Also, when relations visit (at least in my experience), they don’t stay long and it’s considered extremely rude to assume they’ll take care of your children in any way. Talk to them, yes. But change diapers or even care about their potty habits (other than to ask if they’ve got any yet)? Please.
At least in the circles I run in, family who doesn’t live with you are considered to be guests, and you wouldn’t ask a guest to take your kid to the bathroom.
I don’t know that any relation of mine other than my husband or my mother changed a diaper. My mother in law was certainly not over helping me potty train my kids.
Moreover, since my mother was not over daily either, since I worked full time, my husband worked full time plus, I had two kids 13 months apart in age, and had to keep up on laundry, dishes, etc. the idea that we could set our kids on a plastic sheet to learn signals is … not realistic. I had a hard time recognizing when I had to pee.
Exactly. My mom is visiting with us now and it would never occur to her to change my kid’s diaper or take him to the bathroom. As far as my family is concerned, anything distasteful to do with my kid is my job or, if I’m not around, my husband’s, including anything having to do with bodily functions. If he barfs, pees or poops, it’s up to me or my husband to take care of it. The most a family member would do is tell me that he’d crapped his pants.
As someone who also works full time and whose husband works full time, I can’t imagine how stressful that would be to have to worry about toileting at a very young age in addition to all the other stuff I beat myself up about.
Yup, my points exactly.
The reasons why potty training is different aren’t difficult to discover - most people here in the West simply don’t have the time and resources (that is, extended family willing to do child-care) to do it the other way, even if they wanted to.
That’s… kind of sad. 
OTOH, in my family, yes, if you’re there visiting because of the baby, then you’re also liable to be put in charge of the baby and help take care of him/her. This includes: feeding, cleaning, changing diapers, putting clothes, rocking to sleep, play with him/her, etc. Which is how I ended up rocking to sleep and feed my cousins (too young to be given diaper duty), and ended up changing diapers a few times when I visited my nephews.
I’ll admit I have strong opinions about potty training, particularly for a person who is not a parent. I don’t think this completely invalidates my opinion but I can understand why it wouldn’t carry as much weight as a mother’s.
A lot of this stems from watching family and friends wait to potty train their kids, this late training hasn’t worked out well for them at all, it’s been a long power struggle that seems to be frustrating all of the parents involved. The 4 kids I’m referring to are 3-4 right now but that 3yr old I mentioned, her folks have been fighting with her over potty training since her 2nd birthday.
Several of you have mentioned being the parents of well-behaved kids who happen to be late-trainers - that’s cool, it’s just not my experience. The aforementioned whelps are all brats of the highest order who have their parents trained to cater to their every need. For me, late training/no training has gone hand in hand with bratty, shit-smeared kids.
The thing that puts my back up in the PT debate is the attitude that training can’t or shouldn’t be done prior to 2 years. It obviously CAN be done and just as there apparently aren’t negative effects from late training, there are apparently no damaging effects from early training so the question again becomes why the hell would a person wait?
**Mom says she began potty training me because I was clearly uncomfortable with a soiled diaper so she figured it was worth a shot. So I suppose you could say it was child-led. If your kid doesn’t care about soiled diapers the whole thing is probably a lot harder.
I agree - it is kind of sad. My sister is the only one of my family members who regularly jumps in to help when she’s here; unfortunately, I see her about 4 times a year, for less than a week each time.
Even more sad is that this is very common, at least in my experience. Extended family or family who doesn’t live with you have been relegated to guest status, which distances them (and puts lots more pressure on the family nucleus).
There appear to be two sorts of training:
Really early training of infants. This seems to require a strict round-the-clock supervision of the baby - taking it to the potty every hour on the hour, training it with “naked time” on a rubber sheet, that sort of thing. This is based essentially on conditioning of both parent and child, to line up with the kid’s rhythms and for the kid to respond to cues (making pissing noises etc.).
Later training, when the kid is old enough to take himself or herself to the potty. This requires the kid’s more concious co-operation, offering rewards and encouragement for proper control.
If you are asking why everyone doesn’t do the former, that is answered above: it requires a heavy investment in time and resources, which most people in the West lack. The occasional helping visit of a grandparent isn’t enough - you need a big, big committment, an adult basically doing nothing else until the kid is trained. It is no wonder that few do it here, and it is more common in cultures where a true extended family is common. Thing is that infants “condition” relatively easily.
