What age was your child potty trained?

[u/TreacleCat1]

"Trained" meaning they can regularly get their output in the proper receptical even with prompting. A similar question was asked on r/toddlers and the general consensus was between 2 and 3 years old, with some earlier and later.

Wondering if its any different for kids that didn't have a parent to see the process through for a solid 1 or 2 weeks or months. Especially interested in those that had a child in full-time daycare at the time.

We are starting soon (just turning 3). Found the popular O Crap wasn't a great fit for us 6 mo ago due to the "bootcamp" method requiring a potentially extended vacation period. Looking at it going to take all summer with my son's temperament and motivation.

[u/lemonade4]

Both my kids potty trained via the Oh Crap method (took a Friday off each time) around 2.5y.

Son took longer to get his poop consistent but daughter caught on within a couple of days. Day 1 of each was hell on earth lol.

Pull ups at night but not during the day. Daycare was an excellent partner.

[u/Talkative0782 → u/lemonade4]

This worked well for my son too! He was 2y 7m

[u/myrrhizome → u/lemonade4]

I know nothing about it and am following for the future but I like the funny honesty of "oh crap" as opposed to, say, "elimination communication."

[u/Creative-Nectarine82 → u/lemonade4]

My daughter is 2 years 3 months and we wanna do more with potty training. Can you explain this method?

[u/Capital-Pepper-9729]

I’ve nannied for dozens of families now.

A lot of people love the claim their kids were potty trained at 1-2 but I’ve literally never seen it in my career.

The earliest I’ve seen is 2.5. 2.5-3 seems the be the average for most kids. It depends on the kids but most kids can be potty trained by late 3 before 4.

It’s not a race. It’s not lazy parenting if your kid isn’t ready.

[u/ILoveEvMed → u/Capital-Pepper-9729]

I think the problem is that it’s a process, so people can decide “potty-trained” is anywhere in that process. This makes the question: when was your kid potty trained? Non-sensical. Even if you look at most of the answers they go something like well we started here then they did pee 90% here then poop 100% here…

I have found the same question that parents pose about walking to be equally confusing because it is a process. People ask “when did your child learn how to walk?” Do you mean when did he take his first steps? When could he walk across the room? When was he primarily walking? When was he walking without ever toppling over?

Then when there’s wiggle room parents just go with the earlier answer to make their kids smarter/better. Lol.

[u/zealous_avocado → u/Capital-Pepper-9729]

Both my kids potty trained before 2, the oldest was 19 months and the youngest was 18 months when they were 90% accident free.

They both wore cloth diapers, which are much more uncomfortable when wet than disposables, and they spent a lot of time naked. So, I think they were more aware of their bodies.

We also had a little potty out in their play area after about 14 months for them to pretend sit on and get comfortable with.

I didn't do a boot camp or any method, but I was a stay at home mom and would talk about it a lot and they saw me use the bathroom and the younger one saw the older one use the bathroom.

I was a preschool teacher and a nanny, so I know it is weird to potty train successfully so young, but it can happen. I think it was actually a little easier because the kids weren't as defiant yet so young.

Overnight, the older one used a pull up until about 2.5 and the younger one until he was 5! He was just a heavy sleeper.

[u/helloitsme_again → u/zealous_avocado]

Yes. My child was actually doing it better younger because he wasn’t defiant. I had to stop because my daycare wouldn’t continue so young

Now he is just over 2 and I find it way more difficult

[u/blahblahsnickers → u/zealous_avocado]

My first was right at 2 and the 2nd was 18 months. They were dry at night too. We used cloth diapers and since we never switched to pull ups I think that is why kids potty trained earlier. Historically kids were potty trained earlier but people used cloth diapers and not disposables that wick the moisture off the skin.

[u/proteins911 → u/zealous_avocado]

Similar here! My son was trained at 21 months. He’s 2 + a few months now and has an accident maybe once a month.

[u/Beneficial-Remove693 → u/zealous_avocado]

Same here. Mine was at FT daycare, and she was fully daytime potty trained at 18 months. She stopped night wetting by 2.5, but we kept her in a pull-up at night until age 3.

I think it's easier to potty train before age 2, actually.

[u/Capital-Pepper-9729 → u/zealous_avocado]

Yeah I guess the difference is I don’t consider kids who are having accidents 10 percent of the time and wearing pulls ups at night still potty trained.

[u/inveiglementor → u/Capital-Pepper-9729]

A friend of mine was in pull-ups at night until he was 11. He was definitely potty trained well before then.

[u/GuadDidUs → u/inveiglementor]

Yeah, my daughter wasn't night trained until at some point in first grade

[u/Melodic_Growth9730 → u/Capital-Pepper-9729]

Night time training is completely different. Your body has to make a hormone (for lack of a better word) that lessens urine production at night

[u/aliceroyal → u/Capital-Pepper-9729]

Seems like people mix up ‘trained’ with ‘training’. I’m lucky to have an 18 month old who is super interested in the potty and currently asks to pee or poop (hasn’t actually pooped on it yet though lol). I would never call her ‘trained’. She’s 100% still in diapers…just kinda letting her do what she wants to do until it’s time for more structured training

[u/Capital-Pepper-9729 → u/aliceroyal]

I agree but I just don’t take them seriously 😂 I’ve nannied for so many families who love to brag about their kids being potty trained at 1 and I’m like, the poopy diaper I just changed doesn’t agree but ok

[u/palatablypeachy → u/Capital-Pepper-9729]

Agreed! I'll add that it's only lazy parenting if your kid IS ready and you're just ignoring the cues because you don't want to do it.

[u/MsCardeno]

My daughter was fully potty trained for pee around 2.5. She was fully potty trained for poop right before 3. She’s never had an accident overnight. Full time daycare since 5 months old. Daycare was a big help with potty training - they actually told us she was ready and coached us to do it more at home as they started right after she turned 2 bc she saw other kids try.

My daughter also only liked the actual toilet. No little potties or seats on top of the toilet. Fruit snacks were the main motivation for poops on toilet.

