XP: Need advice on "early" PTing

true_norskie

You'd think I should know this, already having PT'ed one child, but my girls are SO different personality-wise.

DD1 didn't PT until she was 3.5.  We tried/encouraged, etc but she just wasn't having it until then.  She went from not potty trained on a Friday to fully trained (except at night--happened a couple months later) the following Tuesday. 

DD2, on the other hand, is all about potty training.  We have the potty chair in our main level half bath and she often goes in there with her big sister (who asks her if she also wants to go potty at the same time she is--the "girls going together" has started already ).

She'll sit on the potty ring on the big toilet before bath (doesn't go, just sits and throws toilet paper in) and just last night repeatedly (about 3-4 times) undressed her baby, took off her diaper and had her sit on the potty chair to "boe pottee."  She also got mad the other night when my mom was over babysitting that she couldn't also wear underwear like her big sister.

So obviously we need to jump on this window and help her out...I'm not out to go hardcore and push her, necessarily, but I also want to really encourage her since she's obviously excited.  I don't think she's making the connection with what she needs to do on the potty chair/toilet, but maybe I'm not giving her enough credit.

For anyone whose child PT'ed on the earlier side, what did you do?  (I'm pretty sure we just need to be diligent about getting her to the potty regularly whether she goes or not, but like I said, I don't know that we're ready to go hardcore yet...or should we?)

*LrCg*

I'm not sure what's considered early.  At 14 months my DS was telling us before he would poop but I was pregnant at the time and was nervous about PT right before a baby.  So we ended up buying a potty seat at about 15months and just had it sitting in the bathroom- never really put him on it- maybe a few times just so he could get comfortable.  Anways after DD was born we decided to PT him- he was 17 months.  We let him be naked the first day and took him to the potty every 30 minutes or so.  The next day we did underwear and watched for signs or took him to the potty every hour.  We would do underwear checks and praise him for having dry underwear.  By day 3 we had no accidents but we were taking him every 1 1/2-2 hours and by day 5 he was telling us.  At first we didnt' night train him because all the books say that was too young so we waited for about 1 month and then decided to night train- the first 2 weeks we'd wake him up either before we went to bed or when we woke up in the morning so he could pee and wake up dry.  After that we stopped doing that and he still wakes up dry. 

To me, 1 1/2 years old is a perfect time to do it- they really want to please you and they have no defiance yet.  I've seen a lot of my friends attempt with a 2 1/2 year old and the defiance has set in and now they're stuck waiting until their 3- 3 1/2.  Best of luck!

mamafoxX2

I wanted to potty train early, but you have to do it when your DC is ready.  I let DD take the lead. So if your DD is showing signs of wanting to use the potty, I would embrace them and encourage but not get too excited. I only wish DD1 would have decided sooner, but hopefully we'll be full fledged PT before her sister arrives!