Potty train now or once baby sister has arrived??

[Acornacorn]

Suddenly my son (2yrs, 4months) seems ready to potty train. But his baby sister is due in a month.
Should I start it this/next weekend (bearing in mind he’ll then be at nursery for the rest of the week, as we can’t take annual leave so close to mat/pat leave? Or are we setting ourselves - and him! - up to fail? Should/could we wait until his baby sister is 3-4months old??

If he is ready then do it now.

Absolutely do it now, why would you not

I’d do it now, if he is really ready it won’t take long.

I wouldn’t. It does depend by what you mean by “ready” signs but in my personal experience, the first several months after training are much more stressful than the nappy days. Needing to change frequently, more laundry, more housework cleaning up floors, needing to know exactly how many seconds you are from a toilet at any time. I’d think newborn days are easier with the elder one in nappies.

Having said that, both my children were older than yours and both took a long time to get the hang of it, despite the promised signs so maybe my experience is unusual.

Also, you don’t want anything that exacerbates the sense of being displaced by the new baby and slight reversions in development are normal when a new baby arrives, so you could find you’d need to start all over again.

Personally, I’d wait until the summer with the baby well settled into the family and the better weather for drying clothes and learning outdoors. But I don’t think there’s a hard and fast answer.

Try it now and if he's ready then he should be established with it by the time your second is here but if it doesn't seem to be working abandon it and try again after.

Now, it only takes a week or so to crack it. Ok so over the next few months you might have a few accidents but you'll be at home most of the time because of the newborn, so much easier to deal with.

Also according to Oh Crap (which is the popular potty training book amongst my friends) the golden window is 20-30 months and then it gets harder.

Try now if she is showing interest and you think he is ready, be prepared for regression when the baby arrives though. Good luck

Just start him now and he is in a routine of going to potty/toilet, he might regress when baby comes but just keep at it.

I’d wait, 100%. It was hard enough dealing with a newborn and a young toddler without the added stress of potty training. My DD was having almost daily accidents for 2 months and I’d been convinced she was ready to train. Just my personal experience. It would have driven me to the edge.

I'd give it a go. We potty trained my DD (2 years 4 months at the time) this summer, a month before her new baby sister arrived. We basically locked ourselves in the kitchen/downstairs with the potty over a long weekend and she cracked it in a couple of days. She then went into nursery on the Tuesday and they helped her to continue. Now it's 6 months on with a 5 month old baby and I'm really glad we tried it when we did. Give it a go, if he's showing signs of being ready he might nail it quickly.

Also to echo PP, Oh Crap is a great book with lots of tips.

Thanks very much to everyone for their advice and experiences! Really helpful.