I'm sorry but if your child is 7 and still wearing diapers something isn't right.

is it really that hard? i knew it would be challenging, but...now i'm nervous. i just refuse to change diapers for seven years. doesn't really seem fair to teachers either? who changes their diaper in school?

j
http://prudentadviceformybabydaughter.blogspot.com

in the interest of full disclosure, i'm a dedicated cloth diaperer of a 10-month old girl. however, one of the many reasons i decided to go with cloth exclusively was the experience i had with potty training my son (who's now 6 and, happily, out of dipes). we had a tough time until i ditched the pull-ups and just let him wear cloth underwear. after that, he was potty trained in less than a week.

kids are potty training much later than ever, no doubt due to the prevalence of disposable dipes/pull ups and new technologies like super absorbent gel (SAP) that keep wetness for babies' skin. having disposables stay drier for longer is more convenient for parents and daycare providers certainly (and if you have to pay so darn much for them, you want them to be able to wear them as long as possible), but, IMO, NOT better for children. they don't learn wetness cues.

i totally believe, pull-ups are scam. they are just a diaper that you can pull up and down and pay more money for.

just my 2 cents.

I've heard that most (pre)schools require that a child be potty trained for legal reasons (teachers contact with children,etc.) Daycare centers fall under different regulations.

Personally I feel that a 7 yr old without bladder control should see a pediatrician to ensure there are no physical problems.

Yes.

It is the bane of my existence.

I should say, that my son is 2 years and 8 months old, and we are talking about Montessori in 2 weeks.

I cloth diapered, but I had a fit problem when he grew out of the medium sizes -- the large I had were too big, and since he was over 2, I wasn't going to invest in more cloth diapers, so we use disposables to supplement, and I think they have made him disinterested in using the toilet (he had expressed interest before).

I think we have listened to poor toilet training advice in the past 10 or so years... I respect T.Berry Brazelton, but I think he was wrong about toilet training... just came across a book on toilet training I wish I had had 2 years ago --

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0307237095/ref=ord_cart_shr?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&v=glance

My mother was right about toilet training -- I was toilet trained at 1 year, the norm in our culture.

Tomorrow I will try my friend's fail-safe technique for potty training her kids: outside all day in sweatpants with no diaper or training pants. She claims it takes 2 days, but it works.

(our daughter was no problem btw -- 18 months old, mostly trained, and by 2.5 completely trained)

I could understand if your child is disabled, but other than that there is no excuse for a 5 yr old child not being toilet trained. This sounds to me like parents who wont take the time and energy to take their child to the bathroom. Every hour ....Lets go to the bathroom......sit them on the toilet......eventually they will get it. Yes sometimes the child will wet the bed or have an accident during the day........guess what you are a parent you clean up the mess and go on with your life you dont put the kid back in a diaper . If you arent ready to clean up a childs accident dont have a kid.

if we avoid TRAINING our children to soil themselves and be happy with it in the first place this wont be an issue!

we part-time EC'd with our daughter and am now with son. anyone can do it and it's not messy. They both have been going on the toilet since 6 weeks with no pressure and 2 working parents. Children are smarter at a young age than we give them credit for.
Elimination communication can work and avoid ALL of this.

Cloth diaper or disposable potty training should be the same no matter what. One person can't tell another its going to be easy, it obviously depends on the child. My four year old was trained at 2 1/2 years totally potty trained day and night. Now my 2 month baby who knows how he will do. I just stayed home for one week, made him wear nothing but underwear, and if he messed up at all i made him sit in for like 10-15 mins so he could feel how uncomfortable it is. the first time he did that he was going like you wouldn't believe. You just have to be consistent. Good Luck.

So doing EC is pretty much just training YOU to hold your child over the toilet. Yeah have fun with that.

lisobson875, have you discussed this course of action with your pediatrician? The elimination systems of babies are not fully developed. All the consistency in the world will not toilet train your kid until he is physically mature enough to hold it.

Potty training is really not THAT hard. And you wont traumatize your child by taking them out of diapers. It's all in the approach and I honestly think if you communicate with your child and involve them in the decision it is a breeze.

