One in four children start school in nappies

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.

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.

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?

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.

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!

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!!!!

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!!

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.

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

Forks, spoons….no.

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.

Another media storm about nothing.

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.

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 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!

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.

Allsorts Disposable nappies and bum wipes are expensive and of course you have keep buying them until your child is toilet trained.

One would think that low income families would see the economic advantage of toilet training which costs nothing to implement.

That full nappy in a charity shop bag is disgusting BlueBelle.

Of course teachers should not be changing nappies or toilet changing, that's the parents job, why do people have children if they can't look after or afford them.

We also had to be able to tie our shoelaces when we started school. We were more advanced in those days in many ways but they wouldn’t admit it now . One thing they are better at is the kids speak their minds - we were told to be seen and not heard!

I've just found this thread and read it through with mounting astonishment. The two granddaughters I looked after are now 19 and 21 so I am well out-of-date, but with them and my own three toilet training was never an issue - just part of the natural progression through childhood. As I remember it, nursery school or playgroup was started at age 2 and a half at the earliest and all my children/granddaughters had been toilet trained well before then. It just wasn't an issue. It must be harder nowadays with the majority of mothers working, but nevertheless I should have thought a childminder or nursery would carry on with a toilet training regime in cooperation with the parents. As someone up thread said, disposable nappies have made not toilet training an easier option, but I wonder how old a child would be before he or she decided to do his own toilet training? Obviously a substantial number haven't reached that decision by the time they are five! Oh dear. If this trend continues I can see schools having to advertise the post of "Nappy Changer"/"Pupil Hygiene Operative". It will be interesting to see how quickly Gwent's initiative of asking parents to come to the school to change their child's nappy will cure the problem though!

There is or has been a perfect storm building for about 20 years culminating in a situation whereby children are having their breakfast provided at school for a variety of reasons, and those reasons are the issues that need to be addressed.

I often think “why don’t the children just board at school and have the parents visit on weekends.then their teachers could be responsible for reading them a bedtime story and tucking them up in bed”?

Seriously though the way things appear to be going, why is anyone remotely surprised about the toilet training or lack of it.

Ps. I am referring to healthy children here who have no known conditions that affect their ability to use the toilet.

I can just imagine the perfectly articulate 5yr old " please miss, will you change my nappy now".
It just doesn't ring true somehow. What's really going on?

I don't remember a Health Visitor or anyone ever advising me how to potty train my children.

I just did it, best done in the summer months. Some children are easier to train than others, not because it doesn't 'click' but for various reasons.
The arrival of a new sibling can cause them to regress or just pretend to be a baby again.

Also sadly there is a generation of feckless parents

Really ? Where?

Truffle43

I read in the news this week that a school in Wales has begun phoning parents to come and change the child due to the sheer volume of non toilet trained children. It was stated that non of the children have medical issues or learning disabilities. I guess it is becoming too much to cope with as there must constantly be a need to change a child in the class.

A new policy, implemented by Blaenau Gwent council, means teachers will no longer change pupils’ nappies or pull-ups unless there is a “medically recognised need”.

Well done, Blaenau Gwent Council.

A week or two of this inconvenience and the parents will soon start to get their school-age children toilet-trained. 👏👏

“The policy does not apply where there is a recognised medical need and appropriate evidence of this has been provided.”