At what age did you begin potty training?

[MrsPinecone]

Originally Posted by newatthis I was thinking of asking this question the other day b/c one of my friends is pt her dd (14 months)! Don't you think that is wayyyyyyyyyy early? I thought it was. I don't plan to try until 24 mts.

I personally think she's got one heck of a long road ahead of her.

My mom waited until I was over 2.5, and she said that I was trained in a week. Nothing to it-- big girl underwear and that was that. My brother was born a couple of months later and no regressions at all.

[MariaT]

My son is 3.5 and loves to tell me when he's going in his pull-up but will not readily sit on the potty. Rewards have not worked either.
I am simply waiting around for Thanksgiving break when I have a couple days at home with him and it's going to be big boy undies. I really believe that Pull UPs do nothing to help the situation except for delaying it.

[mum2hba]

DD1 I started potty-training at 2. After a lot of frustration she was finally trained by 2.5. We tried just about every method in the book, she was just stubborn more than anything. When we finally hit on the solution it took about a week for her to be potty-train. Our solution was she lost her clothes till she went in the potty! She hated being naked-she still does, it was a great motivator. If we had to take her clothes off because she wet herself, she had to go in the potty to get new clothes. Worked like a charm.

DD #2 I decided I was not going to do what I did with dd#1. I was waiting till she was ready. When she turned 2 she started taking her diaper off every time she peed, so it was time. A week or so later she was trained. We had a few problems with her waiting so long that she couldn't hold it any long and she peed all over the bathroom floor, but that was our biggest challenge.

I don't use pull-ups, they are just glorified diapers. We use training underwear, and do lots of laundry.

Ds, he almost 18 months, and I am just going to be patient and see how it goes. I have determined there are better things in this world to stress about.

[ecj98]

DS turned 3 in July, and although we have introduced the potty, we have not begun potty training in earnest. We plan to work on it over Thanksgiving Break since DH and I are both teachers and will be home for a week.

[GaPeach76]

My older two weren't fully trained until they were 3.5. However, like others, mine seemed to train overnight. I left them diaperless and they had no choice but to go in the potty. Now, my current 3yo has no interest in potty training yet but I'm not freaking out. Boys are much later to PT than girls are. Here is a good way of thinking of it....your kid is NOT going to be 6 and in diapers. (S)he won't go off to kindergarten in a diaper so don't worry too much about exactly when they train. They will train when they are ready and when the social cues tell them it's no longer appropriate. And my older boys have autism and still figured it out :o)

[jer]

I know I'm in the minority here, but I potty train my kids early. My oldest Daughter was day trained by 18 months and night trained by 2 years old. My oldest son was fully day and night trained by 2 1/2. My youngest son was day trained by 2 and night trained by 2 1/2. My youngest daughter (16 months old) is potty training right now. I started her at around 9 months old. I just put her on the potty during certain times of the day. I didn't make a big deal of it. I just put her on the potty and told her to go pee. After she did it for the first time, I told her "Good girl, you peed in the potty." and now she knows what it is. She wears panties during the day(with maybe one accident a day), and diapers at night. Yes, it is time-consuming for me, but it is saving money on diapers and it isn't hurting her at all. She hasn't had a poopy diaper in months and I am so happy that I don't have to deal with poop smushed all over her butt anymore.

I guess my point of view on it is that kids get used to peeing and pooping in their diapers, so that is what they do. It's what they've always done, so they don't really know any different. If you just approach it like you do everything else then they will learn to use the potty. We teach them how to use spoons and forks, drink from a cup, talk, walk, and a lot of other things way before they are 3 years old. Potty training is just something else for them to learn. If it becomes a normal part of their routine early on, it is easier to train them.

