To wait to potty train or not?

[Shoegazer]

Ok, this is an "Is my DD ready" question!
I know that that the general consensus seems to be that you should wait to potty train, which is fine with me, but I also don't want to wait if there is really no need to IYSWIM

She is 21 months, she can pull her trousers/nappies up but not down, she knows that potties and toilets are for wees and poos and can express that verbally, she is about 70% reliable on saying that she is wet or dry, clean or dirty and can say those words, she can very often go 2-3 hours with a dry nappy, she has told me on a couple of occasions in the last few days before she does a poo and this morning she said no to her nappy and asked to wear "pingu nappy" which is the knickers I bought her because they were on sale ages ago.

So am I being a pushy mummy or are my instincts probably right?

My plan (if she could be ready) is to try her after our holidays so she will be 23 months then so would the best thing to do be to try her for a week before giving up if she is really not into it?

speaking as someone who has not yet succeeded with potty training I would say that it sounds like it is worth a try. A week if she is not into it will be a very long time and I would give up after 2 days if there is no progress at all (but this is maybe why I am not there yet with my over 3 year old). My feeling is that there should maybe be a pre potty training phase where dc demonstrates that they can do wees on the potty but is still in nappies. But I expect lots of people would say you must go straight to pants so that they learn about being wet. Anyway the important thing is not to get stressed out about it.

I think you should go for it. Most importantly keep it FUN. Your plan of trying it for a week is good, it worked well for my DD2 at 2yrs old (started just after her birthday - showed some but not all the signs of your DD's readiness, and it was really easy). The first day I had to put her on potty every hour or so. The second day she started saying when she needed to go, and from the third day she was trained. We went straight into panties on day 1. I think the key is that the child WANTS to do it, no tears.

If it doesn't work in a week, wait 2 months and try again.

Thanks for your answers they are really helpful, I had it in mind that I would try potty training sometime after her being 2, but then all these little things started happening and I thought hang on maybe she is ready before me!

If you've got a few weeks before you're going to try I would suggest that you get a couple of pottys and have them around. We did this with our ds from just after 18 months. One in the living room and one in the bathroom. Every night after tea we had some nappy off time which I think helped him to recognise the sensation of when he was weeing, etc. We also encouraged him to sit on the potty, but didn't attempt to potty train until he had asked a few times randomly to do a wee on the potty, and so I was sure that he could identify the sensation before he went iyswim.

Have just about cracked it now at 2.4 months, after spending the bank holiday weekend, from Thursday afternoon to Sunday morning, not really going anywhere and staying very near the potty with pants off (him not us!!!). Once he'd got the idea, tried for a while with trousers as well, then ventured out Sunday morning to Church for 2 hours. Took potty with me and had no accidents. No accidents for the rest of the day, and only one yesterday. Today we went to the park for 2 hours and no probs, and no accidents for rest of day either, and I can't beleive how long he's going between wee's. If you can cope with a few days not going anywhere, I'm sure you'll be fine, but would echo others who've said if she's not asking independantly within a couple of days, try again in a couple of months. hth.

I think you should give it a go too, your dd sounds very ready. I potty trained my ds at 22 months and it was fine, he was dry day and night within a week (the night thing I was not expecting but was an added bonus).

I think cubby's idea is a good one if you don't want to go for it right now, we did this with ds because we had the potty around anyway for dd. But you could just do it and see what happens. Agree with misstickles that you need to allow a week before you decide to give up if you think it's not working out.

Good luck!

Thanks for the further very helpful replies. She has had 2 potties around the house since her 1st birthday (presents from a friend - no pressure or anything lol!!!) and she has always played with them and I have explained what they are for but not done anything much else. I like the idea of regular nappy off time after tea as I can do that on holiday too, so will try that leading up to giving it a proper crack when we get back.

I'm only going for daytime at the moment, I don't think we will crack night time for a while as she always has a huge wet nappy in the morning, although she wakes herself up so maybe she just does a massive wee then? Anyway, I won't worry about that just yet!
Thanks again