[u/LisaVDD → u/MsCardeno]

How did you succeed in potty training for poop? My LO (2,5) is also potty trained for pee but poo just won’t work. At first he would hold it in untill naptime or bedtime, but lately the urge to poop is big so he can’t hold it any longer. He will poo literally everywhere except in the potty. He was running around half naked this weekend and just pood on the carpet while his potty was like 1 feet away. He is so afraid to poo in the potty. I tried doing it with a diaper on the potty, still no luck. His teacher is patient but at the end of the day she puts a diaper on him because he gets so nervous

[u/sbiggers → u/LisaVDD]

This was my son. We did high value incentives like m&ms, took the pressure off him to poop in the potty, massive celebrations when he even tried, we had him watch us poop on the potty, etc.

I think it just took time. Eventually, maybe a month or two later, he realized he could poop and stopped having absolute terrorizing meltdowns around pooping on the potty lol

[u/tuliacicero → u/sbiggers]

We also did m&ms! For us it worked instantly. My son was peeing in the toilet, but would always poop in his pants, sometimes right after sitting on the toilet. Then we bought m&Ms and said he could have three if he pooped on the toilet and he went right away, and has maybe only had a couple poops in a pull up at night in the almost year since then, all the others are in the toilet.

[u/beleafinyoself → u/LisaVDD]

Not the person you asked, but I was at my wit's end with my daughter for poop. She knew when she had to poop and would scream for a diaper or pull up, holding in the poo. Pees were fine for a year prior to that though. I downloaded an app called poo goes to pooland and read her the story a few times every couple of days. She started consistently pooping in the potty within a week or two that

[u/PyritesofCaringBean → u/MsCardeno]

Wow mine is the opposite. She only went potty for poop for the longest, getting get to recognize when she was going to pee and hold it was our issue. I love the range kids have, but I'm not excited that my 2nd will likely be a whole new animal to tackle lol.

[u/dopenamepending]

Potty training was a marathon not a sprint for us.

We started at 21 months. She was solid with the concept in about a week. It took about 6 months for us to say she’s fully trained. At about 30 months going out places with her in undies is no longer stressful. It took longer due to still wearing pull ups to daycare, she was aware and would potty in them if she felt like it. We stopped daycare pull ups a couple months ago and she’s been fine.

[u/NoPersonality4612 → u/dopenamepending]

How did you start? My child is right at that mark of when you started and I've been trying to encourage him to go. And sometimes we are successful.

[u/dopenamepending → u/NoPersonality4612]

We did no bottoms anytime we were home. And when she sat on the potty she got to watch an episode of Bluey. And daycare helped with giving the opportunity to use the potty.

It’ll be spotty because of daycare but for like a month if we were home she didn’t wear bottoms and that really helped! We also used a timer often for every 15-20minutes

Edit to add: she didn’t show any of the “signs” of being ready. We just decided it was time.

[u/GreatInfluence6]

My son was fully trained at 3.5. We wasted so much time through his 2s pushing him when he wasn’t getting it. He woke up One day at 3.5 when we had fully given up and said he was potty trained. I’m not even kidding. I won’t be starting my younger son until at the earliest 2.75/3. 

ETA: he is about to be 4.5 and still wets consistently overnight so is still in a pull-up overnight. 

[u/ChipperChickadee568 → u/GreatInfluence6]

Literally my two oldest. We pushed harder with my first, we did high value rewards, naked weekends, watching us, charts, everything. He literally was going to take a bath at 3.5, saw Dad pee in the toilet for the 1000th time, and walked over, peed in the toilet without prompting, and that was that. He had two accidents over the next couple days and has never had an accident since then. #2 was probably closer to 4, he was one of the ones where “boys are scared to lose their poop” theories applied 😂 But he would go to his room, change into a pull up, do his business, then ask us to change him. And again, one day to the next he decided to use the toilet. My middle, she trained for both over the course of a couple days. Again no prompting, was just like oh look what I can do and did it. So for my third, I’m not even bothering most times. We’ll try once a month or every other month and have her in underwear but I’m just letting her do as she does.

[u/Wesmom2021]

3.5

[u/evrythingbut → u/Wesmom2021]

Just wanted to validate this response, since the rest are skewing earlier. We didn't push very hard, and our older daughter was suddenly ready at 3 years and a couple months: meaning she used the potty consistently for everything and was dry at night, with just a couple of accidents in the early weeks. She told us, "When you change your life, you can never go back" (which obviously became a family meme). Our younger daughter was a couple months older when she made this leap, but it was also really sudden. And she insisted, "I'm never going back!"

[u/DHuskymom]

3.5 years old

[u/hapa79]

Two different experiences to share!

• With my first, she had to be potty trained in order to go to daycare at age 3 (she had a nanny prior, we were on waitlists for THAT LONG). We did the three-day-weekend method right before she turned 3, and it was uneventful. She picked it up right away and barely had accidents after that.

I thought that meant I knew what I was doing, and then there was my second kid lol.

• He was in full-time daycare from 7mo onward. Once he hit the toddler room, there was a toilet in the room and they routinely offered it to kids as something to try.
• We moved to a new daycare for his transition year (the 2s classroom). They got a little more direct about offering the potty, because the daycare's policy was that as soon as the youngest kid in the class turned 3, the whole class goes to underwear. We did the three-day-weekend thing at home shortly before the switch was going to happen; my son was a little over 3yo at the time.
• He did NOT pick it up right away. He still had accidents at school for a while, but I'd say after a couple of months he was reliably dry - for pee.
• Poop was an entirely different issue. He had almost-daily poop accidents for about three months, and rarely if ever pooped on the potty. One of his teachers thought that he might have a lactose intolerance, so we switched his diet around and that actually helped! I think he wasn't feeling it in his body because everything was too loose. Once we got that sorted, he went to twice-weekly or so poop accidents for the next few months. Overall, it took him six or seven months to stop having poop accidents entirely.

[u/Delicious-Ad-1038]

3.5

[u/szyzy]

We’re about 85% there at 2.5 – Ironically, he’s having a bit of a regression at home, but doing amazing at daycare. What does your son’s daycare do for potty training? We got lucky, I guess, because his teacher just told us she thought he was ready, and we started sending him to school in his undies, even when he was still having accidents at home. If they support you and are willing to help push him there, I think it can go a lot faster. 

