Invisible Adjunct

Don't panic. Our son did not learn (w/o accidents) until his third birthday, and that was common among our friends with kids. We started training at about 2.5 years. The thing is to not overthink this (although I did). For some reason, kids just know when its their time.

We started our son at about 25 months (prompted by the high cost of nappies in the Netherlands where I was doing some research). There were only a few accidents (he was horrified). A few weeks of nappyless days and he stopped wetting the nappy at night, but we kept one on (the same one, as it happened) for about a month just to be on the safe side.
Don't worry about it.

"We started training at about 2.5 years."

Aha! You call yourself a conservative, but I've discovered your liberal side. If you were a conservative on this one, you'd say, Start them at 18 months, and no nonsense about it.

Seriously, this is one of those parenting issues where there is a huge generational gap, and mothers and mothers-in-law want to know what the heck you are doing. People used to toilet train much earlier.

But I don't want to be responsible for creating yet another anal-retentive personality, so I guess I should not even think about this until he's at least two.

IA, I have two sons. We began around 2 1/2, but things didn't click til they were three. The second kid literally woke up one day right before he was three and suddenly went to the potty. I don't think that anything I did or didn't do had an iota of an impact.

I agree re: waiting until at LEAST two or perhaps later. I know that the personal need to cross this bridge and get out of diapers is a big incentive but I think you're just wasting your time before that and if you introduce the concept too early, it will lose its novelty (a big draw) before they are really physiologically ready for it. You and he will both know when he's really ready.

PS good point re: the generational gap --- a commenter on my last blog entry actually made the point that the "so-and-so was potty trained by..." kept getting younger and younger w/each conversation. ;)

That's just braggin - if the conversation had gone on any longer, you'd be hearing things like " not accepted to Harvard until age 18? Well, I guess that your kid was a late bloomer - not that there's anything wrong with that ...".

Barry, I think the idea was that perhaps the grandparents' memory was so skewed that the potty-training story was evolving more into potty-training legend with the success rate distorted to a level of absurdity! ;)

Ha-haaa! I can no longer remember at what age our two crossed over, but it is seven or eight years ago that I last changed a diaper. O happy day!

When I worked in ECE (about ten years), most of the kids I worked with weren't developmentally ready for toilet training until they were closer to three years old. This isn't saying that it's impossible to toilet train an 18-month old or a 2.5 year old, but they are more physically and emotionally capable as they enter their preschool years. I think stay-at-home kids have more success when they're younger because of consistency, but I wouldn't worry too much about your son. My son is nearly 31 months and he's just now showing interest in sitting on his potty. We've had it in the bathroom since he was two and he mostly used it to climb on and grab toothbrushes or turn on the faucet. Now he sees a connection. Of course, he doesn't do anything yet, but he'll sit down without a diaper. No rush, however... we're slowly moving in the direction of toilet training, and when he's ready, he's ready.

Actually, IA, I'm of the Ayn Rand school of child-raising and wanted him potty-trained by 8 months, batting .350 by age 18 months and solving differential equations by 2 years. My wife is from the Dr. Spock school. She always wins.

I think about 2 1/2 to 3 was when ours did it. Don't rush. For both of them it was about a two week process that was pretty easy because they were ready for it. A few thousand readings of Once Opon a Potty and The Princess and the Potty helped. I think the youngest actually asked to start.
Also, don't think that the end of diapers is all that great. With a diaper if the kid has to go they just go, and you change it when you can. Right after diapers there is a longish phase where they are announcing that they have to go NOW and you have to stop whatever and find them a potty. Plus the long periods of hanging around the bathroom to help, rather than your 2 minute diaper drill. Plus going and then realizing you have to go some more. There are various ways to manage these, but none of them work.

The Ayn Rand school of child-raising, eh? Good thing your wife always wins.

One of very, very few Simpsons episodes that I've never seen (and they never show it on reruns, or if they do, I always miss it): the one where Maggie attends the Ayn Rand daycare and the kids use communitarian cooperation to make an escape. I would pay money to see this one...

My son was finally toilet-trained at almost exactly three, just in time for his first trip to his grandparents. We took the train from Portland to Minnesota, and about once an hour he had me take him to the bathroom at the end of the car. I think that he liked the experience. Up till that trip he'd been nearly-trained, but with accidents.

For what it's worth, both my boys told us when they were ready, and both were at about 3 years. But this is a real "your mileage may vary" thing, based on the varying accounts I've heard from women on my September 96 moms' list.

I don't remember how old the eldest daughter was when she potty trained (she's 25 and married now); but I do remember that we switched to cloth diapers for the process. Disposables were far too comfortable.

i want once opon a potty