Reply #1: My sister...

[politicat]

Took her until my nephew was a bit over four to realize that pull-ups were not the solution, that yes indeedy she did need to get both toilets in the house working so that my nephew wouldn't have to try to hold it till he made it downstairs to get to the bathroom, that he would not be allowed into kindergarten if he wasn't toilet trained.

(She had ancient, wall mounted toilets, and when one cracked, she just shut it off instead of having it replaced.)

In her case, it was somewhat denial and somewhat laziness and somewhat not wanting to deal with it - it's just easier to buy the damn pull-ups than clean out underwear.

I think what motivated her was my niece (our other sister's daughter), who is just past two, is just about day-trained (she still wears diapers at night). I think she realized that she was not helping her son by taking the easy way out.