At what age should children be potty trained?
I understand that “YMMV”, but the other thread about potty training got me curious and I didn’t want to hijack it.
We were happy with the end of the third year for our son (daughter was a bit earlier.) We wanted to put him in preschool and they only took potty-trained kids. I can tell you that they had a class for two-year-olds and it was always very small and I never saw any boys in it for the whole 4 years we had kids in that school.
When they are ready, unless you enjoy powerstruggles with small, irrational people.
Typically this seems to be between 2-4yrs. Opinions are all over the board. You’ll also find people conflating elimination communication with potty training and claiming their 3mo. old is potty trained.
When potty training a child, 50% of the people in your life will say you’re waiting too long. The other 50% will tell you you’re pushing too soon.
My oldest turned 3 in early January. She just trained this past month. She was ready, it was painless. It’s still somewhat of a novely - I got a phone call from her this afternoon announcing she pooped.
In my opinion, children should be potty-trained when their poop starts to smell/look like poop. Because, ya know, little kid poop isn’t gross, but big kid poop is. That being said, some kids just aren’t ready at the same time. My daughter, out of sheer laziness had no interest in peeing on the potty until she was close to 3 (she’d poop on the potty just fine, but it was just easier to pee in her pants), whereas my son was trying to potty-train himself (interest in using the potty, some control of functions) at 18 months. YMMV indeed!
Kid Kalhoun was 95% trained (the occasional accident) at 17 months. It was awesome!
When my grandmother had kids, they were to be potty-trained no later than 18 months, preferably by 12. What this means, of course, is that mom does nothing but run the baby into the bathroom every 20 minutes until something happens. If she misses it, it’s “an accident”, and when the kid coincidentally pees while on the pot, it’s “potty-training”. Bullocks, I say, it’s “Mommy training”.
Similarly, I have a friend who’s into the elimination communication thing. Every time her infant stirred, he found himself in the bathroom or held over a bush while she clicked her tongue at him. This started at 6 WEEKS. The idea is that after a few weeks/months/whatever, she’ll click and he’ll pee. In the meantime, whenever she held him (of course she’s also at the extreme end of attachment parenting) she felt when he was about to move his bowels, and likewise whipped him out of his sling to poo into a cloth diaper she held on her lap. Yeah, some training. She likes to say he’s “always been potty trained”, but he still has several “accidents” a day at 4. I suspect it’s because she does his thinking for him, so he’s never bothered to clue in to his own body’s signals.
Me, I’m WAY over on the other end of the spectrum. I outright refuse to let my daughter play on the toilet. She’s been told she can’t use it until she’s ready to use it all the time, because it’s not a toy, it’s not a game, it’s just where people who don’t use diapers urinate and defecate. (Yes, I use those words sometimes. Sometimes I say “pee and poo”. We mix it up a lot.) She’s allowed to watch me, and she tears off TP for me and flushes for me, but she says she’s not ready to get rid of her diapers, so she’s not allowed to sit on the toilet. Toilets aren’t for sitting, says I, they’re for doing your business.
“I’ve” (I say I, but really it’s the kids who do the work) trained 4 kids now, and there is quite a variance. My son was on the old side - around 3.5, nearly 4. One client’s girl was ready as early as 2.5, another at 3, and another boy around 3.5 as well. “They” say that girls train earlier than boys, and that seems to be true in my experience.
I won’t let a preschool bully me into training my kid early. Frankly, if that’s the attitude toward child rearing that they have, we’re not a good match anyway. My son’s preschool (not Montessori or Waldorf, just run-o-the-mill secular preschool) didn’t care how old they were, although I think eventually the kids themselves start to put a little pressure on one another.
WhyNot, our preschool didn’t require potty training for philosophical reasons. It was just that local certification rules said if you handle diapers you have to have separate facilities for changing, washing up, etc. that don’t require the teacher to leave the other kids alone. They were in a churchschool building and the only sinks available were in the kitchen and bathrooms.
Before they were trained we had them in a home-based pre-preschool that took toddler through 3-year-olds. The person who ran it pretty much accomodated whatever stage the kids were at and I never sensed any pressure.
my daughters poop looks and smells like poop. She’s 7 months old. I don’t think she’s ready yet.
1st daughter decided at 16 months that she wanted to go on the potty like the big people. I said fine, bought her some ruffle butt panties, and she trained herself in no time.
AdoptaSon had zero interest and at 3yo I pushed a bit. He managed the peeing just fine but was more than a little reluctant to poop. That was his poop and he didn’t want it mingling with anyone elses poop in the great beyond. Complete poop training took longer. We used gummy bears as an incentive.
AdoptaDaughter was 2yo when I started above AdoptaSon. She watched him the first day and that was that - she trained herself right then and there with a “oh, that’s what we’re supposed to do? M’kay” kind of attitude. Also got her some pretty ruffle butt panties. She got LOTS of gummy bears.
You are going to deny your child the inherent pleasure of sitting on the can? 
Isn’t the john one of the most comfortable places to get some reading done?
Obviously, AdoptaSon was holding out for fluffy ruffle butt panties. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) 
**
CynicalGabe**, as soon as she learns to read, she can read on the toilet all the wants! 
Thank Og for UnderRoos! My 2nd youngest ExStepGrandDaughter trained herself at 14 months, and her aunts went nuts buying ruffle-butt underpants.
My only ExStepGrandSon (ESGD’s cousin) got jealous of the pretties, trained himself at 22 months, and had a hissy about the lack of rewards. I promptly depleted the local underRoo stock, and everyone lived happily ever after. At least until Youngest ESGD turned 4 with no apparent interest in ever pooping like a big girl or ruffle-butt panties. 
Do they still make UnderRoos?
My guess is that answer to this question are both time and culture-bound - that is, a pediatrician in Indonesia is not going to make the same recommendation as one in the US, and a book published in the US in 2005 is not going to say the same thing as one written in 1950.
I was following American books that said “take it easy, don’t push, whenever your kid is ready” blah blah blah when my son was the only American child in a playgroup consisting of French, Indonesian, Australian, Spanish and I forget what other nationalities. I was amazed at how early most of the kids were trained – I got around to training my son when he was 2 years 7 months old, and that was VERY late for that playgroup. (He also learned within a few days, suggesting that I could have done it earlier.)
So you are probably better off ignoring all age-based advice and sticking strictly to signs that YOUR child is ready.