One in four children start school in nappies

Using disposable nappies does seem to reduce the incentive to get toddlers potty trained. My own mother made it her mission to get us out of terries asap.

I have noticed that toilet training is later nowadays. I started potty training at 18 to 24 months but the trend now seems to be let them do it themselves when they are ready!

In my grandsons nursery if they had two accidents in a day they were put back in their nappy.

My DD2 took a weeks leave from work to train her children and it was annoying that nursery were not very supportive. Maybe this is the reason as so many children go to nursery/pre school now rather than at home with parents!

About 30 years ago I ran the local playgroup/ nursery school for children three years and over, we always asked that the children were toilet trained and they were.

15 years after handing over the nursey because my daughter became ill I started childminding so I could be at home, what an eye opener ,toilet training had gone backwards so many parents could not be bothered to toilet train their children and expected me to to do it for them , trying to tell them that they had to carry on with the training in their own homes fell on deaf ears and the children often arrived in nappies, so when it was time for School they sent them in nappies which was for me so disappointing as I knew it was down to the laziness of the parents.

I can remember being a bit surprised to be asked by a woman in our baby sitting group to put her DS on the potty every hour or so at my house when I'd offered to help out for an afternoon. They were mid toilet training. He was about 2 and I didn't know him.
Some people can be quite demanding.
Imagine if a parent expected a teacher to do likewise.

Another media storm about nothing.

Chatting to other grans at aquacise, it seems ‘lifting’ a child at night is no longer the done thing.

Apparently, that’s what ‘the book’ says. Which book, I do not know! But obviously, the Bible for young mums nowadays.

Several of us pensioner grannies all agreed that was something we did with our own children, especially the boys.

Plus eating with the fingers is now the accepted way to get them to eat,

Forks, spoons….no.

Baby-led weaning advocates allowing them to start eating finger foods when they move onto solids. I don't see anything wrong with that. They will then move onto using cutlery when they are able to.

A social worker once told me that modern, sophisticated, disposable nappies, are the reason for some children not being adequately potty trained before school.

We once used terry towelling nappies - so many mums couldn't wait to potty train their children in order to get them out of those horrible things. I know I hated having to scrape the towelling nappies clean before dumping them in a lidded bucket of water, with "Napisan" sterilizing powder added. And washing and drying dozens of them every week wasn't always easy either.

The modern disposable nappies are so efficient in catching urine and keeping the child comfortable and dry, that the child has no incentive to get out of these nappies or pull-ups themselves. And I think it also makes it easy for some of us to put off the stress to ourselves and to the child, of the potty training regime. (Which, depending on the individual child, doesn't always go smoothly.)

The very comfortable pull-ups that children can wear at night, also encourage mums to put off attempting night-time potty training. Which I remember as being very stressful - having to get up at night to change the bedding after the occasional accident. Especially as in many households today, mums and dads are both working.

I think what must be happening is that now children start school at 4, time suddenly runs out for some busy (or lazy - dare I say??) parents to begin or complete the potty training. Which is why, I think, some are not ready to come out of nappies or pull-ups before actually starting school.

I feel very sorry for the teachers -and the children, because the children must feel humiliated if some of their peer group are already dry.

I know my children hated their sodden terry towelling nappies - which once wet, would hang heavily and scratchily between their little legs! So they were proud and happy to learn how to get out of the beastly things!!

Like others on here on here, my two were toilet trained by the time they went to Playgroup. They were both in terry towels, disposables were in their infancy and not very safe, which I'm sure made a difference to a mum's attitude and still does! Our son was lifted at night, but for our daughter it was never necessary They both used a spoon and pusher at meal times from an early age, never fingers, yuck!! until they could manage a child's knife and fork. Grandchildren muchly the same. This was however, 55 years ago!!!!

Oh I have a picture in my head of when my son one morning in his dropside cot had just stepped out of his terry nappy dumped it over the sides and stood there grinning his little head off!

Renatal I agree with you.

Even when the fancy pampers first came in there were reasons, not just financial, for using them in
emergencies or holidays only.

I was told that not one disposable nappy since they were first made has biodegraded yet. I can believe that.
They look so pretty it also seemed a terrible waste to use them only once.

That stench of ammonia from the dreaded nappy bucket - yuck.

Little brother watching big brother peeing wanted to copy him so it was only one of the boys we had to show.

DGD followed me into the loo and was very interested to see if I had a willy and very proud of herself too.

With regard to children using cutlery and drinking from proper cups …(although lots of adults are not good examples with their sippy type water bottles and expensive flasks) ..and learning to go to the toilet.

I have heard this often “but that was 40/50/years ago” as if children are of a different species now.

Was it traumatic for them in the past to achieve these basic milestones?

