Toilet training

[snuffle]

C is now 20 mths and I am keen to get on with toilet training. all the advice seems to be about not putting pressure on her and following her pace. They all seem to advise starting between 18-24mths. Anybody got any first hand tips. I went for it today and spent the day clearing up accidents. Am I starting too early?
Nicki

[Amy]

Hi Nicki

I'm no expert at this, as I only started potty training my daughter last week. She's 30 months old. When I say potty training, I mean last week we took her nappies off and she's now learning that when she needs to go she has to use her potty every time (she's only wearing a nappy at night). Prior to this she was using her potty quite a lot - she'd sit on it after most nappy changes and often do a wee in it. I suspect she was ready for her nappies to be taken off at least a couple of months ago, but I've got a 5 month old son too so needed an extra pair of hands to help - hence the reason we started on Good Friday!

I don't know who says start between 18 and 24 months. I have a lot of friends with children of a similar age to my daughter and not many of them are potty trained. Friends who did potty train their children at an earlier age than I've started seem to be those who work full time and therefore the nursery that their child attends seems to have done a lot of the hard work for them!

I'd say that you need to let her lead you. Don't push things with her, let her get comfortable with her potty and happy to use it. When she's good with that and you've got the time to devote to it then go for it. I really wish I could have started earlier - doing 2 children's nappies every day is pretty horrible not to mention time consuming, but I'm hoping we'll make quick progress now that I've waited until I feel that she is ready. She's still having some accidents, but we've only been going 5 days, and I certainly don't feel as though I'm spending all day cleaning up after her....

Good luck with it.
Amy

[sarahk]

We've just introduced the idea at 19 months, at waking up time and bedtime to start with - early days really but she seems keen! We only have the one child, and she's at nursery part-time so we'll see how it goes....