Will DD decide on her own, or do I have to take the initiative?

[mooki]

DD is 2 and a half. She's very verbal, she can understand instructions and just about deal with her clothes herself. In recent weeks she has been telling me if she is having a wee and we have managed a couple of wees in the potty or on the toilet around bath time, for which she has received children's TV presenter style enthusiasm.

But asked if she wants to try wearing pants she says 'no, just nappies'. I asked her when she thought she might like to try pants instead of nappies and she said 'when I'm a big girl'.

So basically, I think she could be capable of cracking potty training - she understands the theory and seems physically ready - but she just doesn't seem to want to at the moment.

Am I best off just waiting for her to decide to want to do it then, or is that me copping out and I should just take an executive decision? I'm not in a massive hurry but she's going to have some childcare changes in September, so I'd like to get on with it this summer ideally.

I do wonder if the disposables just make it too easy to ignore being wet or pooey, is it worth just getting some rubbish quality nappies?!

I got so fed up waiting for DS (2.7) to 'let me know when he was ready' that I just got up one morning, hid all the nappies and told him it was pants now.
He hated it but I stood my ground and did loads of over the top praise, used a million tonnes of patience and lots of stickers to put on a piece of paper on the wall above his potty everytime he did anything on the potty.

2 weeks it took and he's now going on the toilet rather than the potty and has forgotten about the stickers aswell!

Just try it, if she's really not ready you can try again another time, I just wish I'd started soonr now!

Thanks Bratley, it's worth considering. Is your DS a compliant sort of chap on the whole, would you say? Is he good at doing what he's asked to in other situations?

I'm nervous because I'm not very patient and she's very determined. Having said that, we're trying to get her to wear a new pair of glasses at the moment and stickers/bribery have been a surprising success. Maybe once we've got the glasses wearing sorted... (she says, predictably delaying.)

He's a lazy sod! Won't do anything unless it benefits him in some way and the least effort he has to put in the better!

I've been wanting to do it for a couple of months now and I've been putting it off, wish I had just done it now, didn't realise it would go so smoothly!

You can only try it, if it doesn't work then she's not ready, if you don't try you won't know!

The one thing I did do though was make sure I didn't need to leave the house for a few days, then packed a bag with 4 changes of clothes before we made our first short trip to town!