We talked about it a lot from the time our daughter was 2 or 2 and a half. She always said no, didn't act interested, so we didn't push it. But every time we changed her diaper we said very matter of factly, "Once you go on the potty we wont have to worry about stopping to change yucky diapers anymore." Then one day we asked her again if she wanted to try and she said yes so we took off the diaper and put on some big girl undies (that she got to pick out herself). She went once or twice in the undies and that was all it took for her to recognize the discomfort of wetness and the "urgent" feelings.

It only took a couple of days and there was no crying or stress. And if someone waits until their kid is SEVEN there is going to be stress. Big time. You might think you are being kind but you are doing your child a serious disservice if you wait that long.

I just looked up EC and watched some videos. I have never heard of it but now Im completely in awe. Gotta try this with my next kid.

My daughter will be starting Kindergarden at the age of 3. (she will turn for shortly after)
She is fully potty trained, and has been for some time. I don't understand how you can not be trained at 7?

I was a kindergarten teacher until this summer when I had my daughter and I can't BEG the parents enough- please, please, PLEASE don't send your child to school without having trained them to use the toilet. (And teach them how to wipe too because NO teacher likes a stinky student in their class!) I can't tell you how many accidents there were at the beginning of the school year and how yucky some of those accidents were! I still have nightmares! Teachers (or their assistants) don't really have the time to be walking around the school looking for a change of clothes for a child who just wet or soiled themselves. But that is one way to make your child learn to use the toilet by themselves QUICK- none of the kids that had accidents in our classroom liked to be changed by their teacher.

As a rule though- I think parents should always leave a change of clothes in their kid's backpacks- because I know accidents do happen sometimes! ;-D

While I do not yet have children, my mom will be THRILLED to tell you how long it took to potty train me (3 years, 8 months), how difficult I was (very, is the general consensus) and how many different people were involved in the process (6,739 by last count). It is a perennial favorite topic at holidays and family gatherings.

I sent her a link to the article and she was horrified. I think she had visions of my seven-year-old self running around with leaky pants.

Do your children a favor - train them early and then never mention it again.

Most of these posts are spot on! If your child isn't potty trained by 5 and they aren't "Special Needs" children, then it is on the parents.
The same goes for parents who don't allow their children to walk, or breastfeed until they are 8, or have them sleep in the parents' bed till highschool....if you choose to do that it is your prerogative. But you cannot complain when it has disastrous or embarassing social consequences.

lisobson875, have you discussed this course of action with your pediatrician? The elimination systems of babies are not fully developed. All the consistency in the world will not toilet train your kid until he is physically mature enough to hold it.

Although it is true that infants cannot "hold it in" in time to make it to a bathroom, they do give cues as to when they need to eliminate that are very easy to read. Of course, not every cue can be responded to at any given moment but it is merely recognizing these cues and getting your child to a potty or changing them immediately that has the greatest impact. No child just dribbles pee or poo--if they do, they have genuine nerve ending damage.

As far as training the parent, is it really such a bad thing that we are trained to respond to our children's needs? Parenthood is as much about training the parent as it is "training" the child. Children are not animals--and it is highly unlikely that any living thing enjoys wearing its own contained excrement.

I highly recommend Diaper Free Baby to anyone. We practice EC in our home and it has been a great experience. My children are out of diapers on average around 18 months--and even then, that was part time usage of cloth diapers from birth onward. Most of the time, they wore training pants or small underwear and did all of their eliminating in a potty.

Okay - I totally agree with some commenters that say that 7 yrs of age is completely unreasonalbe. I think by age 2 your kid should be potty trainned, the earlier the better if you see that your child gets it. Good diapers make it harder that's why some caretakers swear by the method of wearing regular underwear or no underwear on the child when you start the potty training.

BUT, by the same tocken, there are definetely some children that have physical problems. One of my aunts had such a child. He did this until he was about 10 yrs old, he did not have diaper, but he had a lot of accidents in the day. Then the doctor's found a problem, had a little surgery, no problem after that. It is all nerve connections to the brain, and if somthing is not wired properly, you could end up with a toddler that can't train properly.

For normal kids, I think the problem is how smart are the parents and caregivers in going about the potty training tactics.

By two? That's ridiculous.

Not all children can be pottytrained by two, and that's really an unrealistic goal to pressure parents and children over.

It just isn't true that all toddlers hate their own messes; some of them don't notice a difference and could sit in their own pee and poop all day if someone didn't change their diapers.

