We potty trained at 16 months!
First couple things before launching in. This is not a directive that other parents should be doing this too, it’s just a resource on what worked for us. It’s not going to work for every kid, parent or circumstance. We decided on this after reading a lot of stories on early potty training and honestly talking to my grandma and great grandma quite a bit who all potty trained their kids fairly early, and my husband and I personally just wanting to be done with diapers as soon as we could. Also, potty training at 16 months does not look the same as it does at 2 or 3. 16 month olds do not have the dexterity to handle toileting on their own, the language to fully communicate they have to go, or the physical development to be potty trained over night. What potty training is for us is that we don’t use diapers during daytime hours anymore and he only rarely has accidents.
He cues us mostly by grabbing himself and saying a concerned “Dada” or bringing us his toilet, and we also just bring him at intervals if we think he might have to go. He holds it if we go out and we just make sure to bring him to a toilet every so frequently free when we’re out, and in the rare moments he starts to have an accident he holds it and lets us know. A very large part of toileting is still on us as parents reading his cues and facilitating the bathroom, rather than just on him. It’s potty training not potty independence and it’s not going to be right for every family.
Okay, so launching in. We started very lazy “elimination communication” at around 3 months. I was am a stay at home dad and was pretty determined at the beginning but petered off a good deal. Basically what it looked like was setting him on a very tiny baby toilet at wakes, after getting home, and after meals and occasionally starting to “read” his signals on if he was about to go. Aside from that we used disposable diapers. I think the biggest thing this helped with was just normalizing him to going on the toilet and training me as a parent to understand his bathroom rhythms and cues.
Around 14 months he started going on his own to his toilet to try to pee very occasionally. A month or so prior to that he’d also stopped pooping outside the house and consistently waited til we were home to do it. We decided to try full potty training at this point (expanded below) but by day 2 he started crying when we sat him on the toilet so we decided to pause and retry later. He also seemed to pee like 30 times a day which didn’t help lol. Now he pees more like 12 times- still high but more workable.
At 15.5 months we seemed to have a new milestone of him grabbing himself and looking at us every time he had to go so we decided to try again. We went on a vacation and basically kept him naked whenever we were in the hotel room (tile floors) and tried to bring him to toilet any time he started peeing.
When we got back we launched into it fully. Puppy pads on all rugs (which he constantly pulled up) and him naked from the waist down inside. At home days 1-3 I stayed on him just tracking him 24/7 and moving him to the toilet if he started going. It was exhausting. We also timed every 30 or so minutes and after meals/naps/before and after going out, setting him on the toilet to see if he needed to go. Successful potties got tons of applause and a tiny treat or sticker. Accidents we stayed very calm and just did a “whoopsie, we potty in the toilet and would bring him over.” Days 1-3 we still diapered when we went outside but brought a portable toilet to try after 30 or so minutes.
Day 4 we started going out just in underwear (we use Hanes training underwear and brought a portable potty and many changes of underwear and clothes). At home we started picking up the puppy pads and stopped setting him every 30 minutes. Days 4 saw many carpet pees, one poop that he decided to try and clean up on his own while I left for two seconds to grab a towel (hellish experience), and two accidents on the way to the park. Day 5 saw 2 carpet pees and one when we went outside. Day 6 was a mostly dry day except the beginning of a pee where he stopped himself and ran to us.
Most days since have been 0-1 accidents. After two-ish weeks we put underwear back on inside and mostly relied on his cues and set times (after nap, wake up, getting home, meals) for toileting.
We’re at 3 weeks since starting and it feels like it genuinely stuck. Though now he’s starting to try to stand and pee and his aim is awful so that’s a fun new issue. I’m sure there will be regressions- daycare, travel, illness, etc. But it’s working and I’m counting it now.
Some important notes- this hasn’t been a process that demanded perfection, just consistency. Day 5 saw our dryer break down and I put him back into a diaper for an hour or so while I troubleshot that. We’re human, our kid is human, a quick break is not going to cause you to lose all progress. We also were pretty big on not wanting it to feel stressful for our kid. When he was getting visibly upset about it at 14 months, we paused. When he just didn’t want to go to the bathroom on the toilet those first few days, we let him get up and accidents happened.
Also progress is NOT purely linear. Day 2 was worse than day 1, day 4 was the most accidents of all, and random days he just chugs too much water too quickly and have an accident or 2 when he can’t figure out he has to go fast enough. The process took “2 weeks” but it candidly was a yearlong process before that.
Anyway, that’s all! Hope this helps any parents considering trying potty training early. It’s definitely not for everyone and definitely takes a lot of time and clean up. But it was worth it for us.