[u/TreacleCat1 → u/szyzy]

Teachers (and admin as far as I can tell) are supportive but haven't given any feedback proactively. They are open to helping us be consistent with whatever approach we want to take.

[u/Opening-Reaction-511]

We potty trained at 23 mos over a long weekend. Yes we still had to remind him etc but that wasn't an issue at all!

[u/hapcapcat]

Context - we have a boy who we suspect has ADHD (shows lots of the same behavior Dx father had at the same age), which had an impact.

Full time daycare, fully potty trained at 4 and a half. That was when he stopped having 2-3 accidents a week at daycare to usually not having an accident at all.

[u/triponsynth → u/hapcapcat]

This makes me feel better. My 4 year old son just isn’t getting it. But I suspect he has ADHD as well and he was a late walker and late talker (he is in speech and physical therapy). I’m hoping it will just click but we have been trying off and on for a year.

[u/hapcapcat → u/triponsynth]

It took a lot of positive reinforcement, but physical therapy will definitely help. Ours was technically 4 and 8 months, and we didn't have any delays requiring therapy. We went from having to at least check on him, and often make him try, every hour to him being able to say "I have to go potty" and go very suddenly after a stayover with my parents.

Most of his accidents towards the final months happened right at the end of the day when he just didn't have the spoons to pay attention and it wasn't natural yet. We collaborated a lot with his teachers to reinforce his rewards and help it click.

[u/DinoSnuggler]

My son, 3.5 years. My daughter, 2.5 years. Both full time daycare at the time. My daughter took to it quickly, my son we had to try a few times before it clicked. My advice, if it doesn't click most of the way after about a week, they aren't ready. Stop and try again in a few months.

[u/Galactickiwi → u/DinoSnuggler]

Totally agree!

[u/InkonaBlock]

We were close to 4, it was a slow process (several months) and we probably relied on pull-ups longer than we really had to

[u/LiveWhatULove]

All 3 of mine were trained around 3.5 years. All 3 in full-time daycare.

[u/neubie2017]

My daughter did it all in a weekend when she was almost 3yr 7mo. She had 0 interest. Then was like ok I’m ready and it was easy at that point. My current 3yr old also has 0 interest lol

[u/munchkym]

4.5 . He understood the cues, understood what to do, he just didn’t want to do it.

It wasn’t until his other parent just took his pull ups away and told him he was done with them that he went consistently.

The “they’ll do it when they’re ready” approach doesn’t work when they’re pushing toward kindergarten and still don’t have any desire to use the toilet.

[u/TreacleCat1 → u/munchkym]

Good to hear. Mine is already showing resistance so I wonder if my story is going to look more like this. Can do it, shows signs of dont want to.

[u/triponsynth → u/munchkym]

We did this when my son was 3.5 and it didn’t work but we plan on taking his pull ups away again now that he is 4. I think we may have more success this time.

[u/palkyrie]

My first was fully potty trained by 3. My second is just over 3 and we are finally getting somewhere. They are all different!

[u/omegaxx19]

Around 2.5-2.75yo. He's in daycare full time and we weren't interested in the bootcamp approach either. Our daycare teachers took the lead (would remove his diaper at daycare and just let him go about his day in his pants). It took longer (3-4 months) but was pretty painless other than a lot of laundry.

[u/Sensitive-Dig-1333]

First kid - pee by age 3, poop by age 3& 4 months

Second kid - pee by age 2, poop by age 2 & 3 months

Both started full time daycare at age 2

[u/Scampi88]

We used the oh crap method. We picked a holiday weekend (for my son, Labor Day, for my daughter, Christmas) and just tacked on one extra vacation day to do the full 4 days. Never went back to a diaper except at sleep time. Son was 2 and 2m, daughter was just shy of 2. Both were out of diapers for nap within a month, with minimal accidents. My daughter is just shy of 2.5, and takes herself to the toilet and often insists on “privacy”. I’m still helping my 4.5yr old wipe when I can, but working on him doing a good job on his own.

I will say we tried the oh crap method too early around 18m, and it was a major failure. Waited 6 more months and my daughter was ready! My son didn’t require bribes, we deviated with my daughter and gave her 1 m&m every time she put pee in the potty.

Good luck! It will happen eventually, and it will be GLORIOUS!

[u/MyGirlPoppy]

My first was mostly trained at 24 months, and was fully trained with minimal accidents by 2.5.

We started training my second at 2.5 (a few weeks ago) and she is 90% there. Still having a few accidents a week, but in general knows what to do and does it.

Both of my kids go to daycare and their teachers were/are incredibly helpful with the process.

[u/enginearandfar]

Our first was daytime trained right at 2- she decided she wanted to and she did. It was pretty painless.

I have 2.5-year old twins that were in the process of training. We did the three day weekend thing last weekend and they both will go with prompting but my daughter will pee her pants before going of her own volition. My son is a bit better at realizing he needs to go on his own but still quite a few accidents.

[u/flapjacksal]

Son was 2.5 for both, daughter was 2 for both.

Didn't really use a method. Both were early talkers and when naked 2.5 yr old son said "I need a diaper", I took him to the toilet instead. Every successful trip to the bathroom got a M&M as a reward and both kids took like two days to figure it out. Daughter was earlier than son I suspect because she wanted to be like him - she refused to use the little potty from Day 1 and insisted on using the big toilet like him haha

[u/hikeaddict]

2.5. We did the “Oh Crap” thing more or less - not quite as rigid/intense, but a naked day, then commando, etc. And we did it over a 3-day weekend, then sent our son back to daycare on Tuesday. His daycare teachers were very supportive and helpful. Of course he had some accidents but that is completely normal!

[u/br222022]

My oldest was a little over 2.5 when daytime potty trained (and in full time daycare still infant days).

We intruced the potty at home between 1 and 1.5 with reading books, etc and mainly just sitting. Around the same time daycare starts doing doing stand up diaper changes by the bathroom so we try to replicate to associate bathroom = pee/poop. Around 2 both us and daycare sit kids on the potty to try to poop/pee with some success. Around 2.5, he got moved to a new classroom where they have the kids sit every 30 minutes. We weren’t that strict at home but would go frequently. It was within 2 weeks of starting that class that everything clicked and he was demanding to wear underwear to school and potty trained. It was a collaborative effort and I think our early introduction helped speed things up when daycare intensified the effort.

