Big Toilet Project Interim (12 week) Findings Update

Thank you to everyone who attended our initial findings webinar on the 9th June 2025. Below is a link to the recording from the webinar for those of you who could not make it or want to listen or watch back. 

Summary so far: 

• Work status - majority of parents/carers are in work at the time potty training is recommended (50.9% of two parent/carer families are both working). ​
• Importance of nurseries - majority of children spend routine time with nursery staff or childminders at the time toilet training is recommended (70.4%). ​
• Awareness - Majority of parents/carers have awareness and knowledge of need to toilet train before 30 months (77.8%).​
• Time commitment - Majority of parents/carers prefer to carry out toilet training over a dedicated period of time (62.1%).​
• Timing- A significant number of parents/carers are starting toilet training after 30 months (23%)
• Comparability between nations - we need more data from around the world to start making comparisons between countries

Q&A 

Q1: How many responses do we need to be able to identify causation and how do we plan to assess the association between the variables that may be related?
A1: That is a good question. And it's a very important one. So there isn’t a pre-defined number, it's all about the statistical analysis. It depends on the causation required we use different methods. In terms of numbers, our aim is to get to about 10,000 responses and have better response rates in developing economies. We need to have representative samples of the different sort of demographics in different countries, ideally, and so trying to get to diverse range of people is a priority and a challenge for us this year. Between high-income countries we are already starting to see corelation and differences and that is done through statistical data analysis methods. Those will be described in peer-reviewed academic papers emerging from the research probably in 2026.

Q2: Are the results a combination of the survey questions and the diary entries? 
A2: In the presentation - first half is from the survey (n=2848), the last couple of slides with results are from the diaries (n=407). That is noted on the slides at the bottom, so you can check if interested.

Q3: Does when child is born in the year and therefore when summer falls vs age, have an impact? In my network I hear 'we'll wait for summer' a lot, both due to ease of undressing and of drying washing.
A3: We have information on that in terms of whether people prefer to train in warmer seasons or not. Currently the data is inconclusive overall - some people prefer to train in warm seasons (45%), but a lot of people have said that they don't have specific preference (52%). But it's a good point about corelation between waiting for warmer season and delayed start. We will investigate.

Q4: For nurseries - In the UK I understand the new "free" hours have made resource and staffing ratios even more challenging with many closing due to financial restraints. If nurseries are expected to toilet train (whilst looking after children on a 1-5/1-8 ratio) - they will need funding to do this. We've had a very positive experience with nursery but I think it is a lot to expect them to manage.
A4: As scientists, we are not those responsible for budgets and policy directly, however what we can do is to present the evidence, discuss and recommend options based on that evidence and highlight that nurseries are a huge part of that puzzle. Supporting parents and children in nursery is backed by data as a win-win-win approach. So the question for policymakers will be how they can support nurseries better and what are the mechanisms for doing that. That is the next stage of engagement which we are starting soon.

Reflection from the audience: I've written two books on potty training, one on potty training girls and one on potty training boys. I've seen many children who are in the process of being potty trained, and I think most parents and most nurseries feel it is the responsibility of parents to toilet train their children. There is also this obsession about doing it in the summer. And from a developmental point of view, I just think that's a bit mad because children are ready when they're ready. 
If we could incentivize nurseries to really help with this, we know that nurseries really help with getting children into eating together and doing lots of things together. So if toileting can become part of the nursery curriculum, I don't know how that might work it is something to think about.
I suppose my question to you is about. I used to use cloth nappies and I've seen a number of children with cloth nappies. But in my practice (GP), they're very few and far between. And children do end up with rashes. And I think that the current disposable nappies are so good that there's little incentive for the children to get out of nappies because they don't feel they're wet. So I wonder if there's something about getting less absorbent nappies for children over 2 years to encourage toilet training. These are just some thoughts I've had as a as a paediatrician who sees lots and lots of children who are in the process of being toilet trained in the UK.
Response: That is a hypothesis that we are investigating and you're not the only person to say that. It will be interesting to see if some of the data (toilet training diaries) indicates corelation and we'll be looking out for that. We're really heartened by the fact that we've got people with reusable nappies taking part in the study and people with disposable. We think that is a point that we would like to comment on in future webinars as it is widely kind of discussed.
Regarding nurseries and how to support staff which we talked about before, it seems also a relevant question and the data so far seems to back what you're saying. We need everyone in the room to make good policy and I think our role in this is to provide good data to those conversations. Our aim would be to make sure that all stakeholders in the system are part of that conversation, which is where we really need to be next. 

Q5: Clear, evidence based guidance should be the number one priority I think from looking at the existing literature in this area. Parents find the concept of readiness confusing, there's a lack of consensus on which signs are the most important and at which stage.
A5: We should have some data on this in terms of different ways in which people are using different methods and already you can see there's just lots out there. 
We also have data showing that people are getting a lot of their information from social media and online searches, and also books. But I think that that the spread of different messages is very heterogeneous. There's still no clear alignment on what people think is the right method. So I think that would be a really good goal for the UK and probably worldwide to agree some common ground.

Q6: Is there evidence to support a funded laundry service for early parents would increase uptake of reusable nappies? Time effort exhaustion etc can steer in one direction then make it hard to switch.
A6: From the behaviour change perspective we haven't asked parents explicitly about this sort of service. But we have qualitative data from a previous survey (n=624) where we asked parents about potential interventions that could support increased use of reusable nappies. Over 75% said they would highly (5/5) or somewhat (4/5) support access to reliable and affordable laundering services. So yes we have some data which suggests that if it was affordable, laundry services could address some of the barriers that were coming up. But there's maybe a little bit more research needed in this area. We are aware some of our stakeholders are working on similar initiatives but they are very small scale and we have not seen any data emerge from those yet. We would also highlight that a life cycle assessment study will be beneficial to understand at what scale does a laundry service become a win-win-win economically, for the environment and socially.