[krmore]

ds#1 wasn't fully trained until he was close too 4 but it probably would have been sooner if I had just taken away the pull-ups. With ds#2 we did a kind of modified EC with starting at about 3 months and he was fully trained by 12 months. I could not have trained ds#1 this way but ds#2 did not like having dirty pants at all and would tell us if he needed to go to the potty

[talk2ham.1]

Originally Posted by jer I guess my point of view on it is that kids get used to peeing and pooping in their diapers, so that is what they do. It's what they've always done, so they don't really know any different. If you just approach it like you do everything else then they will learn to use the potty. We teach them how to use spoons and forks, drink from a cup, talk, walk, and a lot of other things way before they are 3 years old. Potty training is just something else for them to learn. If it becomes a normal part of their routine early on, it is easier to train them.

I agree. But I don't really think it is so time consuming to train them early either considering how much time it takes to change them again and again in the day anyway. The time investment is minimal and so worth it. My son liked the experience of sitting on a potty. He was really short when we started and most potties were too big for him to sit on the right way. We got an infant potty from Baby Bjorn that was short enough for him to do it all by himself without squashing his pee pee funny and squirting it all over the floor. We started him a 17 months and he had success the first time we put him on. He has graduated to a regular toddler potty now, but climbs up on grown-up potties without much trouble too.

He was no where close to consistent in the beginning, but each success saved us money on a diaper, and he only got better from there. He is basically potty trained now, though he still has some control issues with squirting a teeny bit in his Pull-up now and then before making it to the potty. And sleep time is a problem, but my husband says that can be a problem for boys until even their teen years because of how deeply they sleep.

Here's how I look at it: it's kinda a game for him, it has been virtually stress free for me, and it saves me time and money in the long run. It's a win win. Not only that, but by the age that most folks are just starting to get serious with their kids about it and are hitting frustrating walls, I will be either completely finished with the training process or just tying up loose ends. I just don't see any negative sides to it no matter what angle I look at it. My only recommendation is waiting until they are old enough to walk to the potty themselves. That alone saves you that much effort. Just pull off their pants and tell them to sit down on the potty every so often. Don't make it a huge deal when they don't go, but don't make it a huge deal if they do either. They are just learning to use a potty like anything else they are learning at the time. The sense of achievement for the next stage of growing up can be enough for them.

[Dengineer]

My personal opinion is that if a child is ready, they can be potty-trained in 24 hours or less. If they're not ready you can always give it a shot but don't beat yourself up if it doesn't work out.

With my oldest DD who is now 8, I took the pediatricians advice and started trying to potty train her at about 23 months--he actually thought I should have tried MUCH earlier, but I didn't think DD was ready. I took her to the bathroom every 20 minutes from Labor Day until Thanksgiving (EVERY 20 MINUTES!!) and finally gave up when nearly 3 months after starting training she was still having accidents at least 90% of the time. When I tried again the following May (aged about 2 1/2) she was completely potty trained for both No. 1 and No. 2 in less than a day.

With DS I didn't even start trying until he was 3--he was a very slow kid and didn't walk until 20 months so I knew he might be late/difficult when it came to potty training. The day I first tried he went through every pair of underwear, shorts and pants in his dresser in less than 2 hours. That was a sign to me he wasn't ready. We tried again several months later (he was 3 years and 11 months) and he was potty trained for both No. 1 and No. 2 AND wiping himself in one morning.

[shannondw1]

I don't know I just don't get it, I couldn't have imagined having a 2yr old in diapers still having to wipe their butts and change them and be tied to a diaper bag up to 3. IMHO they know what they are doing and I feel for you on the every 20 min but I personally would have left him in his wet undies after a few days of it and explain that is just the way it will be if you can walk and talk you can make it to the potty. If you can throw a tantrum you can understand to make it to the potty. If they can't potty train w/in a week I would have gone to the docs and asked maybe they have a bladder infection or ?? I was too lazy to continue to change diapers and I didn't want to continue to throw money away on them. I remember when I was about 5 and my BFF next door was 4 and she was still having issues w/going potty at night but she stayed w/us for a few days while her parents were out of town and my mom put it point blank to her that she had better wake her self up if she has to pee during the night or she would get a spanking. And I tell you what she never had an accident at our house. It was 1980 and my mom had known them since the late 60's so we were all close but they let her be babied. Again my honest opinion and just in awe of a 3yr old in diapers. And like the lady said above...they feed themselves, they walk themselves.