Starting to wonder about "early potty training."

[Gym knickers]

A few people I know who potty trained early have had lots of major regressions and issues- one is still not dry at 4.5 after being initially dry at 18m. I feel as though DD is ready to experiment with it and happy for her to do that, we always cheer her when she sits on the potty even if nothing happens and take her nappy off if she asks but I definitely don't think she's physically ready at 18m and don't think many are tbh. I'd rather either let it happen naturally or just wait until she's older. Her speech and understanding are great and I think in a few months we'd have more chance of success.

 

[SarahBear]

Well that doesn't sound like "resistance" to me.

 

[Loozle]

It sounds like she's ready imo gym knickers. My ds2 did the same thing and was potty trained by 19 months. I just followed his lead. We've had no regressions at all and he's coming up to 5 now.

 

[StaceyKor]

As I said earlier, neither of mine had any regressions at all and that was training at 22 months with dd1 and 18 months with dd2. In fact I don't even take spare clothes out with dd2 a lot of the time now and she's not even 2 yet. I'd say from day 1 with her I've been more confident in the fact she wouldn't have accidents than I was with dd1 even though she was 4 months older. There's no harm in trying gym knickers, you might just be surprised....I know I was gobsmacked in the early days with dd2 at just how aware of her need to go she was xx

 

[MindUtopia]

I think do what works and is easiest for you. I have a few friends who tried it, but I think really struggled and felt like they couldn't go back on it once they'd made the commitment. It seemed very long and drawn out. Whereas we did pretty much nothing until 31 months, then she was toilet trained in 4 days with very few accidents after that and it was all pretty smooth sailing. I think if it's working and it's easy, do it. If it's a hassle and is taking up too much of your energy and commitment, then just wait. I'm pretty much in the doing what's easy school of things and we've just waited out all sorts of things until she was really ready and asking to do it and then it was all pretty simple and stress-free. I think that's the way to go, whatever approach you take.

 

[Gym knickers]

Im a teacher and break up for summer in two weeks so might give it a go then. She's a tinker mind and very headstrong so will definitely follow her lead. Will let you know how it goes!

 

[StaceyKor]

Lol Sienna is too...once she sets her mind on something that's how it goes. Decided to potty train one day out of the blue and that was it....then randomly decided about 2 months later that her dummy hurt her teeth (she was dummy obsessed up to that point) and just binned the dummy and that was it gone- it was great in a way cos I thought ditching the dummy would be difficult but it was so easy. Made me sad though cos it was the last baby thing she had left and I felt she had grown up far too quickly (she went into a proper bed at 15 months old too) xx

 

[love.peace]

I prefer a completely child led approach so the child is ready fully. At 2.5 years old I was changing my sons nappy and left if off as we waiting for a new one to dry (we use cloth) and he climbed on the toilet, did a wee and we have never looked back. After 4 days of no nappy he was completely dry at night too. I honestly think 14 months is too young and can become stressful for both child and parent if accidents happen or confusing going back into nappies which happened for your daughter. I personally would wait x

 

[misspriss]

Well, Sara has been dry for the past 4 mornings, no pushing from me she just goes straight to the potty in the AM and dry diaper. I think it's because all her life she has watched her brother go straight to the potty first thing. During the day, she will ask for a dry diaper even if she's just made a small wee.

 

[CaptainMummy]

All 3 of my girls were showing signs of being ready to train at a very young age. Dd1 was saying 'peepee' and taking herself to the potty and doing a pee at 16 months, dd2 was well aware of her need to go before she was 18 months and dd3 also tells me if she needs a wee or poo...

But I didn't bother training early with any of them! The way I see it is that the chances of them being reliable and totally dry at that age are slim, and I would much rather they were older and able to do it themselves (to a degree) so I waited.

Dd1&2 were dry within 2/3 days and practically zero accidents since. And both were dry after a matter of weeks at night (although that was not important to me)

Im waiting with dd3 (20m) even though Im sure she would get it.

Its probably laziness too. I cant be bothered, and potty training isn't my favourite thing to be doing!

 

[catty]

I personally couldnt be bothered at that age. We are out and about all the time and far too much work for me. They are now both potty trained in the house and we have started on outings and it was so easy maybe 3 accidents? we will probably have alot more accidents now were doing it out of the house though. Im a bit of a lazy parent in terms of things like that though.
If you are fine putting the effort in why not!
Evie was 22 months when she started consistently peeing on the potty which she did completely on her own she just decided one day, lucas was 33 months, i had tried before with him but after 3 days we still had 0 pees on the potty

 

[SarahBear]

Im a teacher and break up for summer in two weeks so might give it a go then. She's a tinker mind and very headstrong so will definitely follow her lead. Will let you know how it goes!

