Here - Health Promotion Agency

4 Habits and
behaviour
There are some things that our children need to learn just so that
we all get along together. The big issues for most parents are that
our children should learn to:
use a toilet;
sleep through the night;
•
behave reasonably well in public and private.
Sometimes we feel so anxious about these goals that we actually make it
harder for our children to achieve them. This chapter helps you to step
back a bit and see how you are managing.
P OTTIES AND TOILETS
WHAT TO EXPECT
Daytime
Children get bladder and bowel
control when they’re physically
ready for it and want to be dry
and clean. The time varies, so it’s
best not to compare your child
with others.
• Most children can control their
bowels before their bladders.
•
By the age of two, one in two
children are dry during
the day.
• By the age of three, nine out of
ten children are dry most days.
Even then all children have the
odd accident, especially when
they’re excited or upset or
absorbed in doing something.
Night-time
Learning to stay dry throughout the
night usually takes a child a little
longer than staying dry during the
day. He or she has to respond to the
sensation of having a full bladder
while asleep either by waking up
and going to the toilet, or holding
on until morning. Although most
children do learn this between
the ages of three and five, it is
estimated that:
• a quarter of three-year-olds
wet the bed;
•
one in six five-year-olds wet
the bed.
‘It’s hard not to push them.
You see these other children,
you know, younger than yours,
and they’re all using the potty
or the toilet, and there’s yours,
still in nappies. But they all
learn in the end and, looking
back, it wasn’t that important.
At the time I thought it was
dreadful because Al was the
only child in nappies. But it
was only me that minded. Al
certainly didn’t care, so what
does it matter?’
51