Starting potty training - 16 mo 'holding it in'!

[cuppachar]

I keep rewording this as it's so weird writing about poos . Oh well, here goes!

Since the age of 15 months, DD has been saying 'poo-poo' before doing one, so we thought it made sense to buy a potty, whip her clothes off quick as soon as she tells us, and sit her on the potty. Tried it for the first time this morning and she enjoyed sitting on the potty, but all urge to actually do anything had gone!

She eventually said 'poo-poo' an hour later and then did one in her nappy - I didn't have the heart to sit her on the potty in case she just held it in for another hour! She's also done a further 2 poos today (usually only does one a day), so I'm not sure if that's related to holding it in. Is this common, and what's it best to do?

I should add we're in no hurry to start potty-training, just thought we might as well give it a go if she's communicating when she needs to go... thank you!

Dont worry, Id leave it and maybe sit her on the potty before her bath, just to get her used to the idea. 16mths is v.early so if shes not responding id leave it a while. Ds2 is 18mths and i will def be leaving it til the summer at the very earliest/

I'd try leaving her with her nappy off if she says this. She might sit on the potty, she might not. She might poo on the floor, she might not. I'd follow her lead and not ignore this - we started a sound association for DS about the same sort of age as your dd is, and he's now (22m) reliably clean and nearly reliably dry in the day, and has been since Christmas. And pleased with himself about it too.

thanks for the replies... I was already thinking of sitting her on the potty before her bath each night as she always tends to do a wee at around that time - usually standing up in the bath

littlefrog - our whole house is carpeted except for the kitchen so it could be messy leaving her nappy off if she then decides to wait an hour again, but I guess I have to take the plunge at some point... Is that what you did with your DS? How long did it take before he started using the potty, even just on the odd occasion?

I can't remember how long it was - he'd had a period of sitting on the potty and not doing anything, and then suddenly he just did a wee on it one day, and didn't look back. He'd peed on the floor quite a bit before that, but he knew what he was doing, if you see what I mean. Only one poo on the floor, and that was my fault (I knew he wanted to go, but was doing other stuff, left the room (only carpeted one...) and literally seconds later there were these desperate cries of poo, poo... Amazingly no mark/smell left on cream carpet though...
Personally I think it's 'respectful' to try and follow their lead if they're telling you this sort of thing - after all, you want them to learn to understand, not to ignore, these urges!

Start off by talking about what the potty is for. At 16 mo she's probably not saying a great deal, but she does understand a great deal. Next step would be flushing poo down the loo and letting her flush/watch. You can put it into the potty first if you've the spare time to clean potties (I thought not). When she says "poo poo" next time, you can say "do you want to poo poo on your potty?" and if she says no, you can say a doll or a teddy needs to poo too and will she help doll/teddy poo poo on the potty. Brown playdough would be handy here if you're into theatrics. You can also get her to sit on her potty while you sit on the toilet. If she acquiesces to the potty for one poo, she'll probably almost never go back to the nappy. You'd be surprised (well not really, if you think about it ) how quickly they grasp never pooing their pants again at this age (and often younger).