful than putting the pressure on and cleaning the carpet.

With my daughter, she is 13 months and not walking yet so I can't even imagine buying her a potty, I am not worried about when she is out of nappies, although she turns 3 in Winter, so I am thinking maybe I will try her at 2 1/2 which will be at around Christmas time, and in Australia it's HOT at Christmas time. Perfect for toilet training.

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EC = Elimination Communication

Basically, it's teaching your infant/toddler to sign to communicate that they need to go...then you take them to the potty and they go.

Infants on the potty? Now that I've gotta see. (it's not for me though)

EmSchmem said:

Did anyone else potty train by two?

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Yes, we did. Michele was potty trained at 20 months. We watched for the "signs" and then went for it. Took 2 weeks and was all done.
By the way you mention in your post that when you were young most kids were potty trained by 2.5. When I was growing up it was 18 months to 2 years. Any kids older than that and the parents got strange looks. But now days we have got sensitive.

Stan53 said:

But now days we have got sensitive.

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Maybe we've just gotten smarter.

Stan53 said:

Yes, we did. Michele was potty trained at 20 months. We watched for the "signs" and then went for it. Took 2 weeks and was all done.
By the way you mention in your post that when you were young most kids were potty trained by 2.5. When I was growing up it was 18 months to 2 years. Any kids older than that and the parents got strange looks. But now days we have got sensitive.

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I totally agree. You have to be proactive and watch for the signs and run them to the toilet... My son was trained before he was one year on having his bowel movements on the toilet. It took a little longer to get the peeing aspect down. It took more work from us to do so...

Stan53 said:

Yes, we did. Michele was potty trained at 20 months. We watched for the "signs" and then went for it. Took 2 weeks and was all done.
By the way you mention in your post that when you were young most kids were potty trained by 2.5. When I was growing up it was 18 months to 2 years. Any kids older than that and the parents got strange looks. But now days we have got sensitive.

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I think a lot of that had to do with the diapers and the washing systems they had years ago. Cloth diapers were the norm and washing machines were less efficient. for thousands of years people didn't even own washing machines. They didn't have great detergents, and hot water was a luxury or a pain to heat over the stove. So you can see why a parent would have been motivated to teach their child earlier than the parents of today. Now we have dipers and wipes you can just throw away. Doing laundry is 100 times easier than it used to be.

Edited to add that I don't mean to imply that Stan was born in the dark ages and his parents had to heat water over the stove. I'm talking about diapers and the olden days in general

Stan53 said:

Yes, we did. Michele was potty trained at 20 months. We watched for the "signs" and then went for it. Took 2 weeks and was all done.
By the way you mention in your post that when you were young most kids were potty trained by 2.5. When I was growing up it was 18 months to 2 years. Any kids older than that and the parents got strange looks. But now days we have got sensitive.

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Actually I was just referring to my family. But the same is still true. Today shildren are potty trained much later. Actually the change coincided with the popularity of disposable diapers. My nephew turned 4 on Monday and has only been potty trained for 2 months. I honestly want to cry at the though of 3 more years of Levi in diapers.

My son was 3 before he was toilet trained, and I used cloth nappies, so really I don't think in our case using cloth nappies made any difference.

I don't really care too much how long my daughter is in nappies for. (so long as she is out of them by 3 1/2 that is)

I think too much pressure is put on kids to grow up, if they're not ready, they're not ready.

lucypevensie said:

Edited to add that I don't mean to imply that Stan was born in the dark ages and his parents had to heat water over the stove. I'm talking about diapers and the olden days in general

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Actually I was born in the dark ages and my parents did have to boil water on the stove for washing. Whilst you may have spoken in jest certainly it was true.
Having said all that there is 21 years from the eldest of us to the youngest. We were all potty trained by 2 years old and with the youngest disposable diapers were available.
My mum did things different to me and my DW. She sat us on the potty for an hour each afternoon until we did what we had to do. No watching for the signs like we did. In that respect, as another poster commented on ,we are smarter.
And now for our next act. The DW is looking as no diapers for No. 2. That is something I got to see.
Oh, and DD aint night trained. That will come in time. Seen lots of trouble caused because well meaning parents came down hard on bed wetters. So did my mum. Didn't make any difference. We still peed the bed until we were about 6 or so. So there you go, we aint perfect and neither was we!

Stan53 said:

Actually I was born in the dark ages and my parents did have to boil water on the stove for washing. Whilst you may have spoken in jest certainly it was true.
Having said all that there is 21 years from the eldest of us to the youngest. We were all potty trained by 2 years old and with the youngest disposable diapers were available.
My mum did things different to me and my DW. She sat us on the potty for an hour each afternoon until we did what we had to do. No watching for the signs like we did. In that respect, as another poster commented on ,we are smarter.
And now for our next act. The DW is looking as no diapers for No. 2. That is something I got to see.
Oh, and DD aint night trained. That will come in time. Seen lots of trouble caused because well meaning parents came down hard on bed wetters. So did my mum. Didn't make any difference. We still peed the bed until we were about 6 or so. So there you go, we aint perfect and neither was we!

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I believe night time bladder control (or lack thereof) is largely beyond a child's control until their bodies reach a certain level of physical maturity. And the age where the body reaches that stage can greatly vary.

My oldest wet the bed consistently 2-3 times a week until she was 6, then she just suddenly stopped...my youngest had 1 night time accident when she was 4, and that's been it. I definitely think that bed wetting is an issue with parents need to exercise a great deal of understanding and patience with their children. It's largely something that's beyond their body's control.

There can also be other factors to bed-wetting, of course. My husband was severely abused as a child by his stepfather...he wet the bed until he was 8 (which only caused his stepdad to abuse him further). When his mom divorced the guy and he moved out, my hubby instantly stopped having bedwetting issues. So, abuse and childhood trauma is another factor to consider when dealing with bedwetting.

I'm with the bedwetting thing being a seprate issue than being trained in general. There are totally different sets of things to consider. I was actually a bed wetter until I was 12. Two of my brothers were too. But we all hade very few accidents otherwise. I did occassionally on car trips, but my dad wa pretty tyranical about stopping.

My son became generally dry at night at 3. He still occasionally wets the bed, but we just change the sheets and get on with the day. It's that much of a non-issue that my son actually just changes his clothes while we are still getting up. LOL, not that long ago, I went in to his room around lunch time and thought what is that smell, he'd wet the bed and hadn't told us.

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