Times change - would you want to go back to having to wash your clothes by hand, for instance, or cope without a fridge or freezer? Thank god for disposable nappies - I certainly wouldn't have wanted to deal with terry ones, and if your children go to nursery from an early age (as mine did), I can't see nurseries wanting to deal with them either. They didn't stop either of my children being toilet trained before they went to school.

Oh heavens the nappy bucket. We even took it in the car when going to stay with my parents. And the frozen nappies on the line. A great incentive to get the DC potty trained.

And at the end of it all you could use the nappies as floor cloths. Or pass them on if still in good condition.

Harris27

I’ve got four in nappies in pre school room at nursery. Yes they are starting school in nappies three if my children went in September in them. So it’s ok to change nappies in a nursery setting but not as a teacher?🤔

I don’t think it is so much about the aversion of teachers for changing nappies whereas nursery staff do it all the time. I think it is more about children who do not have special needs not being toilet trained at school age. Whether the stats are exaggerated or not I think it is tempting with the extra absorbent comfortable nappies used these days for parents to keep postponing toilet training which can be time consuming and messy.

Half a century ago (plus) we were trained to empty bladders when stuck on a potty/ loo seat rather than when the bladder was full. Children then learnt how to empty on demand- control learnt possibly before awareness. Maybe now children learn in a different order- awareness followed by control.
Eneuresis clinics for children ( for children who have not attained dryness despite years of training) did not used to accept children less than 7 years old because it was thought that some children ( mostly boys) will not have developed sufficient sensation ( the nerve connections) for awareness and control.

Oh yes, the dreaded nappy bucket with nappysan! My mother used to tell me of washing nappies by hand using yellow carbolic soap, rinsing them in cold water, (war time) then wringing them in a hand wringer!!! I had a twin tub, a gift from my parents who had upgraded to a Keymatic, and thought myself very lucky indeed not to have to wash anything by hand, never mind nappies! fragile clothes being the exception, but I didn't have many of those!! I do remember putting, by mistake, a yellow duster into a nappy hot wash, and the nappies involved turning bright yellow!!! Nothing would bring the colour out, and no way could we afford to replace them. It taught me to be more careful that's for sure.

I remember my children bringing me a little bag with wet knickers in them when they had had an accident in reception class, they were toilet trained but as the reception class teacher said ‘they get easily distracted at this age and forget to ask for the toilet.’
They always looked a bit abashed bringing out the bag and were obviously upset they had wet themselves. I wonder if kids still in nappies in reception class feel similarly uneasy/upset about being in nappies when the majority of kids are using the toilet??

I do remember putting, by mistake, a yellow duster into a nappy hot wash, and the nappies involved turning bright yellow!!!
Better than green or purple. More like what my DB would call baby-sh*t yellow (please excuse the language).

If we young mothers in the 1970s ever dared grumble about our lot, it would trigger DM to tell us how she had to cope;
The winter of 1947, dad had flu, no washing machine, nowhere to dry anything, a bombed out flat in Central London, rationing, hand knitted woollen pilches (no plastic pants back then.
....
She would prefix all this with you are so lucky 🙄

She gave me to Grandma in c1950 who had me potty trained, out of
nappies at 13 months. We had moved to NZ by then.

I started teaching Infants in 1967, and I do not recall any children arriving at school in nappies until c,2005. Initially the children started in the term in which they were five, but in poor and deprived areas they were frequently allowed to start earlier, and all were toilet trained.
And many families lived in tenement blocks, flats or terraced houses with outdoor toilets, many did not have washing machines and relied on launderettes, and little outdoor space for clothes drying.
The four who arrived in nappies all had mild special needs, and all four were toilet trained, and pleased to be so, well within the first month by the TAs. Therefore capable of being trained.

I am a boomer and when I started school, age 4, in the mixed infants back in the 1950s there were over 40 of us in the class. Only one teacher and TAs had not been invented.

I do remember the odd wet pant incident but not anybody being still in nappies. Mind you it was a very time ago.

Grammaretto

If we young mothers in the 1970s ever dared grumble about our lot, it would trigger DM to tell us how she had to cope;
The winter of 1947, dad had flu, no washing machine, nowhere to dry anything, a bombed out flat in Central London, rationing, hand knitted woollen pilches (no plastic pants back then.
....
She would prefix all this with you are so lucky 🙄

She gave me to Grandma in c1950 who had me potty trained, out of
nappies at 13 months. We had moved to NZ by then.

😀

I have a pattern somewhere for knitted pilches if any young Mums would like a copy.

I was potty trained by 15 months, apparently.

Twas ever thus grammaretto.
I have never heard of pilchers …assume knicker things for over nappies? Not that any young or older mum would want the pattern I assume…