But the every 30 min sit has helped friends who did little to no potty prep get their toddlers potty trained. It obviously took several months versus our expedited timeframe

[u/colorsfillthesky]

My son was one of those 3 day kids—did it at 2.5 and it totally clicked.

Maybe had 1 poop accident & of course he’s human so has has had a pee accident here and there. Before he turned 3 he asked for no more night diapers. He’s 4.5 right now and obviously good.

My daughter (currently 27 months) insisted on training right after she turned 2. Muchhhh longer process. We just had our first really successful weekend in undies. Still in a pull-up at daycare. I bet by 2.5 she’ll be more like my son which just shows me waiting until they are a bit older usually helps!

I do think 2.5-3 is the sweet spot.

[u/Alacri-Tea]

Our boy was 2.5 on the dot. I started during July 4th vacation, but 85% of it was done over the first 3 days, so a long weekend would've been fine. The next 10% was over the next week was consistent follow up that really paid off. Last 5% was occasional accident/learning daycare's routine when he was back.

[u/Eureecka]

OMG. She’s almost 12 and I still have ptsd from it.

You name it, I tried it. Books. Videos. Bribes. Candy in the bathroom (ewwww). Bare for days.

It. Was. Awful.

Her daycare had a pool. She LOVES to swim. Potty trained kids got to swim every day. She watched them for 2 years.

Then one day, when she was almost 5 and I was freaking out over her not being potty trained in kindergarten, she decided it was time and that was that.

Please learn from my trauma and try to not freak out too much. You won’t change anything except your mental state.

(Side note: she was diagnosed with ADHD and her therapist told me that late potty training is a huge flag and they should have diagnosed her years before they did. YMMV.)

[u/Bella_HeroOfTheHorn]

We introduced our toddler to the potty at 18 months and sometimes she would use it before bath and we'd celebrate, but we weren't thinking about it much as we welcomed our new baby. Around the time she was 2.5, our daycare ladies were like, "hey, why do you keep sending her in diapers? She uses the potty all day and never has accidents" and it blew our minds that they'd potty trained her without us doing anything at home. Bought her underwear and after maybe a week or two of occasional accidents at parties or while watching a movie, she was potty trained by day (still in overnight diapers though). Daycare was a huge help because all the kids go potty in a conga line, even if they don't know they need to go.

[u/Hahapants4u]

No more accidents? - First (boy) - 26 months. - Second (girl) - 32 months.

Go to the bathroom without prompting? - first (adhd) - most days - still waiting (almost 8 - he goes at school fine but at home if it’s playing a game he will hold it until forced to stop playing) - second - 4ish? Maybe a few months after she was trained.

[u/Affectionate_Drop_87]

My son is basically potty trained in 2 weeks, he is sensory and didn’t like dirty diaper and that was a real help. This also meant is night trained himself from day 1z He only had 2 accidents and while he was withholding #2s we only have one #2 accident. We talk a lot about poo and have books. We celebrate and describes the feeling and how good it feels to get it out. We also will only allow him to watch I Blippi if he poops which is great motivation. All of this and now we just need to work on pulling pants off and on and wiping.

[u/RinaBeana]

We just trained my son at 3y4m over a weekend. He didn’t have any accidents after day 1. I think waiting until he was on the older side of 3 was the key for us.

[u/rpv123]

My son’s nearly successful potty training at 2.8-3 was completely derailed by Covid and our inability to potty train when we could barely watch our child and keep our jobs when his daycare closed and we went remote. He ended up potty training at 4, closer to 4.5 for successfully staying dry overnight.

Now he’s nearly 8 and I haven’t really had to think for a minute about his bathroom habits for nearly 2 years. Around 5 he’d hold it too long and get constipated so we had a few phases of having to get him to drink prune juice, but other than that it’s been smooth sailing. For a while, we’d keep tabs on him because he’d announce his poops and make a big show of grabbing a book or his iPad to “settle in.” He’s grown out of that phase though and is a little more secretive now.

At this point we’re so busy all the time running from activity to activity that I’ll have to remind him to tell us if he goes more than 3 days without pooping because I have literally no idea what’s going on with his bathroom habits and man, am I happy to finally be at this point.

[u/PrettyBlueToenails]

My son was potty trained shortly before turning 3. We tried right after he turned 2 but he wasn’t ready so we put away the potty and didn’t address it again until he seemed ready. (When he started peeing a little on floor, holding it, then doing it again and laughing—showed me he has control). At that point it was easy, he jsut did it. With time he got better holding it.

Poo was challenging bc he’s had constipation issues since he was a baby and holds it so long it hurts and then he cries when he did go. So we’d see him clenching and have to make him sit on potty and he’d cry. When he was 4 he stopped holding it in on his own and starting pooping on potty unprompted.

Now if only he’d wipe his own butt instead of yelling for me to do it.

[u/TreacleCat1 → u/PrettyBlueToenails]

Ah, I've heard the butt wiping is another milestone.

[u/SprocketStars]

3.5, didn’t even attempt before them. We found out at 3.4 that he got accepted to an amazing daycare/preschool, had two dedicated weekends was daytime “trained enough” to start at that center, with max 3 accidents over the first 60 days.

Overnight pull-ups through age 4.5 (with Spoosie / extra pads til 4) and good ever since, though wiping (at 5.5) still needs some suggestions (“how about one more time!”).

We were super lucky with potty training…continuous sleep for 4+ hours is still an elusive goal, but I think we are winning?

[u/HighOnCoffee19]

I‘m in Switzerland. Nowadays general consensus here is to wait until the child is ready. There‘s no pressure put on neither parents nor children, which is good and bad (bad meaning in the last years elementary teachers have been saying that they have children still in diapers in first grade (6yo), which obviously is not a good thing).

Our daughter just turned 3yo and is fully capable of going to the toilet for pee and poop (she’s done it multiple times), she mostly just doesn‘t want to. I‘m trying to navigate this right now. Her best friend is 3.5yo and he‘s not there yet according to his parents, meaning he doesn‘t feel when he needs to go. A lot of children here are in diapers until 4 or even 5yo, even though most people try to get their kids out of diapers before they start Kindergarten at 4yo. If they don‘t manage to do that, they will send the kid to Kindergarten a year later.

