Is she ready or not?

[alittleconfused1]

I have a 2.5yo daughter who is reasonably bright and I keep being told she should be able to be potty trained by now. I am a true believer in not rushing her until she is ready, and I am getting really conflicting messages from her so not sure whether to push on or not and would welcome peoples thoughts.

in the last week she has started to wee a lot less frequently, and go longer with dry nappies. She also asks to sit on the loo a lot, I think she hears ‘do you need a wee wee’ a lot at nursery because she says she does a lot so she can sit on the loo and I can sit there reading her books (!) but nothing ever comes out.

6 months ago I sat her on the potty after breakfast and she occasionally did a poo but she got a bit funny about it so I stopped.

Now if she is pooing she tells me she isn’t and is ‘still playing’ (I haven’t asked she just volunteers that!) and you can see she is pooing, if I ask if she has done a poo she says no, and will happily sit in a pooey nappy for hours if it means she doesn’t have to stop what she is doing.

I’ve tried just sitting her on the potty with books etc but she keeps wandering off! We have four potty training books which she loves reading, and occasionally I talk about her big girl pants and she says she doesn’t want them she likes her (nappy) pants!! And yet she often takes her nappy off if it’s very soggy.. and asks to sit on the loo a lot, like I mentioned earlier.

i would love to potty train her but don’t know whether to force it or not, and also whether to go down a star chart type approach or whether to just do it as something we do. Half term seems a good time to try if we are going to try.

would welcome any thoughts or advice!

Thanks so much!

She sounds a lot like my DDs just before we potty trained. I would have a go over half term, start preparing her now, talk about it and go with her to choose some big girl pants. She could be out of nappies very quickly, both mine only took a few days. If she is very resistant and it all goes wrong you can always stop and try again in a month or two.

You might find this useful https://eric.org.uk/potty-training/

I would say go for it but don’t expect it to all be done in a few days, think of it as more of a process as shes been used to just doing the toilet in her clothes her entire life up until now and that’s a big habit to change.
Sometimes as they get older it can get harder as they are perfectly happy just using a nappy and can’t see why they should have to stop playing and can get a bit resistant so if you can just make going to the potty part of your day even if she doesn’t do anything it normalises it a bit.

Thank you both!!