Why are children potty trained later compared to previous generations?

Two words – disposable nappies.

Of course there are many nuances to this, increasing numbers of working parents, changing attitudes, but the biggest driver is the effectiveness and convenience of disposable nappies.

Alongside this, parents have been increasingly told by ‘experts’ that their children will tell them when they ‘are ready’ to start potty training.

Why did potty training early go out of fashion?

Part of the reason is due to the belief that children have to be ‘ready’ for potty training.

People like T. Berry Brazelton was a proponent of the ‘child oriented’ approach. This proposed starting toilet training no earlier than 24 months and withstand ‘external pressure’ of grandparents to start toilet training earlier.

It is very coincidental that Brazelton served as Chairman of Pampers Parenting Institute which is funded by Procter and Gamble Corporation, a market leading nappy manufacturer.

Of course, if you have a multi-billion dollar business, you wouldn’t want to encourage people to stop buying your products sooner would you? It’s like turkeys voting for Christmas.

The below video, explores some of the reasons why big nappy companies have funded research and been behind the dogma that children should be potty trained later.

But this is not new, it has been in the press for years. This article from 1999 in Time highlights the war of words over when children should be potty trained.

We aren’t born incontinent

When you think about it, we aren’t born incontinent unless there is a medical issue with your body. So for a baby to learn to wee or poo in a nappy seems counter intuitive, especially as a year or two they have to learn to wee or poo in a potty.

Is it a bad for children to be potty trained later?

Well it can be. This video by nurse Rebecca Mottram notes the issues of keeping children in nappies longer, can make it potentially more difficult to potty train later on.

Delaying potty training has been cited as reason for increasing numbers of children going to school who are still in nappies.

A report in 2024, by charity Kindred, highlighted that one in four children starting school weren't toilet trained.

This can have a big impact on the wellbeing of the child as well as having an impact on teaching time.

Call for transparency from the nappy industry

We think the nappy companies should be more honest with parents and encourage them to get their children out of nappies sooner.

This would help to reduce the impact nappies have on the environment and also be beneficial for the wellbeing of children.

This would of course harm nappy company profits.

New markets for nappy companies

However, nappy companies could re-focus their efforts on continence products for older people.

With many countries across the world having ageing populations, the propensity for continence issues can increase as people age.

By targeting the older segment of the population then the nappy companies could potentially make up for the shortfall.

This is probably a too simplistic argument, but it just doesn’t make sense for children to be in nappies longer than they need to be.

Across the globe and for 1,000s of years, children haven’t been soiling themselves in nappies, so it’s time we reassessed how we view disposable nappies.