I think the key words here are “willing participant” We started with both of our kids a little after one. Guess what, I still had two late potty trainers. You can lead them to water but you can’t make them drink. I did everything they tell you to do, right down to the letting them run around naked and destroy my carpet, and they still didn’t get it until they were 4 and 3. I also believe that even before disposable diapers there were still kids who didn’t fully understand the concept until later, we just don’t always hear about it because in the grander scheme of things it really doesn’t matter. By the time you are 5 or 6 nobody cares when you started using the potty.
As for the bladder problems, both my younger brothers, my uncle, and my two kids were both trained late,(my 3 year old is now going on two weeks dry!!! :)) and so far none of them have had any bladder problems, other than one uti in my daughter when she was 18 months, long before she was successfully trained, although we were sitting on the potty several times a day.

I agree that they’re ready when they’re ready… my twins were trained at 3 and 4 and the one that was trained at 4 (only 80% though) actually started around 2 but then regressed. I have no idea what the mental part of it was for her but I do know that she just didn’t want to grow up because the regression was accompanied with babytalk and such. Here’s the weird thing, the one with a bit of low muscle tone actually has strong bladder control – like a camel!

I’ve also heard that the earlier you train, the longer it takes with accidents and all that. This is why I waited until they were really ready – I wanted a few weeks of accidents not years like I’ve heard others have experienced!

Headline should read “Late Potty Training MAY Cause Lasting Problems”. Using scare tactics/sensationalism to attract readers, while common, doesn’t make it ok.

So yesterday you are writing this…

http://blogs.babble.com/strollerderby/2010/07/13/is-helicopter-parenting-an-american-phenomenon/

And today you are saying that letting kids develop at their own pace is wrong. (Even though potty training is so dependent on each child, the parent should feel shame if their kids aren’t trained as early as yours.) Do you really wonder why parents in the US are not relaxed?

@CG, late potty training is not exclusive to disposable diaper wearing kids. We used cloth and I still had late potty trainers, as did my mom and my grandmother, and they both had late potty trainers as well. I know several families who had children out of diapers before 2 that used disposable diapers. I am sure that in many kids the disposable diapers play a part, but not all and it is entirely possible to use cloth and still have kids who trained late.

Laure68, I agree that a lot depends on your definition of “potty trained” I don’t consider my kids trained until they are independent in the bathroom. I go in and help occasionally, but if I have to be constantly reminding my kids to use the bathroom, then they are not trained yet. It is a good start, but not there yet kind of thing. But I know people who are still sending their kids to the bathroom every 10 min. and calling the kids trained. it is all a matter of definition. I agree with you that there were probably kids in earlier decades that were trained later, we just never heard about it because the pressure wasn’t there. I am sure even back in the stone age, there were kids who didn’t get the picture until later as well, it just wasn’t such a big deal then.

3 out of my four kids were trained by 4-5 ish. My 3 yr old has no desire to. At all. I am not going to force mt children to use s potty and traumatized them. They learned in their own time and it only took about 2 weeks fir day and night training to be completed.

My son is mildly autistic, he’s 4 and a half, and he’s not potty trained. We’ve done charts, signs, rewards, movies, books, you names we’ve done it, for over 2 years. I get tired of the constant assumption people make that every child not potty trained by the usual age, (unless obviously disabled),is the result of lazy or uninformed parenting. I also think you did sensationalize and misread the findings in this study.

I think you would need the experience of living in places beyond America to state “There’s an American cultural ideal that tells us to just let kids develop at their own pace.” My family is from Italy and thats how it is there as well. And let me tell you disposable diapers are definitely not redialy available. However cloth diapers are. I am not sure that it is just an American thing. My son potty trained by the time he was two pretty much on his own. My daughter however is going on three and just has no interest even though I have been pushing it since she was walking.

Ahem. What I was asking is if it could be possible that kids weren’t potty trained all that early, not that this was a fact, but I understand that some people hold “common knowledge” very dear.