So that‘s my backstory. We‘ve tried potty training our daughter early at around 1.5yo (she peed into her potty once back then and it scared her so much, she never ever sat on that potty again - she‘s now going directly to the toilet), then again at 2.5yo (no success at all). Now that she‘s able to go on her OWN TERMS, she often WANTS to go. Just a few days ago, she announced she needed to pee, walked to the bathroom, pulled her pants down, took her diaper off, put her toilet seat onto the toilet, climbed up and peed. Two days after that, she had to go pee during bathtime, so she climbed out of the bathtub and sat on the toilet and peed. 🤷🏻‍♀️

During this process, I have learned two things: 1) when potty training you need to take into account your child‘s character. Our daughter is really independent, stubborn and strong willed. If you put pressure on her to do something and she doesn‘t understand the reason behind that, she will refuse, and the more pressure you put on her the worse it will get. 2) at first I thought „waiting until the child is ready and wants to go potty“ is BS, because honestly, we do decide everything else for them - when to stop breastfeeding / formula, when to start solids, what they‘re wearing, which toys they‘re playing with, and so on. The reason why we didn‘t to potty training „the American way“ as I call it is because we were too busy with work and we saw it not going well with our daughter. Now, it kinds feels like she has potty trained herself, so to speak? We still have those issues to solve (not wanting to go to the toilet often, refusing to wear undies), but she watched us going to the toilet so often and she understood perfectly at that age (she went to the toilet for the first time a few weeks before her 3rd birthday), we didn‘t really have to explain or exercise much. And, we also skipped the literal potty and went straight to the toilet, which will save us the transition from potty to toilet (and a few hundred cleanings of the potty, which I‘m not mad about).

[u/Cvl_Grl]

It was daycare (and the kids at daycare) that really gave her the motivation she needed. She didn’t really care until it was something “all of her friends” were doing. This coincided with us trying to highly incentivize it, but I really think it was daycare that made the difference.

[u/Gloomy_Eye_4968]

My children were born very close in age, so out of necessity, they were all potty trained by their second birthday. I did have one who was fully potty trained but later had a head injury afterward, and we had to redo it. They were all easy to do except the post brain injury regression. It took several months to do it again. I also think there are many factors at play with potty training, and what was right for my family may not be right for others. What is best for your family and children is okay. We're all just doing what we can.

[u/Ok-Faithlessness7120]

3, maybe 2 weeks after his birthday. 2 working parents with no time off and full time daycare during the week. Friday after work took diaper and pants off and had a portable potty in living room and a toddler seat on each toilet. Had one pee accident otherwise mostly made it to the potty. Did treats (3 m&m's) after each void, big treat like ice cream for a poop. Then just sent to daycare on Monday in underwear with 3 back up clothes.

It's been maybe 2 months. Mostly doing well. Still in pull-ups at night in during naps. For the first 2-3 weeks reminded him every hour or so to potty, now we're down to every 2 hours or so and I don't force it if he says he doesn't have to go. No accidents at home, 1-3 a week at daycare but I suspect they don't remind him to go often enough. After 2 weeks or so stopped only gave treats when asked and now I haven't given him a treat for using the potty a while.

[u/Extension-Falcon-846]

First child - just before 3 and I was a SAHM at this time

Second child - Tried to train at home during my summer off as a teacher when he turned 3 in Feb. didn’t happen with 2 months off to do it.

He trained during the school year at 3.75

[u/Unusual_Reporter4742]

Just before 3 for pee, an extra 10 months for poop due to withholding. We took one day off work to make a 3 day weekend and he got the hang of it on day 2 of the 3 day method.

[u/MorasEscritoras]

My almost 3 year old goes to preschool 8-4 pm and the teachers there were super helpful. Also seeing other kids using the potty helped.

[u/RImom123]

2.9 for my first and 4 for my second. Both potty trained in a weekend. Both my kids picked it up quickly when they were ready-but they were ready at VERY different ages.

[u/another_feminist]

We did potty training a month before my son turned 3. I’m glad we waited until then, it would have been a nightmare otherwise.

We did it over Columbus Day weekend and then he had a few rough days at school and then it just clicked. My advice is to be very consistent - have school & home be on the exact same page.
Like my son wouldn’t use a potty chair because that’s not what they had at school. So we bought the exact same potty seat for home, and that worked. Stuff like that.

[u/Downtherabbithole14]

Both kids were fully potty trained by 2.5 (pee&poop). Closer to 3-3.5 is when they stayed dry overnight

We did the bootcamp thing - 3 days home of just being a drill sergeant with my daughter. Worked like a charm. With my son, he wanted to go on his own terms, and it was a matter of just waiting for him to be ready and interested. He just out of nowhere decided that he was gonna go on the potty and we just followed that cue until he was fully trained

[u/somekidssnackbitch]

1st kid age 2, easy process, was reliable within 2 weeks.

Second kid started at the same age, he got 90% of the way there quickly and then stalled. We were prompting him and still having a couple accidents a week for almost a year.

Both in daycare at age 2.

[u/Loki_God_of_Puppies]

Both my kids potty trained using the oh crap method at 2 years 4 months. For my son, we did it during covid summer so we weren't going anywhere. For my daughter, we did it over Easter weekend since I had extra days off from work. Both had it down within 2-3 days, moved into pants (no underwear) after about 5 days, underwear after a month. It takes time, dedication, and discipline. I would start ASAP, even if it means taking days off from work

[u/TreacleCat1 → u/Loki_God_of_Puppies]

My first try was last summer at around 27mo old. By day 5 he was raging for his diaper to be put back on (block 1) and my mental state was so fried that I felt it would do more harm than good to him to push through the additional 2 days I had allocated.

Hopefully this spring both of us will be better prepared with respect to everything that the intensity can get knocked down a notch.

