Potty training at 15 months?

[Naptime12]

I honestly hadn’t given much thought to potty training my son because a) he’s my first and b) I’d heard it’s better to wait till they are 2.

However the past few days he will come to me and touch his nappy and say ‘poo poo.’ Then a few seconds/ couple minutes later he will do a poo. Does this sound like he could be ready now?

Potty training doesn’t have to be all or nothing so why not pop him on the potty/ seat on the toilet when he says and hopefully you’ll get a few less dirty nappies to deal with and in a few months he’ll be quite used to the toilet/ potty when you want to start potty learning for pee.

https://eric.org.uk/potty-training/

There’s no harm in buying a little potty and if he’s happy to, popping him on it to try after he says ‘poo poo’. If nothing else it introduces the idea and it’s a nappy change you don’t have to do! But I wouldn’t be holding my breath about training properly yet.

He needs to be able to communicate his needs, so can he ask for a specific toy or a drink? If not you can’t expect him to learn to ask for the potty. Is he walking properly because the muscles are connected? Are you prepared to do it as it’s going to be a longer slog needing prompting from you for a lot longer than with an older child. The Oh Crap book is great for younger trainers but I think it describes the ideal window as 20-30 months and whilst it does say you can train younger, it doesn’t actually have any examples of children younger than 18 months.

I'd definitely be taking this as a cue that you should start thinking about it! Pop him on the potty when he's about to go and make a big fuss if he's successful. Make no comment if he's not. It'll probably still be a long time before he's fully trained but it gets him used to the idea at least! We had potties knocking about the house from 18 months though didn't start really training till 25 months.

These days a lot of people wait till three then attempt the whole thing in a few days, but there's nothing wrong with a more gradual approach.

Both my boys didn't have dirty nappies much after 1 year, they tended to be a bit more constipated and it gave me a bit of warning. They potty trained at 2.5 and just before 3 quite easily and haven't had accidents since then and both dropped night nappies at the same time. I would have personally trained so young as I wanted them to have the communication skills to ask for toilet, gross mother skills to walk to toilet and dexterity to remove bottoms and get on to toilet but every child is different and you know yours best. I had a friend who trained her 24m old but she was a very independent child who wanted to do everything herself and was much easier for her in a hot country where she just had a dress to lift and pants to deal with!

My girls both did their poos on a potty way before we potty trained. I'd recommend popping a potty in the bathroom and asking if he wants to sit on it for a poo. We did this for about a year before full on potty training