My favourites are the ones that try to make you feel like a rubbish mother – ‘What? You’ve waited this long.’ ‘Do you think he has a problem?’ To the competitive ones, ‘I potty trained X at six months‘, ‘He just told me at 12 months he was going on the toilet.’ To the downright silly, ‘Take a toy away every time he wets himself.’
Yes you can potty train a child early but on the whole most people start around 2 and a half, what’s more it doesn’t matter, because since when did using the toilet become a competition? What I’ve learnt as a parent is basically what other parents often say isn’t true and some parents will make anything into a competition.
The answer is to not to allow yourself to be pulled into anything because believe me the competitive parenting doesn’t stop. It starts with baby size and birth and moves on to sleeping/feeding/potty training and once they’re at school reading and intelligence. It’s exhausting so take a tip from me – stay out of it!
Are you a competitive parent or does all the competition around parenting get on your nerves? Let us know. For tips and advice about Potty Training see NHS Choices. Competitive Potty Training!
Sometimes there are whole areas you forget about parenthood until you have a second child. I am not sure if it’s amnesia or simple forced forgetting but it happens. We are currently potty training child number 2, who is a boy and nearly 3! Until we started I had completely forgotten just how many ‘helpful’ comments parents give you when you’re potty training a child.
My favourites are the ones that try to make you feel like a rubbish mother – ‘What? You’ve waited this long.’ ‘Do you think he has a problem?’ To the competitive ones, ‘I potty trained X at six months‘, ‘He just told me at 12 months he was going on the toilet.’ To the downright silly, ‘Take a toy away every time he wets himself.’
Yes you can potty train a child early but on the whole most people start around 2 and a half, what’s more it doesn’t matter, because since when did using the toilet become a competition? What I’ve learnt as a parent is basically what other parents often say isn’t true and some parents will make anything into a competition.
The answer is to not to allow yourself to be pulled into anything because believe me the competitive parenting doesn’t stop. It starts with baby size and birth and moves on to sleeping/feeding/potty training and once they’re at school reading and intelligence. It’s exhausting so take a tip from me – stay out of it!
Are you a competitive parent or does all the competition around parenting get on your nerves? Let us know. For tips and advice about Potty Training see NHS Choices.
My favourites are the ones that try to make you feel like a rubbish mother – ‘What? You’ve waited this long.’ ‘Do you think he has a problem?’ To the competitive ones, ‘I potty trained X at six months‘, ‘He just told me at 12 months he was going on the toilet.’ To the downright silly, ‘Take a toy away every time he wets himself.’
Yes you can potty train a child early but on the whole most people start around 2 and a half, what’s more it doesn’t matter, because since when did using the toilet become a competition? What I’ve learnt as a parent is basically what other parents often say isn’t true and some parents will make anything into a competition.
The answer is to not to allow yourself to be pulled into anything because believe me the competitive parenting doesn’t stop. It starts with baby size and birth and moves on to sleeping/feeding/potty training and once they’re at school reading and intelligence. It’s exhausting so take a tip from me – stay out of it!
Are you a competitive parent or does all the competition around parenting get on your nerves? Let us know. For tips and advice about Potty Training see NHS Choices.