Me too. It's the perfect time! We do have a trip this month that's a couple weeks long, but we'll keep up with the morning pees and offer after naps and stuff like that. Following the trip, I'll have about a month before I go back to work. We should be able to make good progress in that time. I've noticed that since being off work and putting focus on pottying, he has increased his awareness and communicated about potty needs a little more.

 

[SarahBear]

I prefer a completely child led approach so the child is ready fully. At 2.5 years old I was changing my sons nappy and left if off as we waiting for a new one to dry (we use cloth) and he climbed on the toilet, did a wee and we have never looked back. After 4 days of no nappy he was completely dry at night too. I honestly think 14 months is too young and can become stressful for both child and parent if accidents happen or confusing going back into nappies which happened for your daughter. I personally would wait x

In my opinion, completely child led would include listening to and responding to the cues that babies give and naturally transitioning from there to the toilet. I admit that showing Leo the toilet and teaching him the sign isn't completely "child-led," but as his parent, I believe in teaching him. As for the stress, that all comes from parent attitude and expectations. Also, I know from experience that it's not confusing going back into diapers because he's been doing it his whole life. At days old, I was holding him over the toilet. So, it's not confusing; it's normal for him. Violet was also not confused by the back and forth between diapers and toilet. She was completely out of diapers the month that she was 18 months and due to regressions and vacation, she was completely back in diapers at 19 months and slowly weaned back off them by 23 months, but it was never "confusing" for her. She hit another major regression with toileting at about 2.5 and we did end up going back to diapers and I found that when we went to potty train her again, she wouldn't make the effort to get to the toilet if she was wearing a diaper. She would just go. For this round of "potty training," we did just take the diaper away. It seems to me that it's "confusing" for an older toddler but not a younger one. Younger toddlers just know that you want them to go in the potty and sometimes they make it and sometimes they don't. An older toddler figures "Why go to the potty if I have a diaper on." Honestly, the lower cognitive skills of a younger toddler, make potty learning much simpler! For Violet, her personality was such that potty training wasn't super straight forward, but I get the feeling Leo won't have nearly as many bumps along the road as Violet did.

 

[SarahBear]

Teaching sign sure helps the process! He could sign "potty" before he was a year old, however, his use of it was never super consistent. He's starting to use it again though. It's not always very clear, but I respond when I think he's signing it. He just signed it pretty clearly when I was holding him and going by the bathroom. We stopped in, I put him on the toilet and he went. This sort of thing isn't super infrequent. Another way he'll communicate need is bringing us a diaper or going to the toilet. He often communicates about a wet diaper as well. I don't know if he'll be able to be dry at 18 months or 38 months, but he's at least on the right track.

 

[morri]

I tried every now and then(well trying, = offering, and last year in August she totally took to it. and she only took 3 days to understand and was dry at night like 2 weeks after she was dry in the day.(probably even earlier as she had dry nappies before) . So just see if you think your childs ready offer and if no interest/too much hassle then wait a bit longer)

 

[misspriss]

Well, now Sara won't pee in her night diaper, which means when she wakes in the night, we have to go pee or she won't go back to sleep. It's happened twice within a week...

 

[StaceyKor]

Sounds like you should definitely just go for it. Honestly, people look at me like I'm nuts/lying when I tell them what age Sienna trained and how easy it was. You may well be surprised xx

 

[cuddlebugluv]

My DD has shown interest, we even had her pick out her own potty seat adapter...but she likes to play with it and put her face in the gap and say " Circle"..i'm thinking to try a potty pot and then transition her to the adapter seat. My DS had a fear of the big potty and potties outside the house so training him was harder, but successful at age 3. DD doesn't have the same fear but doesn't seem to grasp the concept that she uses the potty like we do yet. she's 2 and I'm wondering if waiting a couple more months would be better for her rather than thinking these potty tools are toys, yuck lol.

 

[SarahBear]

Our approach is a slow approach, but I'm definitely seeing good progress. My husband needs to start picking up on and responding to the sign though! I was busy with something when my husband was supposed to be looking after Leo. I went into where they were and Leo was walking around doing the potty sign with both hands. I pointed it out to my husband and he pottied him. I asked about his diaper and my husband said the diaper was wet and Leo peed when given the opportunity. He has also peed in the potty/toilet several other times today. Poop, however, was in the diaper. Things will get thrown off on our vacation, but I wouldn't be surprised if he is out of diapers before 2. Of course I also wouldn't be surprised if he completely regresses and stays in them until 3! You just never know which kind of potty trainer you've got until the diapers have been gone for a good long time.

 

[SarahBear]

Well he's 16 months old and we fly home from vacation tomorrow. He has continued to use the toilet several times a day and is capable of communicating about his needs despite having no real words. I think he's done a nice job of maintaining rather than regressing. I have another month before going back to work and plan to put more focus on potty use during that time.