The second form unfortunately is more child-dependant. You can’t force a kid who has not been conditioned from birth to not pee in his or her diaper, you can only ask. What exactly do you do if the kid simply refuses? You can try mixing punishments and rewards, but ultimately you are dependant on the kid’s co-operation, and if the kid will not co-operate, there is little you can do about it (except suffer the distain of those who are certain it is a result of your negligence, laziness, etc.).
We were lucky, our kid was trained easily and early - by the time he was 2 and a half. My brother is not so lucky, his kid (born at the same time) has issues still, at nearly three and a half. Not for want of effort though I can assure you.
Wow, I just realized how self-centered this sounded. For what it’s worth, I don’t necessarily think it’s sad that no one else takes care of my kid when he pees or poops (though that’d certainly be convenient and make potty training a hell of a lot easier), but it does suck that you lose some of that familial closeness when even your parents are considered guests in your home.
In the U.S., people tend to be very territorial almost about their personal space and their kids. This one is mine, that one is yours and if you do something I disagree with, you should get out. In certain circumstances, such an extreme response may be appropriate; however, it’s unfortunate that you have to tiptoe around those people that you should be closest to and that supporting family members very closely with things like childrearing even when they may need help is considered unusual and in some cases intrusive.
And it goes both ways - I’ve been conditioned not to ask for help with really anything, even from visiting family; my mom thinks it’s a presumption for her to simply begin helping without me asking for it. (Does anyone else have that song by Queen running through their head, “It’s time to break free”?)
overlyverbose, I think I know what you mean. In my family, I think it was very different–like, whoever was there would kind of help out, take care of the kid as needed. Less hands off than with you. It’s kind of got its ups and downs because you can feel less like a guest but also there’s more responsibilities.
I am completely willing to stipulate that EC sounds time consuming.
However, EC and LT (late training) are not the only methods. The family and friends I’ve been discussing PT with say that they started training their kids between 12 and 18 months and they all say it didn’t take very long, a couple of days tops.
With the exception of one, all were stay at home moms when the kids were that little. So the argument that the average western woman no longer has that kind of time is indeed valid.
I have to wonder what kind of time is really saved by waiting though. The LT parents I’ve mentioned are engaged in what is starting to look like a never-ending battle with their kids. If you could take a 2-3 day weekend of focused, consistent PT and be done with the whole thing, why not go that route?
Parents of late trainers have already posted on this thread - Was it a really long haul for you guys? How long did it take? Because I’m also willing to concede that the my cousins and my friends might not be good examples of LT parents.
Indeed, if one could easily PT in 2-3 days, then one would have to be nuts not to do it.
There may however be a small flaw in the assumption made here.
If it were so darn easy for everyone if only they would try, it is sort of hard to understand why potty training has spawned a whole industry of self-help books, videos, etc. Why all the drama when it can be so simple and painless?
The same goes for all the other high drama childhood issues - my baby sleeps very easily through the night. Why do all these silly people have a problem with it? I put the kid to bed and he sleeps.
I think the answer is this: issues that are very easily resolved for some are rather more difficult for others, and what looks easy for one kid (because the kid takes naturally to it) isn’t so easy for the next.
Actual parenting soon knocks some of the bright, shiny optomism that there are easy answers to all questions off people - there is always something that other parents and kids all seem to do easily that is hard for you (and vice versa).
Yea, that’s more like my family. But then, in my family, relatives are not “guests”, they are family. Just as I don’t have to ask permission to use facilities (bathroom, communal TV, fridge), I’m also liable to be given a “take care of baby” chore. Even when I went to visit my aunt (RIP), it was the same way. Nobody is guest, everybody is family. It also means I clean dishes, help with laundry, and help a bit around the house.
I started about 14 months with both my kids - and it took two years. My kids just weren’t at all ready then…they didn’t have any idea what they were doing wrong when they peed on the floor, or why I was having them sit on the potty.
Trust me - most parents with late trainers don’t have late trainers because they spent two years saying “oh, he’ll do it when he’s ready.” They tried the naked method…the every half hour method. Peeing for prizes. Stickers. Underwear.
And if they get really lucky, each of these times they strengthened a power struggle - delaying training further.
Chopper9760, we would be considered late trainers. My oldest son was about 3 1/2 when he was potty trained. We had half-heartedly been talking about, attempting, etc. from the time he turned 2. He just wasn’t interested. At 3 1/2, I told him we’d get him a bike if he went 10 days without diapers. At that point, he was old enough to understand getting a reward for a behavior, understand getting a reward at some point in the (relatively) distant future, able to control his bladder and bowels well enough to get to the toilet, able to take his pants down and up without help, able to get on the toilet without help, and able to wipe himself with minimal help. We offered the reward, he accepted, and potty training was done. He was dry from that point forward during the day. He wore pull-ups to bed for the next few months, until he was able to get up in the night to use the toilet if he needed to.
