20 month old DD, interested in potty, understands pee and poo -- is it a good time to, erm,broach the possibility of potties with her?

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Hi all
just needing a bit of advice, my dd1 is 20 months and is v interested in her potty. and understands when she is doing pee and poo.
I am 7wks pg with no2. I don't want to force the issue with her, yes it would be fab if she was trained by the time the next one arrived, but I am not overly worried about it.

Any ideas if she is showing interest or just a passing fad. DH is a SAHD and I not convinced he has the patience to try

thanks

Bumping for you.

If she is happy to sit on it, you could do a gentle routine of potty after meals and snacks, on getting up, after naps, before bath and bed, with her wearing nappies in between. If she resists she's not ready, if she does nothing in it the majority of the time she's not ready. But you may get something in the pot some of the time which you praise her for, saying nothing for an empty one. Think of it as 'potty practice'. If she soils her nappy, it doesn't matter, thus removing the stress of mess on the floor etc.

If she tells you she needs to go before she does it, and then does it in the potty, you can try without pants or nappies, so she can put herself on the pot, often quicker than asking someone to help her with clothes etc. and she will understand that there is nothing there to catch the wee and poo.

The main thing is, to be totally chilled about it. Accept that there will be lots of accidents, and don't stress. Anxiety is the enemy of good potty training! Be glad that dd is willing to try, at least you can keep going with potty practice as long as you like, until either you or she decides the time is right for a more intensive training. It would be a shame not to offer the opportunity as she is interested.

why not? my ds (20mths) has been offered the potty since he was quite small and has been reliably clean for a long time now except for rare occasions and even these usually when he is unwell. We started just popping him on at every nappy change, even just for a few secs and straight off if there was any resistance (rare). And any additional time if we could tell he was pooing.

A couple of months ago i introduced a sign for potty which he picked up straight away. depending on your dd´s language this may not be necessary. He regularly signs to use it and we put him on, often if it is a wee he´s done it by the time we get him on but it´s not an issue, we just tell him well done for telling us and back to whatever we were doing.

If he is nappy free he can hold it quite a while (1hour or more) whereas if he has a nappy on after an hour it would already be quite wet with (what i assume are) more frequent little wees. So he has some control but not enough to then make sure I get him (or get himself) to the potty when he DOES have to go (i.e. if I miss his sign, or he is distracted).

Girlywhirly has given great advice, i´m just adding my experience for you to see how it can work. Can only second the importance of it being stress free. Ds still wears nappies most of the time and always when out of the house but he is more aware all the time. Good luck!

Just follow her cues, encourage her to use it and keep her in nappies. Gentle potty training is stress-free for all and not confusing if you always acknowledge your child's requests to use the potty. She can understand things like "we're not near the potty you'll have to hold it or wee in your nappy."

I thought dd (22 months) was showing all the signs of being ready to use one, but how wrong I was, I produced one and she got so upset, that now when I go to change her nappy , she cries and nearly wont let me take it off her, shouting no potty,my nappy on. Best of luck to you, think my dd is just to lazy and I think I have put her back at least 6 months

We recently trained dd at 25months. She had 3 days of peeing all over the place then she cracked it!

She was showing similar signs - telling me when she was doing a wee and poo and occasionally pooing on the potty.

We pretty much stayed at home for a week and kept her in pants. My mum (who's a nursery nurse) said that they have to actually try it to understand it. I was hoping to wait until she was actually telling me before she was ready to go not while she was doing it[lazy]

I would give it a try although if you can do it with both of you at home for the first couple of days it might help. I would have given up (on days 1,2 and 3) if DH hadn't been off work to help. (I was a bit emotional as also pg!)

Good luck!

go for it both my dds were out of nappies at 21 months - they both showed the same interest as your dc , and it only took a week or so to crack it

mine have all be out of nappies around the 2 year mark - dd now 23 months and fully day trained. IF they show signs of being ready (and your dd sounds similar to mine) then it's worth a go. It may mean a few days of staying at home with accidents but dd picked up the idea within 3 days. Now she gets cross with me when I ask her if she needs a wee. She can hold for a good 2 hours but when she was in nappies, like pp, would wee small amounts frequently.

I have always wanted to potty train before dc is old enough to argue back, or require bribes etc. Either young, or wait till they're around 3, then they can do it themselves consciously. I would do anything rather than wash nappies for another year!