Preparing for potty training and need plenty of help please

[Taler]

DD is 20 months and whilst I know she's not properly ready, I personally want to be :)

So, can you let me know the following please:

1. What are the signs to look for to indicate they are ready to start potty training and should you wait for most/all of them?

1. Is the "norm" to do both day and night together? I believe more people are doing this now?? But wonder what advantages are?

1. A concern I have is we have large open plan living area with wooden floors (cellar beneath) and between each floor board underneath are strips of foil (insulation). Therefore if DD wees on that floor it'll go into the foil which we simply can't allow to happen. I have a garden but can't be out there all the live-long day! So would it be confusing to have her be naked bottom half when in garden and put her in pull-ups when indoors? I'm thinking yes but just don't know what else we can do??

1. How will I know whether to go for the potty or straight to the toilet when we begin? Using the toilet seems better in lots of ways but DD may not like it.

TIA

Yes, your DD is a bit young but girls tend to be faster than boys in the potty training dept. I guess every child is different when it comes to readiness, but for my DS it was:

Relatively predictable bowel movements
Able to communicate and understand properly
Is able to tell you when a wee or poo has been done
Shows an interest in the potty (we got a frog one!)

I definitely wouldn't do day and night together. My DS is 3.5 yrs old and is still waking up with wee in his nappy. Get the day sorted and the night will follow when she is good and ready.

We have wooden floors too although no foil insulation. Could you not put some washable mats or rugs or even old sheets down in strategic positions? I personally wouldn't advise using pull-ups indoors. Better to have her naked from the waist down, or with pants on. It's about removing the 'safety net' of a nappy or pants. In a weird way, you want her to experience wet pants so that she knows it is not a nice thing to do. I didn't use pull-ups at all with my DS.

With regard to potty or toilet, start leaving a potty lying around so that she can explore it and get used to it. You want her to be curious. You could also try a toilet training seat (we've got the Baby Bjorn one although we've never used it as DS either goes on the potty to poo or wees straight in the toilet!). It's a case of trial and error really to see what she's comfortable with. Also useful to invite any friends with potty trained kids around to play so that she can see them in action.

We're on day 7 of training our 3yo DS1 (no accidents since day 3 - woohoo!) but we had a really long lead-in. It's been a whole year since we first bought a potty and we spent a lot of time explaining it and talking about wee and poo and letting him watch us and talking about when he will wear big boy pants. We've only just gone for it properly because i got pregnant and wanted DS2 to get beyond newborn stage before we tackled potty training DS1, but i think the delay has paid off because he's well aware what he's meant to do, and is definitely ready for it. We're only going for daytime at the moment, and we've gone straight into pants - no pull-ups.

The only other bit of advice i'd give is to make sure you personally are well-prepared e.g. You've got all your cleaning stuff ready, plenty of changes of clothes for DD, worked out your reward system if any, thought about what to do when you're out and about (we've got incontinence bed pads for the car seat and a potette travel potty). That way, if you're prepared, it will take some of the stress out of it for you, and you can just decide to go for it when you think she might be ready. Good luck!

DS was 2 1/2 when we started and took well over a year to potty train, so with Dd I was determined to wait much longer and wasn't planning to do it until she was 3. However, she was very keen, we didn't need to change her nappy very often and she was quite good at telling us. Most importantly, she was capable of getting her leggings up and down herself, and sitting still for a couple of minutes. We ended up doing it when she was about 30 months and we had 3 days of accidents, then they were rare.

Try and be outside as much as possible on those first few days and use 'special cushions' (a pile of towels!) inside. Personally, 20 months seems very early, but all kids are different and I do know of kids who were potty trained at this age. If you don't see any improvement after a week, consider trying another time.

Dd was dry through the night at the same time, but Ds took much longer and always wore pull-ups during naps - again it depends on the child.

Leggings have soaked up the odd accident here so you could try dressing her in those? They have to be quite loose though, my 27mo DD can't manage tight ones.

Terry lined trainer pants stop the worst of the accidents getting onto the floor or cushions.

Similar issue as we have wooden floors and DH goes crazy if anything gets spilt never mind wee. We have those terry lined pants but DS doesn't seem to care if they are wet. He's 2y10m and i'm still not sure he's ready but that's another issue.