The worst way to conduct a clinical trial is by survey when you have to ask someone to recall something in the past, even if it is the very recent past (1 or 2 years). People almost always remember things differently than what happened, unless they were documenting events at the time. Since not many parents were keeping calendars of all their babies achievements (and the fact that people often want to remember the past through rose-colored glasses), yes, I find it hard to believe that people can have that great of a memory for something that happened so long ago. Maybe kids were potty-trained earlier, but I am just questioning if it was at such an early time as we believe it was.

@Magnoliama & ChiLaura – Again, while I am sure disposable diapers play a part, children who train later than 2 are not necessarily always disposable diaper babies. My kids are the proof. We did everything you mentioned above and still had kids who didn’t train until 3 1/2 and 4 1/2. So please instead of thinking that you are better than other mothers who have late trainers try to put yourself in their shoes. Instead of looking down on another mother because she has an older child in diapers or pull-ups, be thankful that you had an easy trainer. And no matter what you say, if your child is trained before 2 you had an easy trainer.
And again I am sure there were kids before disposable diapers who trained later than 2, it is just that nobody really cared or talked about it then.
Sometimes I really wish that all these mothers who go on and on about how all kids should be trained before 2, would have a hard to train child. to find out how difficult it really can be, and figure out that we are all not just lazy parents who want their kids in diapers!!

Comments One of the worst parts of being a parent is constantly taking grief from a person who happened to have a child who accomplished something before someone else’s child did. STOP critizing. This job is tough enough without constantly being made to feel as though you aren’t doing a good parenting job just because your child isn’t potty trained by a certain age!! Offer suggestions but stop pointing the finger. To my knowledge no kid ever went to high school wearing a diaper, disposable OR cloth!!

Diaper Free Before Age 3 was a great book and very helpful. I bought it after we started potty learning when he would hold urine all night than explode in the morning. Ten minutes later he would poop and no diaper in the world could hold it. So wake up, hustle to potty, yeah potty learned! He was 2y2m and we had a 5 week old.

This time we started earlier, around 18, and just shy of 2 she is almost 100%.

Cloth diapers and switching to cloth trainers early really helps. And no, she did not display “signs of readiness” like understanding calculus or couting to 100. She learned by practice, the same way I did.

Everyone I know with a “later trainer” pretty much didn’t do any training. They expected the kids to do it themselves.

I don’t understand why someone’s opinion about whatever developmental milestone is taken as criticism. Every child develops differently and if my child does something before yours…am I not supposed to tell you in case you feel like I’m bragging or looking down on you? I think we can all agree that ASAP is best case scenario when it comes to cleaning poop. You definitely shouldn’t pressure your kid to do anything he’s not ready to do, but you can encourage them to try something they never have before. I didn’t find Sierra’s article judgmental of late potty trainers…I felt like she was simply pointing out that outside of North America and in the past, there’s been a different approach to getting kids out of diapers. My son is only 11 months, but as soon as he starts to walk I will show him a potty, sit him on it, bring him to the bathroom when my husband and I go, etc. It’s just a part of teaching them what we all do every day. And I’m sure he’ll get it when he’s ready. No pressure, no deadlines.

OK ,SO I HAVE FOUR KIDS AND ALL WERE DIFFRENT IN POTTY TRAINING,TO AS LONG AS THEY CAN SAY PEPPE AND CACA THAN THEY ARE GOOD TO GO. MY OLDEST GIRL WAS TRAINED AT THE AGE OF 2 SHE WAS THE EASY ONE ,THAN CAME MY SON HE DIDNT WANT TO GO UNTIL HE WAS 3 1/2 ,MY OTHER BOY WAS 2 AND SOON ILL HAVE TO DO THE POTTY TRAINING WITH MY 1 YEAR OLD SO I SAY IF THE WALK UP TO YOU AND TELL YOU CACA MOMMY THAN ITS TIME TO POTTY TRAIN.