Ready, set, potty! Learn how to get your child out of diapers early with this easy potty training routine that’s worked for both of my children.
*Post updated March 2016
Before you get started, be sure to read these posts:
- Potty Training Tools for Success
- Preparing Your Toddler for Potty Training
- Training Pants Best Fit Guide
So you’ve talked up the concepts of toileting, elimination, and boosted your child’s excitement about using the potty. You’ve got your potty training arsenal stocked, and you’re set to begin early potty training. Now what?
The BIG day has finally arrived! Here’s how we successfully potty trained early at eighteen months.
Choose a week when you’ve got the most time available to dedicate to your little diaper graduate. Extended holidays and holiday weekends are great times to teach the potty basics. You’ll want to have your eyes on your child nearly every waking minute, so be sure to plan wisely.
It’s helpful if you’ve got a tag teammate with you to keep you optimistic, motivated, and to help out when frustration sets in too. If your spouse or a friend isn’t available to help, don’t despair. Millions of single parents have children none of whom went to kindergarten in diapers.
Begin at a time when your child is most attentive and approachable; morning is helpful, but not written in stone.
Set up the potty or potty seat insert and keep your pottying doll or plush toy on hand, dressed in panties, of course.
Demonstrate how the doll uses the potty by pouring a cup of water behind the doll’s bottom, seated on the potty. Praise the doll wildly! Do a dance. Make up a potty song. Recall your high school days and do a cheer. Your child will love it.[Tweet “Get your baby out of diapers early. Learn how this mom of 3 did it!”]
Reward the doll with whatever reward you’ve chosen to give your child. We used stickers for her shirt and rice cake bits in the very beginning. 
Guide your child to the potty after the demo and encourage him to follow suit. Explain to your toddler the importance both of using the potty when we have to go AND of keeping their panties dry. My little girl still loves to show off her dry panties several times per day by patting her panties and declaring “Da!” translation: dry. If your child eliminates, praise him like crazy, just like you did with his toy. If your child wiggles and doesn’t want to sit still, hand him a potty training book for entertainment.
Watch those sweet little eyes light up and his hands clap for his own success. If you’re using a potty chart, be sure to allow him to choose a sticker and help you adhere it. Have him peek into the potty and help you flush. We say “bye bye” to pee pee. Wash his hands and treat him with a few Cheerios or snack of your choice, and then keep an eagle eye on him for signs that he needs to go again.
Don’t worry too much if you miss his signs the first few times. You’ll catch on pretty quickly, and if you’ve got a fast learner, he’ll be hand signaling you when he needs to potty, or even walking to the potty himself. If he has an accident, quickly lead him to the potty and let him know that “pee pee goes in the potty.” Allow him to sit a few minutes to finish up on the potty, if he needs. Even if he only drips a few drops of urine into the potty, throw the same excited praise party for him along with treats & stickers as before. When finished, lead him to the accident site and have him help you clean up the puddle. Let him be as involved as you feel comfortable.
Continue just as any normal day, with your gaze fixed on your child, going through these steps time and time again. He will catch on quickly if he’s ready, and you won’t be as worn out as you might expect. I’d advise to give him at least 3 full days of potty practice before you decide to throw in the towel for lack of progress. My little girl went through 3 days of intense training at 15 months, and was just not catching on enough to continue. Fast forward only 3 months and it clicked, almost magically! We began on a Thursday and were able to tote her along to church on Sunday morning with no accidents whatsoever. Granted, each child learns at his own pace, but it’s not unrealistic for your child to pick up in just a day or so.
Additional Insights:
- Having extra mommy snacks around the house is helpful for those frustrating afternoons when you feel as if you’ve spent more hours sitting next to the potty than in your entire lifetime. That will happen.
- Call, or better yet Skype Daddy or someone special in your child’s life, and brag to them about junior’s pottying success. Let your child spill the beans, if they’re able. They’ll love the extra attention & supportive whoops coming from the other end of the line.
- Be creative with potty entertainment if your child isn’t smitten to sit long enough. Sometimes we pull out the laptop and play Summer’s favorite “I Love Potty Training” video & it keeps her seated a few extra minutes. I’ve even been known to hand over the sippy cup in times of desperation.
- As soon as you’re both ready, take your child out of the house on short trips. Ask her to potty before leaving the house, and continually praise her for dry panties. It’s amazing how much a breath of fresh air at the park helps to renew your motivation to continue.
If you have any questions/doubts be sure to email me at jelli [at] jellibeanjournals [dot] com
Be sure to check out the other posts in our early potty training series:
- Potty Training Tools for Success
- Preparing Your Toddler for Potty Training
- Training Pants Best Fit Guide
Join the conversation! Share your most helpful potty training tips below in the comments.
This is great, thanks so much for posting! I’m in the beginning stages of training our daughter {she’s 20 months} and your tips will be helpful. Right now, she gets the concept of going on the potty, but most of the time she pees right BEFORE she tells me that she needs to go pee-pee. She’s very interested though, so I’m hoping we can get through it this summer!
Kera, it’s great that you’re starting early before the baby’s born. I think you’ll look back on that decision and be happy about it. Summer Elizabeth sometimes does exactly what you mentioned here, especially if we’re in the car. Thankfully we generally sit her atop a folded cloth diaper in case of accidents in the car seat. I’m sure that by the time summer’s half through, you’ll have a happy potty grad on your hands. Enjoy the fact that she won’t need swim diapers either. What a relief!
