When did you know to potty train your child?

My kid will be a year and a half in May. If he poops and I ask him if he did then he’ll said yeah and pull at his diaper. He takes his diapers off hisself and also throws them away hisself after I change him. He knows how to flush the toilet and when he’s running around without one on and pees outside of something then he laughs about it. He’s my first and so I’m learning the best I can but I also don’t want to start him too late.

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I feel like now is the perfect time to start potty training. I was always taught that when they can tell you they need to use the bathroom then it's time to try and potty train

@Katelyn Eve I’m probably gonna start then! I know sometimes if I take his diaper off and tell him to the go to the potty then he runs into the bathroom.

@Shanwinslet thank you soo much!

@Shanwinslet can I please have the PDF?

We potty trained my son at 21-22 months old because we were getting the types of ready signs. I would suggest the three day potty training method, it worked great with some small modifications for us. Is your son in daycare? I know it sounds odd, but I would check in with them to see what they consider ready signs and if they can support your son through his potty learning after he has done it with you. Oddly enough my son’s daycare was not appropriately equipped to give him all the tools of success he needed (regular bathroom breaks, wore underwear at home but had to wear diaper at daycare, and only because he was potty trained so young, his age groups class was in a carpeted room far away from the bathrooms). We ended up having to move him because they weren’t supporting him enough. But they did have a list of ready signs that helped me to move forward with potty training.

We purchased a small potty and placed it in the living room about a week ahead of the potty training date. We got him excited about it and he would sit on it with his pants on and say pee pee by the time we went into day one. My son loved Elmo at the time so I google searched “Elmo Potty Training Calendar” (you should be able to substitute any character name). We found a big Elmo sticker calendar that came with a potty training coloring book and a few stickers (we needed additional stickers). My son is not gifted many toys or candy in normal routine so he loved the toys for poops and candy for pee pee on the potty that was recommended in the three day potty training. The sticker calendar was also a huge hit at that age, I would try to guide him to the correct area of the calendar to place the sticker but when he placed it somewhere else, that was fine too. I was given a requirement that my son needed to be able to prompt before having to use the potty from his daycare at….

That time. We ended up with the below: day one, little potty was in living room Day two, little potty moved next to big potty Day three, bathroom door was closed so a prompt would be required

@Shanwinslet can you send me the pdf as well please!!

My son is 4 and a half and still refuses to poop in the potty! Soooo frustrating!! We've tried rewards, took him to a GI doc, took him to a PT... he's just a stubborn jerk