Kristen Bell’s child was in nappies at 5yo – “Every child is different”

Celebrity Families – 10 Feb 22 By Rebel Wylie

The 'Frozen' star says she has no time for mum-shamers.

You can read all the parenting books you want, but the simple fact is that your child is going to teach you how to parent them better than anyone else could.

And that’s never been demonstrated more clearly than when Kristen Bell spoke about toilet training and confessed that despite early success with her first-born, her second-born daughter, Delta was still in nappies at age five.

The 41-year-old star of The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window and her 47-year-old husband, Dax Shephard, a star in Parenthood, shared the parent-shaming that followed and sharing the secret that got Delta out of nappies when she was finally ready.

(Image: Instagram)

Kristen Bell stars in the 2022 hit The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window.

It was when chatting with fellow mums Maya Rudolph and Casey Wilson during an episode of her show Momsplaining With Kristen Bell that the topic came up.

The Frozen star revealed that all of her smugness about getting eldest daughter, Lincoln out of nappies by 21 months was quickly shattered by the fact that her second daughter, five-year-old Delta was still in nappies.

“Every kid is so different,” said Kristen at the time.

She joked that she and Dax had been totally smug about their early success with Lincoln.

“My oldest daughter at 21 months, we merely suggested that she use the toilet in the other room and [she] never wore another diaper beyond that,” said the 41-year-old The Good Place star.

“We were lying in bed giggling about this, my husband and I, like, ‘Why does everyone make a big deal out of this potty training? It’s so easy. Just tell the kid to use the toilet.'”

But that parenting glory has a way of quickly coming undone as the parenting pair learned the second time around.

“Currently, my youngest is five-and-a-half, still in diapers,” Kristen confessed at the time.

Following the outrage that followed her confession, Kristen clarified via Twitter that her daughter didn’t wear nappies during the day, only at night-time, because “her tiny bladder isn’t up for the 10 hr challenge yet.”

(Image: Instagram)

Kristen Bell and Dax Sheppard share two daughters, eight-year-old Lincoln and six-year-old Delta.

She and Dax spoke to Today’s Parent about how they managed to overcome that hurdle with their youngest daughter. But first Kristen addressed the furore around Delta’s late start to the game.

“Sometimes it takes kids until they’re even older than five! But I’ve never met a high-schooler who pees their pants all day. It’s going to stop at some point.”

After the easy road with Lincoln, the pair have admitted that a different route was needed to help Delta transition throughout the night.

“You know what we have to do?’ the actress told Today’s Parent. “We wake her up at about 11 p.m. when she’s, like, a zombie and put her on the toilet.”

Dax chimed in, “Yeah, we put a wet spaghetti noodle on the toilet once a night.”

The Golden Globe-nominated actress and star of 2022 hit The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window also revealed that some people mum-shamed her online for not forcing her daughter out of nappies sooner.

“The Twitterverse was kind of mum-shaming me, which I’m not interested in,” she said.

“So I kept responding with the same thing: “Every child is different,” which they are. And yes, I have a five-and-a-half-year-old who still sometimes wets the bed and that’s OK!” she concluded.

Ironically, in late 2021 Kristen and Dax launched their own nappies company in the US, with the actress sharing to Instagram “Last week we opened a gorgeous factory and became the only independent company manufacturing its own diapers! … We are also sourcing our raw materials locally/regionally- which is great for our carbon footprint! “

And she went on to enthuse that the business created more than 150 jobs for the local community.

WATCH: Kristen Bell chats with Maya Rudolph and Casey Wilson on ‘Momsplaining With Kristen Bell’ Continues after …

Always brutally honest about her life as a mum and wife, Kristen admitted she had a bit of trouble with homeschooling while she and her family were in quarantine during COVID-19.

While speaking with Ellen, the Veronica Mars star revealed: “I gave up.”

“I attempted to give her some math problems and she answered the first and second one, and then she got real sassy and what she did for the rest of them was in the answer grid she just wrote, No, No, No, No [to each question]”