Apotty training expert has claimed that “children are born ready to learn potty skills” and are “capable of being independent from nappies by 18 months if they are given the opportunity”.

Nurse Rebecca Mottram suggested society needs to move away from the idea that children need to be developmentally ready to potty train and added that engaging in potty training earlier promotes improved bowel and bladder health. 

The nurse’s comments come after a council in Wales said school staff will no longer change pupils who have accidents at school (unless they have a medically recognised need), so parents will have to do it. 

One in four children in England and Wales are starting reception class without being fully potty trained and Mottram believes shaming parents for this isn’t the answer. 

“This often reflects systemic challenges and a lack of clear, accessible guidance for parents, rather than poor parenting,” she tells HuffPost UK.

“There is a great deal of misinformation about the concept of ‘readiness,’ with many parents mistakenly waiting for a specific moment when their child is ‘ready’ to potty train.”

The nurse says “this misconception creates unnecessary pressure and delays the development of essential skills”.

There is a lot of conflicting information around potty training online. On their podcast Kids Considered, paediatricians Dean Blumberg and Lena van der List of UC Davis Children’s Hospital address the issue of readiness.

They said parents should wait to potty train until their child is ready “physiologically, cognitively and emotionally”.

Physiological readiness means they can control the muscle that holds and empties the bladder and rectum. This usually happens around 12-18 months, they said. 

Meanwhile, developmental readiness means your child should be able to get to the toilet on their own, sit down, pull their pants up and down, and be able to communicate that they need to go.

Lastly, emotional readiness means they show an interest in being potty trained. This could mean telling you if they want their nappy changed or going to hide somewhere when they need to do a wee or poo. 

The case for starting potty training earlier

Mottram recalls how children were potty trained before the invention of disposable nappies, citing a book from 1958, called Children Under 5, which found 60% of English parents started potty training within the first two weeks of life, 47% had completed potty training by 12 months and 83% were finished by 18 months.

The nurse, who supports parents in toilet training their little ones, suggests we need to change the mindset of kids being “developmentally ready” and start the potty learning process much earlier, from infancy, by nurturing key skills as soon as children can sit up.

“Research has confirmed that a child’s interest in engaging with potty learning often intensifies between the age of 18-24 months, which is also around the time that developmentally they most crave independence and mastery,” she says.

“Children are born ready to learn potty skills and are capable of being independent from nappies by 18 months if they are given the opportunity.”

For Mottram, it’s not about having your child fully toilet-trained by the time they’re one – but rather about supporting children to use nappies alongside the potty, “giving children the opportunity to start learning potty skills in infancy, then fully transition away from nappies before age 2, once they have developed the necessary skills”.

“By focusing on skill-building and body awareness from a young age, we can help children naturally progress towards independence, reducing the need for prolonged nappy use,” she says. 

Another benefit of this is that you reduce the number of nappies you use – easing the pressure on landfill and also saving you money. 

What does research say?

For Professor Emily Oster, CEO of ParentData, “there isn’t much data at all on what works” when it comes to potty training.

“There are books, of course,” she wrote in an article on her website, “but if you’re looking for strong evidence that one of these works better than others, you will not find it in the medical literature.”

In lieu of this research, Prof Oster also ran her own survey of parents and found “a surprising number of people discussed their success with elimination communication, or some form of it”.

Elimination communication is where parents learn a baby’s signals when they need to wee or poo – and then hold them over the potty. 

This work can start very early on in a child’s life and the idea is, according to Healthline, that children are “more empowered and independent with toileting from a very young age”.

Prof Oster said of the results from her survey: “In most cases, these people weren’t trying to fully train their babies but had found some success with even small infants using the potty sometimes.”

Of course, there are drawbacks to the method – it takes time to learn these cues and respond to them, there will be accidents and it can make it hard to leave the house.

But to be honest, you get all of these issues when you potty train later so, perhaps it’s worth a shot?

If you’re lucky enough to get a chunk of paid time off after having a baby, elimination communication could be a great way to ease into potty training. 

But unfortunately, more parents are being forced back to work sooner rather than later due to finances.

In its 2023 Cost of Living Survey, Maternity Action found nearly three in five respondents returned early from maternity leave, or were planning to do so, for financial reasons.

We also know that time constraints are placing extra pressure on the nation’s parents.

A survey by children’s bowel and bladder charity ERIC and National Day Nurseries Association (NDNA) found more children are being toilet trained later because busy parents are postponing potty training their child for as long as possible, or needing to spend more time at work. Even nursery workers acknowledged that parents need more support. 

Ultimately, parents need to be kind to themselves and do what works for them.