Toilet training is an important developmental hurdle for both toddlers and their parents. The skills required for bowel and bladder control is similar. These skills are the results of a series of accomplishments, and parents play an important role by recognizing, reacting to and rewarding each accomplishment.
Young infants have a reflex known as the gastro-colic reflex.
About twenty minutes after eating, the infant will have a reflex bowel movement. The ability to control bowel movements can only develop after the child has overcome this reflex. The child must be able to sense that a bowel movement is occurring. In most children this usually happens after one year of age. But the final act of this complex learning task will not be accomplished for another year or two.