Pondering trying to potty train DS 20m

[Cuppaqueen]

Hi, just wondered if anyone has had success with early potty training pre-2 years old.

My 20mo DS is very verbal, and he can tell us when he poos, understands the potty is for pee and poo, points to where it comes from etc. We've had a potty around for a few weeks and he likes to sit on it before his bath although nothing happened yet.

I'm thinking he might be able to get the idea of potty training but he'd struggle with physically removing clothes. Does that matter, as in, can I teach him to tell me when he needs to go and then I help him? Or should I wait until he can pull his own shorts down?

DS did it at just over 2. My advice would be to wait until he is 2 as the weather will be warming up. That should make it easier for him to control his bladder and he’ll probably be wearing less layers

We started potty training DS at 21 months. He was very much the same as your little one, very good communication, vocabulary and understanding of what the potty was for. But has only recently begun pulling his own bottoms up and down, he is 26 months now.

We spent 3 days naked, using nappies for nap/sleeptime but then introduced pants on day 4 and had him wear those to bed for nap and sleep instead of a nappy. We introduced trousers on day 6.

We had a slight regressions when introducing pants and trousers which is to be expected but nothing major and stuck to it. We tackled day and night training together as we didn't want DS holding himself until sleep times or falling into the habit of thinking toileting whilst in bed was okay.

Honestly he was trained in a couple of weeks, still the odd accident once a week maybe. He has been trained for 5 months now and although we have the very occasional accident he is golden. He's only ever had 5 nighttime accidents. Obviously at first we would have to help him take his bottoms down but that's not really an issue if they're telling you when they need to go.

If you think he's ready, go for it. I think it's difficult because you doubt yourself but if he seems to be making small progress commit to it.

Good luck

Yes, if you have time, start training as you have the cues. Neither of mine could pull down trousers at that age either so help is needed. However, it is was so nice to think that I wasn't filling landfill. You don't expect a child to be fully able to eat efficiently with a knife and fork when they start solids, so why expect them to be able to remove clothes before the toilet. Mine both trained early and were dry day and night before 2.5. I know nowadays it's something people like to leave until later, but I am against the grain in this one

We potty trained ds aged 20 months using the same method as Needa. We also potty trained twins at 23 months. All had been in cloth and I think that motivated us and helped the children feel wet. All three were dry overnight by 2.5/3 - they had cloth nappies at night until then. None have regressed in any way.

Thanks all for the encouragement and advice! We started today with DS naked from the waist down (we live abroad so luckily it's warm @JiltedJohnsJulie ). We managed to get him to do three pees in the potty but he's stalling over poo. We had some playtime in the garden and somehow he managed to do a poo on the lawn while we weren't looking for a second! Despite proper poo dance before bath/bed and sitting on potty for minutes, we couldn't help him go in the potty later. Tomorrow will be interesting!

How quickly did your little ones figure out pooing in the potty? And any tips?