At what age should a child be potty trained?

This is an issue that triggers tremendous parental guilt, stress and competitiveness. We think, “My kid is supposed to be fully trained by now. My mom says I was potty trained at 18 months. He’s gotta be out of Pull-Ups before he starts preschool. The kid down the street has been trained for over six months now!”

But first, let me ask you this: What is the definition of “potty trained”, anyway?

For some, it means wearing underwear… except for away from home, pooping, and at night. For others, it means wearing a diaper, but (usually) peeing on request in the baby potty. And for still others, it means different things, on different days! Even most preschools, despite their protestations to the contrary, will actually work with your toddler on this one. So once we realize that there is a whole continuum of potty training (what some call “toilet learning”), we can relax a bit.

Many children are ready to start when they are around 2½ years old, so ask your pediatrician when to start at your child’s 2-year checkup. Once you get the go-ahead, the first thing to do is to take a deep breath and relax. Everyone eventually learns how to use the potty. If your child isn’t ready or if you’re feeling pressured by a preschool start date or birth of a sibling, inevitably it won’t happen and may even take longer. If you wait until your toddler is truly ready, it’s much easier on everyone involved. In case you are
wondering, the age at which your toddler eventually learns how to use the toilet has no bearing on how smart he is or his future academic success. No college application or job interview is going to ask him at what age he learned.