Potty Training Age

I would say start with the key times to sit on the potty and then work up. :) Anything would be a good start right now. For girls this is the age a lot of people start.

My son was similiar at that age. He would be dry for hours and then soaking wet and would hid to poop. I didn't force it because he wasn't talking but looking back I think he was ready. He has PDD(on autism spectrum) and has a lot of delays speech, gross and fine motor skills, along with sensory and texture issues. Now he's 4 and still not potty trained. I really wish I had started and enforced the potty training back then.
your daughter seems ready. If you have a small potty chair let her sit on it when you go into the bathroom. My mom used to put us on the potty when we got up in the morning, after we ate and before and after nap time. I don't remember if she put us on intervals while we were up and playing(there's a 12 year difference between me and the next child and my parents took in foster kids so I saw here potty train lots of kids). Good luck and I would start training it can't hurt.

Talk to your pedi about it. At my sons 2 yr check up they gave me a handout about toilet training. However if something new is going on in the home they suggest holding off. Like a new baby or an illness or something tragic happening in the home. Other wise you should start at 2 years of age. But if your daughter seems ready give it a try. My son loves coming into the bathroom with me and even sometimes will announce that he has pooped or peed. He also had many dry diapers for like 2-3 hrs at a time. I got out the potty chair for him & started talking about him using it but he was not yet interested. Also since we have a 2 month old in the home who also just had to have surgery for something he was born with & I had to stay 3 nights in the hospital with him & was away from my 2 yr old we decided to hold off the potty training for a few more months.
I have also heard you should not even try potty training until 2 1/2 which I disagree with (I think you should start at 2) unless again something new is going on in the home like a new baby. I say 22 months is a good age to at least try it out.
If it does not work then don't get upset with her, stop and try again later. Also FYI holding pee could mean UTI so I would mention that sooner than later to your pedi! UTI's can be dangerous for little ones.

Hi K.,

I don't know what the standard age is, but at our house we have been sitting our daughter on the Baby Bjorn since she could sit up and within a couple of months or so she was regularly peeing or pooping whenever we put her on (if she had to). And at this point (14 months), she usually holds it until she gets put on the toilet.

She's obviously too young to know to get herself to the toilet when she has to go, but we take her there regularly and she only needs 2-3 diapers a day. We're pretty good at reading her (inadvertent) signs and she's just now learning to communicate with us intentionally. There's a whole community out there for people who do this, which we don't belong to, my husband is just from a culture that gets kids trained early.

Anyway, what I mean by this is that I think you can try getting her used to it any time, and she will eventually learn her own cues that will get her to remember to get herself to the potty when she needs to. I figure when we're down to 1-2 diapers a day, I will put her in underwear.

I don't know if your daughter is home with you or with a day care provider. It's really only realistic if she has someone to take her a few times a day to the potty.

I say go for it the worst thing that will happen is that you will find out that she isn't ready yet. Keep her on a regular potty schedule and if she's ready she will pick it up in no time at all. Good luck.

boys pt later than girls, so yes it sounds like she's ready.. just put the potty in the bathroom and sit her down.. read some books or play a game while she's there.. keep doing that every half hour until she does it.. get really excited and dance around, give her an incentive if you like and chart it. stay positive and if she's really ready, it'll happen pretty quick! Let her pick out new undies and try letting her wear them.. sometimes if they pee in their new undies, it motivates them to get it right the next time.. good luck!

One of our goals when we became pregnant with #2 was to get our daughter potty trained before the new baby was born. She is just now 2 years old and the baby will be born in just a few weeks. We went to a potty training class designed to get children potty trained by 2. Well, so far, it's worked out great and it's only been a couple months. She goes potty almost all the time (maybe a couple accidents a week). She's only in diapers at night now and when we go out for long periods. I am proud to say though that she peed on a public potty for the first time just yesterday.
Anyway...you already have an advantage here because your daughter is in cloth diapers. It's been shown that generally cloth diapered children potty train much easier than disposable diapered children. My suggestion is this: take potty training for a test drive. Put her on the potty, even if you don't think she has to go. Just get her used to the idea of sitting there. Also if you can, let her run around without a diaper. Then she will have a better sense of when she's going. You can get cotton training pants that will soak up a little but probably not a whole pee. I should also mention that the class we took was a baby signs class and we got a potty training kit that had a children's book, a book for parents, a dvd, a train whistle (the theme is "getting on the potty train") and stickers. If you can get your hands on that, I think it's a wise investment. It also teaches you that a child can be taught without showing the clear signs of being "ready".I know you've been through potty training before but each child is different and if you think she's on the verge of potty training, go for it. Since you're a cloth diapering mama like me, I'd imagine you'd stay away from disposable training pants too. There's really no benefit from them anyway because they act just like a regular disposable diaper except you can pull them up and down easier. The cotton training pants we found at target and they're much cheaper than cloth training pants you'd get from a cloth diapering store although they're not waterproof at all. And don't worry about her not being fully verbal yet either. You can teach her signs to let you know when she has to go.
Just think how great it will be when you don't have to change and wash anymore diapers! Good luck to you.