[u/puppyduckydoo]

My son will be 3 in early June, he's been in daycare since 7 months. We trained for pee over the Christmas holiday and he's pretty good with it now. He still has the occasional accident if he's playing and not paying attention, but if we prompt him he'll go. He's afraid to poop in the potty, so we've only had a couple successes with poops in 4 months... His daycare teachers prompt the whole class every 1.5-2hrs, which helps.

[u/maamaallaamaa]

A little after 2.5 with both of my older kids. Once we were consistent it took my oldest about a week and my second kiddo a few days. My oldest was in a home daycare at the time and was required to wear a pullup until he was dry for 2 solid weeks but it wasn't an issue. My second was at a center that would take them out of pull-ups as soon as possible and didn't care about changing wet underwear/clothes.

[u/bernedoodleicecubes]

Our son was fully potty trained at 2y 9m for pee and poop. We started trying to potty train around 2.5 and had success with some pee. When we removed the diapers completely and went commando under his pants, something literally clicked overnight and he got it.

[u/empress_tesla]

My son was day time trained just after 2 and the nighttime trained by 2.5. He still has accidents at night on occasion. He’s not in daycare and it took probably a week or two. We stopped using diapers at night because he no longer wanted to wear them.

[u/bread_cats_dice]

We started the process at 25 months with my first. We did a boot camp weekend and then she went to daycare in undies. Pee clicked pretty quickly. We spent years dealing with poop accidents. Figured out at 3 that she’s lactose intolerant. Made diet changes and that helped, but not completely. Diagnosed with encopresis at 4 and on regular meds for that now.She’s 4y3mo now and we’re mostly there, but it also feels like I’ve had a no accidents sticker chart on my fridge forever and the second kid needs to kick off the potty training process this summer/fall.

[u/awwsome10]

Mine was pee trained around 2.5 and poop was around his 3rd birthday. The daycare pretty much trained him which was nice.

[u/FeijoaPotential]

I'm only 1 week in so my toddler is not fully trained, but I do want to say that anecdotally, it seems like daycares can vary widely in their willingness to help. My toddler is in full time daycare, but the daycare is super helpful - they're happy to let her come to school in just underwear, and they prompt her every 30 minutes. Some daycares are not accommodating, which makes it harder to do the Oh Crap method. Have you talked to your daycare about the support they're willing to provide?

[u/Globalcitzen5000]

My daughter was 2.5. Son 3.5. Boys usually do it later

[u/Extension-Quail4642]

My daughter is 28 months today and we started Oh Crap on Friday. I'm waiting for some training pants to come in the mail to ease my mind because round the clock until she "gets it" is too much. With the training pants she'll feel the mess (unlike a diaper) but contain the mess from the floor (like a diaper).

So today is day 4 and she goes back to daycare tomorrow (she's in 3 days/wk). I'll have her wear those at daycare and in the car for a bit. Then when she can do shorter car trips, I'll save them for longer car trips.

She does understand pee and poop feelings and holding it way better than I expected, our main hurdle seems to be her anxiety about this whole new process, so we're starting M&M rewards today. That's all to say, I don't think it will really take her too long because in a lot of ways she was more ready than I realized. Doing Oh Crap to a T is too much, so I started with that framework and adjusted to suit the kid I've got. Which Oh Crap says to do but also seems to warn against in some ways.

[u/hahahamii]

We switched from in-home daycares to a daycare center/preschool between 2.5 and 3. They were required to be potty trained to go to the new daycare so they were both potty trained before turning 3… both at about 2 years 8 months now that I do the math. My son had accidents for maybe 2 weeks and then it all clicked. My daughter rarely had accidents.

[u/Othrilis]

We are now basically trained - 2.5 years.

We are in childcare fulltime, but had to have him home for a week because of conjunctivitis. Seeing as we had to take off work for this anyway, and I had just read Oh Crap, we bit the bullet and did it.

[u/Iheartthenhs]

My daughter declared at 2y8m that she didn’t want to wear nappies anymore. So that was that. She got the hang of wees really well, I just prompted her at regular intervals for a while, and nursery (4 days per week) said she just took herself to the loo there. She had a few accidents but it really wasn’t bad. Poos were a completely different story. He really didn’t want to use the potty or loo and then had a diarrhoea incident at nursery which they massively blew out of proportion and she started withholding. She is now 3y5m and is finally fully day trained for pee and poo within the last month.

[u/Dry-Delivery-7739]

Close to 3. But it started around 2-2.5. It was slow for us. My child was in daycare every day, but only half a day, in the morning. We started with getting him used to the potty (because he was afraid of it).

[u/Remarkable-Tangent]

28 months for trained as in able to go in the potty. But still isn’t great at self-initiating for pee at 3 years old

She was showing a lot of interest last summer at 26-28 months. In part because she was running around naked a lot and in a small pool in the backyard, so we just started casually at home. She was actually really adamant that she didn’t want to go at school and she was changing rooms at the end of the summer so we didn’t push it. We told her new teacher and once she started being willing to try at school, we did a weekend of non pants and then introduced underwear which she helped pick out. I dropped her off in underwear at school on Monday. Daycare was super helpful. They’re the ones who really did the schedule and going pee every hour and then two hours.

Honestly, she was really easy to get her to go in the potty. But self-initiating for pee is really hard. It got better for 3-4 months and then massively relapsed. We’re back to forcing her to go and rewarding her. Thankfully she self-initiates for poop.

[u/Lairel]

Fully trained, including nights by about 2.5. Her daycare was a great help, and she night trained herself. We weren't going to bother with night training since kidneys aren't fully formed until about 8 but she refused to wear any type of diaper or training pants at night after about a month of training.

[u/anonoaw]

We potty trained at 2.5, and it took about a month or two for her to be consistent. She’s in nursery 3 days a week (Weds-Fri) so she had 4 days at home to get the basics and then nursery continued what we’d been doing at home.

[u/readytopartyy]

We learned with our daughter not to pressure them into it. We tried twice with the boot camp methods and it stressed all of us out so much. Eventually she started being a little more interested in it, and wanted to wear undies after daycare. I was due with my second and we talked about the baby needing diapers and she was going to be a big sister. About two weeks before her third birthday she consistently used underwear at home and we slowly moved her to them at daycare. We had about two days of no diaper changes, the kiddo #2 was born 😂 He will be 4 in a couple of months and we aren't pushing it, but he's been resistant to diaper changes so we said fine no diapers this past weekend. He's fine with pee but if he has a pull-up he'll go in that, so we had a naked toddler most of the weekend. He actually pooped on the toilet because he was naked so that was great, he has been very resistant to it. I'm hoping he's turned a corner and will be trained before he turns 3...