I’m currently “potty training” my youngest, who is now 3 years 2 months. He’s more into emotional rewards (hugs, high fives) than material rewards, so he’s happy to work for that. If he has an accident, the diapers go back on and we’ll wait awhile longer. I’m not willing to clean poop and pee up from the floor. Today, he has underwear on and has used the toilet every time he needs to go. The door is open and he goes in there on his own and takes care of it. I helped him wipe and I ask him every once in awhile if he needs to go. When he’s consistent at home (goes on the potty every time for a couple weeks), I’ll take him out without a diaper. If he’s not consistent at home, he’ll have to wear a diaper until he’s truly ready.
I agree that a 2-3 day weekend might make sense when the kid is ready (in fact, that’s something I plan to do over Memorial Day weekend because I really don’t care to be changing a newborn’s diapers and my son’s this fall and my son seems to be ready for that next step). But “when the kid is ready” are the key words, at least for us. Pediatricians give parents general guidelines to determine when that readiness is apparent - when the kid shows interest in the potty, is capable of staying dry through a nap, has regular and predictable bowel movements, can communicate the need to go to the bathroom, etc.
Most parents I know don’t even bother until their kid shows some or all of these signs, which just frequently happen to show up after the kid is 2 or 3. Regardless, all these are generalities, which mean that they’re things to look for but may or may not mean your child is ready.
Personally, my son began showing interest at 18 months after we went to India to see family. I encouraged it and got him a potty and showed him how to use it and he did for a while. But for him, it was more of a game and his interest waned quickly and, after a while, no amount of incentive could induce him to use the potty. I talked to his pediatrician and she told me that it was probably not a battle worth fighting, and she was right. When I tried to force the issue, while it worked for a while, he began misbehaving in other ways. Eventually I decided that it wasn’t worth it to set him up for tantrums and dropped it. Lo and behold, several months later, he decided he was ready. It’s taken about two months of heavy training to get him to a point where he stays dry all day. I’ve waited to change him to underwear because he was initially afraid to poop in the potty. He’s getting over it, so we’ll move on to the next step, which is underwear only.
As said earlier, it really does depend on the kid, the culture and available time.
Freudian Slit and Karl, it sounds like you both have wonderful, supportive families. My family, while supportive, is obviously very hands-off when it comes to child-rearing. In fact, I’m more likely to be handed a baby to take care of in my circle of friends than I would be visiting extended family. Good thing my husband is so adept at changing diapers. Sadly this does mean that we’ve often devolved to fits of “Not It!” when the time comes to freshen the kid’s butt.
Both of my daughters trained six weeks after their third birthdays. We had exposed them casually to the concept starting at 18mo. They practiced sitting on the potty, and managed to pee in in a couple times. We’d do an occasional trial of undies on a Saturday for practice, but they’d end up back in diapers after several accidents. We discussed the subject but didn’t push the issue.
In each case, the kid woke up on a Saturday, stated a desire to wear underwear, and kept them dry all day, and that was that - no more diapers. The eldest had a few accidents while napping over a span of two weeks, but other than that was solid. The youngest has only wet the bed twice in four months and had two other accidents. In each case it was a one-day switch. There were no power struggles, begging, pleading, bribing, or hair pulling.
I thought the youngest would train sooner because she expressed an interest a little earlier and had an older sibling to emulate. Trial periods in underwear with hourly trips to the potty revealed she was capable of holding urine for six hours, but couldn’t relax the necessary muscles on command while sitting on the toilet. Once she figured that part out, she was fine.
I’m sorry, but I simply don’t believe that anyone has fully potty trained a 12-month-old infant and that it took “a couple days, tops.” My kids weren’t even WALKING at that age. What are they supposed to do, crawl into the bathroom and somehow magically climb onto the toilet to go?
Whatsit Jr. (my oldest, a boy) potty trained at about age 3, after six months or so of training. MiniWhatsit (my middle child, a girl) did it around 2.5, after somewhat less training. It was not really that big of a deal; certainly not enough of a big deal that I regret having waited until they were toddlers or wish I’d started when they were small infants instead.
Well, this has been informative if nothing else. Like I said, it’s the attitude that early training can’t be done that annoys me. Obviously you folks wouldn’t have made your kids run around in their own excrement if you didn’t feel you had no other options.
Even when my kids were in diapers, they didn’t run around in their own excrement. I changed their diaper.