Two years ago, about a week before dcg turned two, her mom told me, "When she turns two we'll be potty training her, so she'll start coming in underwear on her birthday."
um, yeah it doesn't work that way. I stood up to them and said "NO. You can't do that. She needs to be in diapers until she's made significant progress at home." She had shown zero signs of potty training readiness. Absolutely none at all. I knew darn well that it wasn't going to work!
She started coming in pull-ups and for over a YEAR the parents kept telling me that she was potty training at home, doing really well, can she please come in underwear. Everytime they brought it up I told them that no, she couldn't, because I was seeing NONE of the signs that she was ready for training here.
In the meantime, her behavior spiraled down and down. What was once a very sweet, happy, sensitive child, became anxious, fearful, and completely oversensitive. She would cry when I had her sit on the potty or asked her about it or when she needed changed. And she displayed ZERO readiness signs.
Through careful questioning I eventually figured out that her parents were giving her time outs for peeing in her pants or pull-up, possibly spanking for it though I didn't get a clear answer on that. They took her potty every thirty minutes while she was home. They would make her sit until she went sometimes.
There came a point where I backed off the potty training here 100%. Months and months went by. Parents started claiming that she was 100% trained at home and on the weekends but daycare ruined it. They just didn't get that she wasn't trained, they were just torturing the poor child every 30 minutes.
And then last May, all of a sudden, she started telling me that she needed to go, and then started going on her own, both poop and pee, and within two weeks was in underwear here and never had an accident.
Oh, look! Potty training! It happened when she was ready! How amazing! And it only took her 1-2 weeks. *I* know that. But the parents claim it took almost a year and a half. I feel so sad for her, and her brother. I really, honestly did bang my head on the wall a few times during this happy little process.
This is the family that really smoothed out my daycare potty training policy for me
I don't allow pull-ups here anymore. I won't push it until *I* see that they are ready for it. I talk, and mention, and offer, and explain what they will feel in their bodies and we work on the other skills (down pants, up pants, language skills, body awareness, hand washing...) and then, bam, they train when they are ready.
The main thing I do differently is that I am willing to try a child who is still using diapers like diapers but mom says they are fine when naked/ in underwear. My DD potty trained like that (trained while naked, but used a diaper when it was on) and I've had another dcb train like that, so I'm willing to entertain it. But I don't announce that ahead of time