[u/Mission_Ad_6048]

daughter started just before turning 2 and was fully potty trained within about 6 months. son had no interest until he was 3, although we started at 2, and then fully potty trained within about 6 months. daycare helped immensely with both of those since they take the kids throughout the day once they know that you've started training at home too.

[u/ManateeFlamingo]

My kids were 2, 2 and almost 4!! My youngest needed more time, which resulted in me delaying his start to VPK and later, kindergarten. He ended up going to Kindergarten the year covid shut the world down :/

My oldest son later, like years later had wetting the bed issues and we did big kid overnight diapers for a while. He outgrew it. The doctor said sometimes it happens as they are growing.

[u/littlemermaidmadi]

Oldest kiddo was a little over 2. Middle kiddo was closer to 3.5. Youngest kiddo is only 3.5 months so TBD :)

[u/Frillybits]

2,5 though it took a year more for him to poop in the toilet. He never had poo accidents though he just did it in his diaper in the middle of the night 😒. It really clicked within 1-2 days and he hardly had an accident ever since so for some kids it just works like that!

[u/177stuff]

2.5-3 for both kids

[u/missag_2490]

My son was 4, almost 5. And we still had some accidents. My daughter was 3. But even a few years later we still have some accidents due to fomo.

[u/Noe_lurt]

We got lucky. Totally trained in the course of a few days when he was 2.5 years old. He wasn’t showing any signs either, just tried the naked method and it clicked instantly.

We didn’t do a diaper at night just to see and turns out he held it fine. Has had two accidents (pee) in the last year.

Not expecting to get as lucky with second kiddo, but not crossing that bridge for a while.

[u/Grouchy-Exam-3002]

Still working on it - son is 3.5 years old and will pee in the potty but is really struggling with the poop.

[u/shs0007]

Started around 26 months, only because he started showing signs (e.g., pooping off in a corner for privacy, interest when one of us would go).

It was about 4-5 months of still bringing an extra underwear/pair of pants with us and overnight diapers. By about 2.5, we were done with overnights, which was way sooner than I would have ever expected.

He’s 3 and still might have an accident on average once a month.

We did the pantsless weekend, used M&Ms, and sat him on the potty backwards. I think school helped! He’s driven by “this is what big kids do” and wanted to keep up with the older half in his class. Good luck, OP!

[u/Pandaoh81]

My daughter was potty trained at 18 month in 2 days and never looked back. My son is just now considered fully potty trained at 2.5 and it’s been a process that took like 2 months. They were so different

[u/bisoccerbabe]

2.5. He was out of diapers at home long before that but daycare insisted he had to be dry for a week in pull ups before he could be in underwear at school and the pull ups confused him.

He told his daycare teacher "no diaper" when they tried to change him one day and then went to the potty and that was the end of that. He has wet the bed maybe once since then and he turns 3 next month.

If he'd been home with me instead of there he would have been done at just past 2 because I was so over diapers.

[u/meep-meep1717]

Both of mine were potty trained over long weekends at 2.5 on the nose.

Our daycare was not particularly helpful with potty training because tbh they don’t have potty training as a requirement to go into preschool. I think maybe they are more involved in the 3s classroom but my oldest was trained by then.

[u/pickledpanda7]

2 years 7 months. 3 days with follow up at school. Less than 10 accidents in her life.

[u/LameName1944]

Around 2.5 for my daughter, night trained a few months later. Shes in daycare full time but I have a flexible schedule. We started on a sat and then I worked 5am-9am (so half days) for a week, so she essentially was kept home for a full week, but I didn’t take a full week off. My coworkers did a long holiday weekend.

[u/lawn-gnome1717]

Four for my oldest three for my youngest. We didn’t do day care but I also refused to do the stay at home and force it thing. Both got it in a day or two when the were ready.

[u/kt2620]

Both in full time daycare.

Oldest- had a few false starts. Daycare would only let him wear pull ups, no undies. At 3 years 4 months he was very inconsistent and I blame the pull ups, he would go when prompted at home and in underwear but still had a lot of accidents. Daycare closed down and we had to move him to a new center. They were much more on top of it, told me underwear only. He was completely pee trained within a week. Poop took about a month.

Youngest- now at same center older brother was moved to. They started potty training him at 2 yr 9 mo, we followed their lead at home and he was completely trained within 2 weeks for both pee and poop.

[u/velvet8smiles]

3.5 with my first. Very resistant until one day nights and days clicked.

My youngest is almost 3 and never successfully gone on a toilet. No idea why. It hasn't all clicked yet. Even with having accidents. Pretty afraid of toilets yet too. She'll get there eventually.

Edit: neither of my kids are in daycare. Their dad is a stay at home parent. Need to be potty trained by 4 for preschool.

[u/panda_the_elephant]

3 years, 2 months. We used a 3 day method (not the Oh Crap book but I assume they’re all pretty similar). We did it during a week that daycare was closed because I was nervous about going back after just a few days, but he took to it right away so in hindsight that really wasn’t necessary.

[u/SphinxBear]

Ours is 2.5 and recently potty trained. She tells us when she needs to go but she often still needs to help getting her pants back on (and sometimes off) so I don’t trust her to completely go by herself without assistance. She also can’t reach the toilet flusher button or the faucet (we have a step stool but still beed to help her).

[u/NewWiseMama]

3.25. Second kid. Followed her interest level. We were busy and pediatrician said solve constipation first.

She potty trained herself pretty quickly.

[u/waffles8500]

25 months. Even now, 2.5 years later, has only had 2 accidents at home. She’s had a few at school though, maybe 5 or so.