In cultures like mine where elimination communication is standard practice, it is still training for months and months and months leading up to the magical 18-month mark. And elimination communication also doesn't quite work for working parents if their daycare doesn't provide that as an option.

I just wanted to point out that children, like their parents, are indeed animals, and that animals typically don't like to eat or sleep near their poop. It stands to reason that, unless trained otherwise, they'd prefer not to eat or sleep *in* their poop either.

@morganong - you are setting up quite a straw-parent there to rail against, aren't you? Suddenly parents whose children have late potty-training issues are conflated with extended breastfeeding (until 8??), cosleeping until high school and "parents who don't allow their children to walk." Not sure where you're hearing about these behaviors but they are certainly far far outside the norm even for granola crunching AP hippies like myself.

I just wanted to chime in and say, the EC is not an all or nothing proposition. We started a part-time approach to it when my son was 5 1/2 months old, basically he wears diapers all day and I give him chances to go in the potty after naps/sleep and whenever he seems like he is about to make a BM. I was stunned, but I swear to god he stopped pooping in his diapers within 2 weeks of doing this. He now waits for a chance on the potty or if he can't wait he yells at me with an urgent expression on his face that only means one thing. I would not have thought that a 6 month old had that level of bowel control/awareness but he has proved me wrong.

He still wets in his diapers quite a bit but he will urinate in his potty almost every time we put him on there and for me this is the biggest benefit of part-time EC, it normalizes the idea of using a toilet so that one day when it's time for us to get rid of the diapers, it's not something weird or scary that he has never tried before.

I don't have kids yet but wow, this is kind of nuts! You'd think that children over the age of 4 or 5 would be ridiculed endlessly by their peers for wearing diapers to school.

I remember being in kindergarten and they made a kid go home and start kindergarten the next year because he wasn't properly potty trained. (he kept peeing his pants)

First of all,for many reasons,babies should wear cloth diapers throughout the day,as long as they are home. Children should be taught that peeing and pooping are something that we do in the bathroom. As soon as children can sit up on their own,change them in the bathroom. Have them participate in cleaning themselves up as much as possible,for example,if they have wet their cloth diaper,leave a pail of soapy water in the bathroom and teach them to remove the diaper and put it into the pail. If they poop,and it is intact,have them(with assistance)dump the poop into the toilet and flush the toilet. A big deal should never be made about the whole situation.They should not be congratulated or win prizes for it,if they are brought up this way they will just know what is expected of them(when they are indeed ready physicallly,usually about eighteen months) and it will not become a power struggle between parent and child.

Ok people they are talking about wearing something at night! not in the day! Some children don't have mature enough bladders to keep dry all night others sleep too sound to wake up when they feel the urge to go. I

I had a terrible time with my nearly four year old girl. She's been fully trained only for about a month, and we were really sweating the start of school in September. A big move and a new sibling when she was 2 1/2 really set us back, and then a problem with constipation set her back again. After seeing her doctor and a few cases of Juice plus Fiber the constipation was solved, and we were then able to get her going in the potty with a little more effort (making her go bottom-less when I could tell she had to go finally did the trick).

Older kids who are having trouble with potty training may have an underlying physical problem, so it is important to involve the child's doctor if you are really concerned.

I just wanted to point out that children, like their parents, are indeed animals, and that animals typically don't like to eat or sleep near their poop. It stands to reason that, unless trained otherwise, they'd prefer not to eat or sleep *in* their poop either.

I've seen dogs eat their own poop and that of other animals. And this isn't about reason or logic: some toddlers do not care. Some toddlers poop at night, and you don't discover it until the morning. My son once threw up silently at night and fell back asleep on his own vomit. It was a good thing I was up and checked on him before retiring to bed.

I'm somehow with vegammomma. I'll go even farther: if we could do without diapers at all (which, unfortunately, we can't), I think our children would be trained in no time. Disposable diapers work so well solidifying the urine, children don't feel wet anymore. And that's maybe not always a good thing.

After seing the "training" painfully done on lots of nieces and nephews, I'll go with clothes diapers. Only six months to go and I'll test the theories I have, like every new mom (and see most of the fail; please, be kind and don't remind me !).