Congratulations on your success! Here’s what worked for us with toilet training–a pretty different approach but not incompatible. We wished we had started the sticker chart earlier, since it really seemed to be key to his comprehension.
Excellent pointers. I can tell you that I have never had my boys potty trained this early. You rock!
My readers loved this. Check out your feature here: http://www.crystalandcomp.com/2013/06/best-mom-advice-63013/
Thanks so much for the feature, Crystal! It’s been ages since one of my posts has been selected from a link-up, so I’m ultra flattered. We’ll see how it goes when my baby boy (due in July) makes it to 18 months. I’ve definitely heard that potty training boys is a little more work.
Thanks for the resources! My half EC/half CD baby started taking herself to the potty at 17 months. Now, at 19 months she’s stopped wanting to stop doing things to go to the potty and we’re back in full time diapers. Looking forward to trying your approach to re-start her pottying fun! Any other moms here have the start-stop-start issues and any advice?
Heather, that’s great that your daughter started taking herself to the potty! Mine is two now and still needs us to usher her to the toilet most of the time. Sorry, I don’t have any advice about how to get her back into the excited-to-potty stage. Thanks for stopping by.
I have 21 month old little girl who is TERRIFIED to sit on the toilet. We have the potty chair that bubbi and sissi both used, but for whatever reason she won’t have anything to do with training. The other hard task with her is she gives no signs that she needs to use the bathroom, literally will fill her diaper without making a face, gesture, or an oh well. However, she will tell me “mommy poop”. So I know she’s ready how can I get her from being terrified of her potty chair? Without giving up. 🙂
Lacey, consistency really is the key when it comes to helping your child recognize when they’ve gotta go. As far as the seat is concerned, have you tried a smaller kid seat attachment for the big potty? Maybe she’d take better to that than the potty chair, since I’m guessing her bigger siblings use the big potty, so maybe she’d be happy to try that too. For some reason my daughter didn’t take to the potty chair either, but the minute we put her on the toilet, she had better success. Just keep on working with her and having TONS of patience. She’ll get it! P.S. So cute that you call your kids “bubbi and sissi” because that’s exactly what my mom used to call my brother and I 😉
My daughter is going to be 19 month old in a few days,right now she tells us when she has to go for poo but she is not at all ready to sit in the potty.
Abha, it can be a long hard road getting them to stay on the potty. We used books and videos on our phone to keep my daughter entertained. You might give it a try and see if she’ll go on the toilet when she alerts you. You never know, she just might surprise you!
This sounds so awesome! We’re starting potty-training tomorrow with our 18-month-old (who’s a Summer, too!). Wish us luck!
Great, Whitney! You’ll be surprised at how fast they catch on. In fact, I PT’d my son even earlier (an upcoming post, perhaps!) using these same techniques. Hope you have a very successful run!
I was thinking about beginning to train my 20 month old after Christmas. Then I stumbled upon this post on Pinterest and realized, oh! The time is now! This would be a good week to start, too, since my oldest is at Grandma’s house!
You’ve got great timing if your oldest is away. Not that potty training can’t be done with more than one child in the house- I trained my son at 14 months with a 2 year-old running around, but it is MUCH easier when you can commit your total attention to the task. Hope you have great success, Rachel!
We use many similar techniques with our daughter and she wears regular “princess pants” (aka underwear) at 16 months. Our pediatrician was in disbelief but there is absolutely nothing that says kids can’t train early!!!
Kudos to you for getting your little princess out of diapers early! Our son actually potty trained at 14 months (though I still haven’t posted about it) using the same techniques. So glad you’ve been saved from poopy diaper cleaning. Isn’t it liberating?!
That’s great news, Eden! Glad to hear your big boy decided exactly when he was ready.
Thank you so much for sharing these details on how you trained 🙂 I’m about to start training my youngest of 5 at 18months. With the other 4 I listened to the “experts” and waited until 2.5-3y and each of them was so difficult to train because it became a control issue. When looking back I realized each of them showed readiness much earlier at 14-18 mos! I ignored the signs, but this time I’m starting early (before the age where they desire to be the boss lol)
Your blog post was the only one that shared fully without selling a book or program 🙂 and super helpful details! I really appreciate it!
Sally, thanks so much for the encouragement! I know it’s really frustrating when you’re trying to learn something from blog posts and they give you 80% and then want you to buy the book to get the full scoop. It’s a mega bummer. Glad you were able to learn what worked for us. In fact, I used this same method with my son and he potty trained fully during the daytime (not including naptime) at 14 months. Hope your little one enjoys the process!
My three year old has been so hard to train, and she’s still having 2 to 3 accidents per day. This is so frustrating. I feel.like I’ve been potty training forever. When do they finally get it?
Every child is different. In my case, all children were 18 months and younger when they toilet trained, which I think made it easier.
I was SO nervous to start the potty training process. But this process has been so smooth and easy thanks to Susan Urban’s short guide ‘How to make your child love going potty’ that I’ve found on this website http://www.parental-love.com I understand that depends on the kid too, but this book really prepared me before we started and was an excellent guide as situations came up.