What's the best age to start potty training?

[jellybabe83]

My little boys almost 9 months old, so he's obviously not ready to start yet, but i don't think he'll be very long at all. You can always tell when he's trying to go, and he hates it as soon as his neppy's even the slightest bit damp. When did you all start potty training?

I son't think there is a right age for PTing as such. You just have to go with the flow and see how your child is. Look out for signs of being ready, take it easy and just see what happends. You also have to prepared to back track, stop and start again a few weeks later too.

My DD was 2 years old, just after her birthday. She was definitely ready. By day 3 we had no accidents at all. Friend's DS has recently just been PTd (after a few non starters) and he is just over 3yo. They are all different.

9 months does seem very very young to PT.

Thanks Hulababy. Don't worry, I'm not thinking of potty training him until he's at least over a year old. I know he's too young at the moment to even understand what's going on.

Jellybabe - follow ds's lead but I have to say, I don't know of anyone that has potty trained a little boy under 2 years old.

In fact, 'generally' boys are later than girls (though not always obviously). DS1 was 2y 9m and cracked it in 3-5 days - no accidents since. Most friends with boys have done it the same age, OR have done it around 2yrs 4-6m but it's taken months to get it and some of them still have accidents.

Bear in mind that our grandparents generation potty trained much younger. It is a bit of a controversial issue, but I started PTing my dd when she was around 8 months old.

I started because she would ONLY poo on the bathroom floor already at that stage. She would NEVER poo in her nappy. If she needed a poo she seemed to hold onto it until I was changing her, and then she would do it on the bathroom floor. This was a bloody messy arrangement so I bought her a toddler training seat and potty and encouraged her to use them instead.

She took to it without any fuss and then progressed to increasing wee-ing and poo-ing on her toilet seat/potty as the months progressed. She was in pants in the day and night by the time she was about 20-22 months, so it was a nice gradual process, but she was definitely showing an interest at an early age, and I've got no qualms about encouraging that. If your son is interested, then encourage him and show him how you do it!

Our nephew day trained at just under 2. He was/is physically quite advanced. He also "night trained" a few weeks later but they then had constantly interrupted nights with him waking his parents to be taken to the loo and it took ages to break him of waking at night, even when he didn't need a wee, as a result.

Interesting question. I've bought ds (23 mths) a potty to get him used to it being about and he tells me its for wee wee but isn't interested in doing one on it!! He has started telling me when hes done a poo in his nappy tho so thats progress!

My friends little girl (also 23 mths) is now using the potty most of the time.

Another friends little boy has just been PT at 2.4yrs. Her older son was PT at 2.6yrs.

So I think it very much depends on the child. Don't think I'll be seriously into PT ds for another couple of months at least.