The process that robinm describes is identical to the toilet training method my mother, and just about everyone from that nameless European country, follows to this day. And it works.

My mother said that no way did kids get kept in diapers past 1 -- no one had washing machines at home, diaper services and disposables didn't exist, and diapers had to be boiled on the stove. The motivation to toilet train was pretty strong!

Last week, I came across a vintage high chair, and was taken aback that it had a built-in potty seat. Of course, that is how our mothers and grandmothers did it! We seem to have forgotten all this...

In any case, there is a potty-training expert in the US -- the only pediatrician who specializes in potty training, and has made an extensive study of international potty training practices. Interesting and very useful stuff.

http://www.smartpottytraining.com/

(and she wrote the book I linked to above).

Wish she could link up with Charlotte's mother from the article, because that poor mom sounds at the end of her rope...

When we first teach babies/kids to neglect their instincts, that is when it gets hard to unteach them. I blame disposables, mainly because they have brought along the practice where diapers are changed every x hours, instead of after each time the diaper gets dirty. (Disgusting.. why do people do this to their kids... No wonder there is terrible rash, etc.)

Our daughter did not do #2 in her diaper since she was 8 months old, after I finally figured things out. It is ridiculous to claim that babies are not developed enough to hold it in. (Think of those African mamas who carry their naked babies. Do you think they get eliminated on 20 times a day? Look back in history... I doubt that human bodies have changed that much all of a sudden.)

We have trained ourselves not to know how to respond to the needs of our babies. Then THEY get blamed for not "learning" how to use the bathroom.

wow...so many of you are so judgemental. i think that cloth diapering and EC are a complete waste of time in my household, but to each their own. i don't think the point of this post was to incite WW3 between those of us that put their 3 year old kids in pull ups at night and those that let them wet the bed. i am not worried about it, my pediatrician isn't worried about it, and the world will not stop turning because my kid isn't night potty trained. so judge me if you must...my mom already does a good job at that!

I wish I had read more about EC and other cultures before my son was born!! He stared in daycare when he was 9 weeks so cloth diapers and EC at school were out for us, and while I contemplated them for home I didn't have the energy (he was colicy and not a good sleeper, still has sleep issues).

I heard boys take longer, watch for signs for readiness, and don't make it a battle, so I didn't push it. I wish I had pushed it more.

We're in the middle of training and fighting the pooping on the potty. He turned three the end of June and moved to the preschool room two weeks ago. He's been sitting on the potty since 18 months at many diaper changes and before bath. He's been in cotton training underwear for weeks. and does OK with pee (last 2 weeks, not so much prior), but holds the poop until we put him in a diaper for bed. At times it gets towards a fight which I don't want to have - crying and begging for a diaper. Uhg. But I think he will be trained even for night by 4 1/2... ;-)

My son just turned 3 the other day and he was doing very well. But he has back tracked. And I do think its the pull ups. He will actually lay down and tell me that he needs to be change. When I heard that I thought, no way, you need to be using the potty kid. So I am going back to strict underwear all the time. I told him to change his own diaper. i just don't want my kid to be like this four year old who is still wearing diapers, not pull ups, diapers.

Potty training was a nightmare! I think the excellent diapers now-adays is definitly a huge problem. But once I decided not to buy diapers anymore and go strictly to underwear, he was potty trained in 3 days, in addition he didn't wet the bed at night either. Sure there were a few accidents, but they were pretty few and my son was upset about them. Well, I always wondered what mothers in other parts of the world if they didn't have diapers. Now I know and I'm glad I didn't have to do that.

I'd like to make a few points. One is that day dry & night dry are two very different processes. Often, the ability to stay dry at night happens later for a child. So a 6 y.o. still in diapers, only at night, does not seem especially problematic to me. I agree w/ many of the above posters that non-cloth diapers (though that's what I used) can make potty training more difficult. And the other thing I learned from potty training my two kids, is how different each child is through the process. One of mine trained very easily at age 2 (thought at 3.5 she is still not dry at night). But we had a much more difficult, protracted experience w/ my oldest. Some of it could be chalked up to parental inexperience, but the great part I think is about his temperment and personality.

I wanted to add that we used traditional toilet learning with our first two and infant potty training (ec) with our third, so I'm able to compare the two. We much preferred infant pottying. We were thrilled to start and finish much sooner with our third.

