17 mo telling me when she is pooing - is it too early for gradual potty training?

[MiniMousse]

For several months now my dd (now 17 mo) has been telling me each time she has done a poo - now she is even telling me before she has done it. She then gets her changing mat, a nappy and wipes, and brings them over, puts them on the floor at my feet and lies down waiting for me to change her!
From what I have read it seems 17 mo is way too young to potty train, but I am just wondering how to handle this - she seems so eager and keen to tell me when she is doing/has done a poo, and to proactively prompt me to change her nappy, does this mean she is telling me its time to introduce a potty?
She poos at least 3-4 times a day, normally after meals. The potty is in the bathroom amd she does sit on it when running around naked at bathtime, but never produces anything as by then she has already done her post-supper poo! The poo normally happens just as she is finishing eating which is why I haven't introduced the potty earlier on in proceedings - don't want to interrupt her finishing her meal.
Anyone got any advice?
(ps she doesn't seem to be aware/able to predict when she wees yet)

Just carry on as you are. DD used a potty for poos from 17 months, just left the potty available to her and she did it on her own. Wees took longer!

What SoH said!!

It is worth noting that around the war babies were potty trained as young as 12 13 months so it is do-able!

Also i think there is a vague order that they get the awareness but i can't remember it off the top of my head!

Good luck!

I'd be inclined to have a potty to hand when dd is eating her meals, so that when she indicates she needs it, you can pop her on it quickly. Then she can go back to her meal afterwards. You can have a wet cloth for washing her hands after using the potty, before she starts eating again. She can have a nappy on the rest of the time.

I think that if you ignore this opportunity, she may well decide that you don't want her to use her potty, you want her to use her nappy which will cause all sorts of problems later. You can keep her in nappies until she is having long periods of dryness, or until she tells you she needs to wee! I suspect she will start to tell you. The thing is, you must not be upset or cross if she sometimes doesn't tell you in time, you won't have lost anything because either it goes in the potty or the nappy, and she is still learning. Sometimes a 'no pressure' approach works well, you are unlikely to encounter as much resistance.

Well today we have had our first success - a poo in the potty! (ok, some of it ended up on the floor, but I am still viewing it as a success)
She did a poo in her nappy first thing - told me about it, then did another poo after breakfast, again, told me about it and went to get changing mat/wipes etc. So after lunch we went up to the bathroom straight away, took her nappy and bottoms off, she sat on potty, I sat on the loo, she stood up, sat down, stood up, sat down, said 'poo' a lot, then started doing a poo when standing up - I immediately said 'whooo well done you are doing a poo! lets sit on the potty!' whilst looking very excited and pleased and encouraging etc, and she sat down and did it! I feel like a very proud mummy!

Well done minimouse! And well done to your little smart girl.
Im starting to think that the 'wait till nearly 3 years for potty training' is a bit of a conspiracy theory from mega nappy companies. My mum kept asking since my ds was 1 (now 2.4) if we started potty training yet and I kept saying too early as everyone here says to wait till later. Now Im sometimes looking after a 13 month old friend's baby and she produces a poo or at least a wee after meals on a potty! She still wears nappies but it introduces the purpose of a potty and is just part of her life to sit on it. My ds was refusing just the idea of sitting on a potty and the first time our potty was used for its purpose was when a year younger baby made a poo in it!
Keep going I say!

I'm at a similiar stage with my DD2 who is now 21 months. She got very interested in copying her older siblings and started taking off her nappy and sitting on the potty a few weeks ago. She's in washable nappies so I think she can also feel when she's wet.

I'm quite laid back about it all - partly because I don't feel ready for full on potty training yet. But on several occasions she has taken her nappy off and done a poo on the potty before I'd noticed what she was up to!

I have bought pants for her, and if she wants to wear them I let her, and we've had a few accidents and a few successes. I'm not doing away with nasppies yet but I'm hoping that if I let her take the lead, she will opt for pants more often.

Btw, my dd1 was dry by 24 months using a similiar approach so I know it's possible.

Well done, Minimousse and dd! Obviously she links the sensations she feels to what comes next, and is happy to sit on the potty to do it (half the battle it would seem) so it could now become an after meals routine. As zuzkah says, it becomes part of the daily activities, like having a bath or eating. I also agree that children are conditioned to use nappies because they are not offered anything else, then they see no reason why they should give them up and sit on a hard cold plastic thing instead! Hence all the threads about almost 4 yos still in nappies and refusing to use pots or loos.

Thanks v much for all yor replies!Yes zuzkah I agree that a lot of the delay in western toddlers getitng potty trained is about pampers / huggies need to maintain and extend their marketing opportunities.
I keep thinking about my mum's generation who regulalry talk about how me and my peers (born in early 70s) were dry by 2 - this was in the days of terry nappies and visiting the launderette or possibly owning a twin tub if you were v lucky, so I can see why they persevered! My grandmother's generation talk about toilet training babies even earlier, I have heard the term 'holding them out' which I think describes holding v small babies (pre 6 mo old) on the potty to try and get them to wee - apparently they used to blow in the babies face to get them to wee.
I also keep thinking about developing countries where babies don't routinely wear nappies - mothers there seem to have techniques to get their babies to poo/pee on command. And if you look at what babies ARE able to learn early on - how to put the right shapes in the shape sorter, how to feed self with fork/spoon, it is clear they are capable of learning a LOT, so why do we automatically assume they AREN'T capable of learing when they need a poo and signalling to their mum? I think we're probably led by nappy companies to underestimate our little ones - prob cos it means more cash in pampers' pockets eh?!?

I think it's down to the child. DS1 wasn't interested till 2 1/2, whereas DS2 was often dry in his nappy at 18 months and I finally bit the bullet and gave him pants at 23 months - I can count the number of accidents so far (at 25 1/2 months) on one hand.

I took it really slowly with him though, just taking his nappy off when we were in the house and letting him run around bottomless with access to the potty. The only time I put his nappy on was when we were out or mealtimes and it has certainly paid dividends.

I didn't really train him though - he did it himself!

Well done for letting her have a go! My son would only poo on the toilet at home from 15 months. The too early thing is nonsense. You have to keep them in nappies and do it slowly, letting them tell you when they need to go, or offering the potty, rather than straight to knickers. It takes a while took my son 6 months to get out of nappies but well worth it.