It's bad to teach your child to potty early?

[GuavaGirl]

I've had several people say this to me when asking if their 2 or 3 year old is potty trained.  Something about it actually not being good for the child psychologically to potty train them early (or that they end up being worse at going in the potty in the long run)...and that they have big regressions and all this stuff.  

Thoughts?

It doesn't make sense to me, but I haven't really looked into...maybe I'll go work some google foo now.  

[heatherr30]

yes it's bad if you put too much pressure on them, show your disappointment if they don't succeed, in the past some parents were even abusive to children who had an accident..  It was a good thing when drs started saying, look, if your kid is not PT, it may be that they are not ready.

However, the disposable diaper companies have really jumped on the bandwagon trying to tell us that ALL kids are better off in diapers till around the age of 3 or 4.  Pleeeez.

IMO it's not bad to introduce the potty in a fun and sensitive way, at any age. Keeping in mind that most kids will not be PT overnight nor will they be able to get themselves to the potty in time every time--parents have to help in the beginning!  And possibly for the first 6 months or more. 

By advocating "child led PT" disposable diaper companies try to keep kids in diapers longer... therefore making more money.  IME very few kids end up doing true child led PT at any age, though the unsuspecting parents are always waiting for that to happen... until finally it does not happen and their child has reached an age where the parents start to get nervous they will never PT... and then they end up doing parent led PT anyway.

[sosurreal09]

Well if you believe babies and children aren't incontinent in the first place then it is bad to ignore their potty needs. I know my DD was never incontinent, I didn't always get the pees or poos in a potty but she always knew when it was going to happen. Babies communicate the need to go we just chose to ignore it....KWIM?

[sabetts]

Diaper-free before 3 has a nice chapter on the history of potty training. All that psychology stuff about poop? Not evidence based :). White, male psychoanalysts in offices sipping scotch on the rocks at their oak desks and staring out the window came up with that stuff. Somehow it stuck around despite having later been debunked. Yeah, punishing your kid and forcing them to do things they don't want to do is gonna lead to psychological problems for potty training just like it would any other activity. So don't do that.

As for the readiness guidelines and all this stuff about kids not being ready before 2.5-3 years. That's bogus. In the US around 1960 90% of children completed potty training before their second birthday.

[tillymonster]

Originally Posted by sabetts 

White, male psychoanalysts in offices sipping scotch on the rocks at their oak desks and staring out the window came up with that stuff.

Soooo true... omg... love it!