If you’ve got a toddler and you live in Suffolk, Hampshire, Rotherham or Solihull, among other places, your council is about to start talking to you about potty training. Twenty local authorities in England have signed up to copy a scheme from York that, going by the first results, got a lot more kids out of nappies before they started Reception.
I’ll be honest, my first reaction was a bit defensive. Nobody fancies being told how to bring up their kids by a leaflet. Then I read the numbers, and to be fair, they’re hard to argue with.
What York actually did
Since April, York has been putting potty training advice wherever parents of little ones turn up: GP surgeries, pharmacies, family hubs, nurseries, schools and libraries. Every family with a child due to start Reception this September got a potty training guide sent out with their school place offer. There were drop in sessions for parents and extra training for early years staff. The guide was written by the children’s charity Kindred Squared, which also paid for the pilot.
The aim was simple enough. Every child able to use the toilet on their own by their first day at school, apart from children with medical issues or special educational needs, who were never the target.
Results from all 55 mainstream primary schools in the city were shared with BBC News on 5 October. Last September, 148 of the 1,364 children starting Reception in York weren’t toilet trained, which is about 11%. This September it was 85 out of 1,374, about 6%.
Jo Mould, who teaches Reception at Robert Wilkinson Primary Academy in York, told the BBC: “We’ve spent more time teaching in these last three weeks than we have in previous years.”
Why schools care so much
According to Kindred Squared’s research, around one in four children started school in England and Wales last year not fully toilet trained, and teachers said they were spending over an hour a day changing nappies. The charity’s chief executive, Felicity Gillespie, told Radio 4’s Today programme that teachers tell them they’re losing, on average, about a day a week of teaching time to it. And when the teacher leaves the room to change one child, the rest of the class loses out too.
The government’s angle is what it calls school readiness. In the latest figures, 68.3% of children in England finished Reception with a “good level of development”, a measure that covers talking and listening, physical skills, and getting on with other kids, as well as looking after themselves, toilet included. Ministers say they still want that at 75% by 2028. Early education minister Paul Waugh said it was “encouraging to see this pilot helping more children develop the confidence and independence they need before starting school”.
Where it’s going next
The councils named so far include North Lincolnshire, North East Lincolnshire, Suffolk, Solihull, Rotherham, North Yorkshire, Cheshire West and Chester, Halton, Hampshire, and the London boroughs of Redbridge and Hounslow. More are on the list.
If your council isn’t one of them, you don’t have to wait. The guide is free for anyone to read on the Potty Training Guide website. The scheme itself is England only, so if you’re in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, your health visitor is your first port of call.
What it means for us dads
Most of this comes straight from the NHS’s potty training advice, which is worth ten minutes of anyone’s time, put it that way.
It’s earlier than a lot of us think. The NHS says almost all children can be potty trained between 18 months and two and a half. You also don’t need to wait for your child to show signs or ask for the potty. That one got me. With Alfie we sat about for months waiting for him to tell us he was ready. He was quite happy in nappies, ta very much.
Check for constipation first. Your child should be doing soft poos at least every other day. If they’re hard, look like little pebbles, or your child is straining, talk to your health visitor or GP before you take the nappies off. Painful poos can make kids scared to go, and that makes everything harder.
Pull ups count as nappies. This is the bit I didn’t want to hear. The NHS says stop all types of nappies during the day, pull ups included, and switch to pants. Keep nappies for naps and night time for now.
Don’t wait to be asked, build it into the day. When they get up, after food, before you leave the house, before naps, before bed, and every time you’re out and pass a toilet. Over time they might start telling you, or fidget, go quiet or pull a face. Some kids never really give you a sign, and that’s fine.
Everyone does the same thing. This is where dads can actually make a difference. If one of you has them in pants and the other sticks a pull up on for the big shop, they’ll clock that straight away. And if you’re the one doing nursery drop off, you’re the one who can have the five minute chat about doing it the same way there. Rosie went a lot quicker than her brother, and I’m fairly sure that’s because nursery and us were singing from the same sheet.
Pack like you’re going for a week. Spare clothes, a travel potty if you’ve got one, and the NHS even suggests an absorbent liner for the car seat. Ask me how I know.
Accidents are part of it. Try not to get cross. Clean up together, crack on.
Ask for help. Your health visitor can talk you through it at the two to two and a half year check, or any time before. If your child is about to start school and still needs help, the NHS says to speak to your health visitor about making a plan. And if your child has additional needs, the children’s bowel and bladder charity ERIC has advice specifically for you.
Is a leaflet with a school letter going to sort it for everyone? Probably not on its own. But if it gets a few more of us cracking on a bit sooner, and gets Reception teachers back to teaching, I can live with being nagged by the council.
Anyway. Spare trousers in the car. Trust me.
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