It boils down to a lifestyle choice. If it resonates, it's worth giving it a try to see how it goes. Obviously, it's not for everyone--no means of toilet learning is.

We used it 30 years ago when disposables were just appearing on the market. We decided against using them, mainly for enviromental reasons, but for families who prefer disposables, infant potty training can still be done. Many families use diapers (cloth or disposables) in between potty visits. We did. It's simply a matter of preference.

Here's a link for a summary of the practice in 10 languages http://www.TimL.com/ipt

For a shorter summary http://www.pottywhisperer.com

Here in the state of Massachusetts, it is illegal to turn a child away from preschool if they are not yet potty trained. So when we moved here from LA, where almost every preschool we checked out insisted that our son was potty trained, we breathed a sigh of relief. Now that being said, I too agree with the fact that if a child is still in diapers at age 6 or 7, there is a problem. Sometimes it's the child's issue but I think for the most part it's the parent's issue by not really buckling down. No one wants to deal with the messy sh-t of parenting (so to speak). Kids want to be in control and are effected by everything in their surroundings. Our son started taking queues from other kids in his school. We watched for all the signs and when he started coming home in dry pull ups, we took him to a store and let him, not only pick out his own underwear, but made HIM ask the sales clerk where they were and what size he may be. This empowered him immensely. And he was fully trained by 3.5. Boys are a big slower than girls but if we can do it, and our kid has mild pdd/nos, anyone can do it.

@poppyb - thanks for pointing out the difference between day and night potty trained. my frustration with my daughter's process (being 3 and day but not night trained) is not with my daughter, but with my mom, who thinks there is something wrong with me and my parenting skills. my kid is very independent, incredibly smart and has an expansive vocabulary. we started the potty training process at 15 months and she was able to catch on pretty quickly, but this is just one thing she has not figured out yet. last night was a dry night, but most nights aren't. that doesn't mean i am doing anything wrong as a parent or that she is delayed in any way.

are we seriously talking about babies here. Little babies that are supposed to wear diapers and pee and poop in them. What do you think our parents did, because i know mine did not hold me over a toilet to pee at 2 months old. And yes i did talk to my pediatrician about cloth or diposable diapers. He has done studies that show it makes no difference in the for potty training. Why do we want our kids to grow up so fast. Let them be babies. Let them poo and pee in there diapers. And might i mention what are working moms supposed to do. Are they less of parents because they can be with there children to hold them over the toilet when they need to go. Come on people need to understand not every parent is home with there kids 24/7. Have some respect for those moms out there.

If a child can't control his or her own bladder and bowels by four years old then there is likely to be either a psychological or a physical impairment that needs sorting out.

Yes it takes some children longer than others but saying a child can't feel whats happening is nonsense - immediately from birth an infant can feel everything thats happening to its body otherwise it wouldn't wake and cry when its hungry or cold or wet and uncomfortable - which they do.

Its a question of making the connection in their head that when they feel that sensation its time to visit a special place for that activity rather than just letting go - and the sooner and more often you hold them over a potty or toilet then the sooner that connection will be made - suddenly introducing something new at 2 years old is bound to make a child confused!

Day dryness is indeed different to night dryness - its a totally different activity to wake up when you need to go as opposed to already being awake in the daytime.

Wow, there seems to be a few people here who get pretty defensive at the mention of infant pottying, when all the comments about infant pottying weren't attacks or judgemental at all...

Anyway, I part-time EC, my 11 month old son doesn't seem to have a preference of where he poos or pees, it can be the pot or a cloth diaper, but he will stay dry and clean all day if I give him the opportunity to pee and poo on the toilet consistently. Also throughout the night, I have to hold him over a little baby bjorn 1 or 2 times throughout the night and 1 or 2 times in the early morning and upon waking and he stays dry. It isn't too troubling for me because I stay home.

Some people say that it is too much effort but I feel the need to change his diaper everytime he wets it, so I would have to get up that frequently anyway, I might as well let him use the pot instead.

my children are 7 years old and 12 years old and both are still in diapers their is nothing wrong with them they just are not potty trained i home school them because it is not fair for my children to be picked on by other children or for a school teacher to stop class to chainge their diaper it was my choice not to potty train my children no one elses