How do you actually do potty/toilet training?

[Loops81]

Every piece of advice I've read just says "do it when they're ready" - fair enough, but how do you actually DO potty/toilet training? I'm terrified of getting it wrong.

Do you go cold turkey and put them in pants, gently trying the potty/toilet throughout the day till they get it right? Or keep the nappies on and wait till they actually start asking for it of their own accord? Or just try it for a period each day?

I think my 2.4 year old is close to ready - she tells me when she's done something, occasionally when she needs to - and we do sometimes have nappy-off time in the evenings where I sit her on the potty but she rarely does anything. If I actually ask her if she wants to use it, she always says no.

She's still quite young, but if you are keen to try her just pick a week when you don't have much planned, put her in pants (if possible nothing else on her bottom half) and put her on the potty every half hour or so. At some point you'll get lucky and she'll wee in the potty, at which point you do the hugely exaggerated well-done song and dance with much clapping and perhaps even a phone call to granny.

She may decide she doesn't want to do it yet though, and if that's the case I'd leave her for another couple of months then try again.

I went to my library and got out a couple of books about potty training. Poplar opposite approaches.

First was to do potty training 'sessions' where they practice being in pants and going on the potty, building it up over time. This is a fairly unusual approach.

More common is to go cold turkey, ditch the nappies and spend a long weekend or week fairly close to home encouraging potty use.

I'm going for it this weekend after a few weeks of DD using the potty at night time and being v aware shed just done a wee or poo.

I've bought two potties and a toilet insert, lots of cheap toys from party shop and stickers. Fingers crossed...

When I say nighttime I mean before bed.

I've just potty trained DC3 - with each of them I went cold turkey and put them in pants. Worked with each of them within a few days, though with DC3 I had tried at the start of the summer and she was not interested (cried when I put her in pants, didn't want to sit on the potty) so I just left her until now and she got it this time.

I went cold turkey with my DD about 6 weeks ago- she was 2.2 then and had been keen on using potty etc. She absolutely wasn't ready and got quite upset so put her back in nappies. Stocked up on fact, got a deal and bought 3 large packs...

Then 10 days later she got up one morning and said "no nappy today", and was clean and dry by day in 48hours and dry by night within a week. I just put her in knickers, and had potty nearby. Encouraged her to use it and gave lots of praise when she did.