There have been a lot of questions on potty training, but I am curious what the average age is on this website. My reading has said 3 to 4 is average, but my daughter was trained at 3 years, 3 months, and I was really starting to feel like she was the last one in our group. Some of my friends' kids were trained at 18 months and some at 2. I don't know anyone who's done the potty-training-as-a-baby thing, but I wondered when most of you were done training your kids.
Hobbymommy, 38, is a discussion leader from Mesa. She is a happy stay-at-home mommy to a 3-year-old daughter and a 2-year-old son.
Our son started at 18 months
Our son started at 18 months and did really well for about four months and then it was as if he knew nothing about going in the potty. Apparently he was wasn't really ready then. He took an interest in potty training a few months later and about a month before his 3rd birthday, he was wearing underwear and only had a couple of accidents.
He'll turn 4 in March and we're still working on staying dry through the night. He's not consistent so we'll wait a few months and see what happens.
Patricia is a discussion leader for arizonamoms.com. She and her husband live in Phoenix and are raising a 4-year-old son they adopted as an infant.
I used to work at a large
I used to work at a large pre-school here in the valley and we would start introducing the potty to them at age 2. However, every child is different. For some reason the boys seem to catch on later than the girls. My now 8 year old, potty trained herself in pretty much one day. Ironically, it was September 11th. We were home, as she had hives, and she told me she was going to go potty; I laughed to myself as her potty chair had collected a lot of dust. To my surprise, she went in and tinkled, and kept doing it all day long. Now, she was at the time 2 years and 4 months old. The number 2 issue took a little longer, as well as the night time diaper, but that's a muscle issue that they have to recognize that their bladder is full and actually wake up...(hint..to anyone who is having night time accidents!) My Dr. told me NOT to have her go potty before bedtime as her bladder would feel fuller to her when she was asleep and wake up, presto it worked!! Our goal at our pre-school was to have everyone potty trained and out of that room by age 3. Another thing that I have had friends do is have a "potty party". Take whatever theme they are into Princesses, Elmo, Dora, Cars, etc. go to the party store and decorate the bathroom. Then when they go potty, out come the noise makers, the party favors etc. make it a HUGE deal, and ignore the accidents. Little boys will also LOVE to tinkle on cheerios in the toilet~great aiming exercise. Good Luck!!!
mom2two
All 3 of my girls were 2
All 3 of my girls were 2 years old when they were potty trained. My oldest was 2 and a week, my middle was 2 and a couple of months and my youngest was 2 1/2. I have read that many children who are trained much before the age of 2 are really cases where the parent is trained to put the child on the potty at normal potty times. It's true that kids need to develop muscle control in order to conquer the potty. Another fun thing for teaching little boys is to put a little dishsoap in the potty, then when they tinkle they make bubbles.
My daughter was 2 years old
My daughter was 2 years old when she was trained.
I agree that every kid is
I agree that every kid is different. I have a friend whose son is two and is nearly done. My oldest wasn't accident-proof until she was four and my youngest was trained at three because I told her she could go to preschool when she went on the potty all the time.
sure, fine, whatever
When we were potty training
When we were potty training my son, we bought him some underwear with Spiderman on it and said "don't pee on Spiderman"............lol........I think he was completely out of diapers or pull ups when he was three. I didn't push it until I felt like he was ready and was open to it.
At 18 months, it's not the
At 18 months, it's not the child who is potty trained, but the parents. I let my boys train themselves with gentle encouragement/reward from me. However, I used cloth diapers and a diaper service, not disposables. Cloth diapers let them feel the wetness...disposables don't. They were both three years old when they were reliably trained. My older son is autistic, but even he was trained before he was four years old. Just relax, they'll get it!