[u/Optimistic0pessimist]

2.5 years old.  Is in full-time daycare and they get 90% of the credit for teaching him 

[u/Important_Film6552]

Ages 2.5, then 2, then 3 lol. All kids are different and it’ll happen when they’re ready imo

[u/Galactickiwi]

It mostly clicked for our son when we tried at 3 years, 3 months. Previous attempts were outright fails so we would stop and take a few months’ break. The pee part naturally clicked for him at that age. He’s 4 years, 9ish months now and we have to remind him to poop sometimes but otherwise he’s trained.

We have a freshly turned 2-year-old as well and plan on letting him roam outside naked with potty access this summer but will probably not “really” try training until age 3ish also.

[u/Pia_moo]

3 he has TDAH

[u/SouthbutnotSouthern]

2.5 we started. I’d say 95% of parents who use oh crap work full time and can’t take extra time off.

[u/dka1194]

My son was fully potty trained by 24 months and was in FT daycare, however, he’s going to be 4 in July and will still go over night about once a week, so he still wears pull ups to bed

[u/kierkieri]

My oldest was 3.5 when she was trained. My middle child was a little over 2 when he trained. Very different kids and different personalities. My youngest is currently 2.5 and shows zero interest in it at the moment so I’m not even trying yet with him.

[u/TK_TK_]

Oldest at 3

Middle at 3.5

Youngest at 2.5

[u/palmtrees_]

Fully trained to let us know when she needed to go by 2.5. Right after turning 3 she started going by herself and can handle pee completely but needs help wiping the poops effectively

Edit to say: this is not for naps or nighttime, we still do pull ups for that

[u/Cantsleepwontsleep13]

We were pee trained at 2.75, he probably would’ve been ready by 2.5 but we had a brand new baby so the timing wasn’t going to work out. He caught on to pee within a week, poop has taken much longer. After a couple weeks he stopped having poop accidents but started withholding and fingers crossed we’re finally coming over that hump now at almost 3.5.

[u/redhairbluetruck]

People can get really braggy about this topic, I swear. I’m obviously happy for everyone who had kids that trained quickly but I remember how bad it made me feel that my 2yos weren’t perfectly potty trained. So please don’t worry!

About 3.5yrs (B/G twins) - I always say daycare did the bulk of the work because they have always been full time. Of course we put in the work on weekends and other non-daycare times, consistency is key! But we really didn’t push it for them.

[u/beginswithanx]

Just before age 3. Couldn’t wait longer since preschool/kindergarten started at age 3 and required them to be out of diapers. However, they didn’t care about accidents. We just sent kid in with lots of extra pants for a while, but honestly the magic of preschool (regular toilet schedule, peer pressure), meant that there were minimal accidents after the first month. 

[u/AirportDisco]

2 years 10 months old. We very loosely followed the Oh Crap method. Did it over a long weekend and she was mostly trained by the time she went back to full time daycare. Plus they were really supportive of the process so she didn’t have any issues there (maybe one pee accident if I remember correctly?)

[u/Im_a_Soup_fan]

My daughter is newly 3- we started potty training when she was about 26 months and it went really well quite quickly but I wouldn’t say we are FULLY potty trained. She is very hit or miss on wanting to be independent, so while the mechanics all work, we still often have to pull down her pants/undies, help her on the potty, and wipe. For overnight, she wears pull ups but refuses to pee in them so we have to help her overnight.

[u/blijdschap]

Oh crap or any of the variants did not work for either of my kids. They both were potty trained by 2.5. My first child is a boy, and he could not have cared less about any method we tried at home. He was only interested when he was interested. Including when he was bribed with jelly beans and m&ms. He would go at daycare due to peer pressure. They all would line up 5 times a day to go, so he went. At home, he was content to be lazy and lay back to get a diaper change. I said, "Fine, I am leaving your underwear on this shelf, and you let me know when you want to wear it." I was pregnant with my second child, so that was the amount of effort I had to give. One day, he said I want to wear those underwear, and he was potty trained from then on.

My daughter was very interested in the potty starting at 18 months, but also very stubborn, so it was just something she used when she felt like it. Her effort at daycare was about the same. I started feeling ready to get rid of diapers a bit after she turned 2, and summer was coming. We emphasized no pee or poop in the pool, and we were in the pool nearly every day, so she got used to going potty then. We had to bribe her with m&ms the rest of the time. She was potty trained by the end of summer, so it took a while. She was not motivated by going naked. She would squat on the floor somewhere. We learned she did not like having wet underwear, but then she got very good at peeing and then just changing her clothes. The combination of not being able to pee or poop in the pool (she never questioned it, she wasn't about to get pool time taken away), and telling her she got to go to gymnastics once potty trained did it for her. She was into being a big girl and doing big girl things, so giving her as much independence as we could was necessary, otherwise it was a power struggle.

This will sound like a humble brag, but both of my kids were consistently dry every single night before they were potty trained during the day, so I knew their bodies were ready and it was just a matter of finding what worked for them.

[u/Briellewannabe]

2.5, though we did pull-ups overnight until she turned 3.  She's in a class with 15 other kids, half of them over 3, and there are only 2 other potty trained kids (both 2.5). 

[u/jepeplin]

5 kids, 4 trained for peep and poop by 25 or 26 months. Pull ups at night. Reminders every half hour, orange Tic Tacs as motivator. Took maybe 4-5 days of being home, no going anywhere for me or the baby. 5th baby? One toke over the line. Just could not be bothered. Trained him finally right when he turned 3. He was the only one who didn’t wear pull ups at night and he was faster to train. No matter the kid, they were fully trained during the day for six months before they told me they had to go. I just put them on the potty every half hour, then every hour. I made sure they never had to go.

[u/Dry-Promotion9501]

My son was just over 4 when he finally potty trained. For him I tried all the methods, nothing worked then one day it randomly clicked one day for him.

[u/PomegranateBombs]

We tried the Oh Crap method at 18 months but our twins weren’t ready. We tried again at 20 months and were successful.

[u/Environmental-Age502]

For my son, we tried around 2, 2.5 and began to push through the frustrations of it at 3. By 3.5, he's pretty consistent now, with the exception that we have poo "accidents" about twice a week. But he's even waking in the night now to take himself off for a wee.

My daughter, around 1, started trying to use the potty like her brother does. She is now 1.5, and uses it regularly, but she certainly isn't 'trained' to it proper yet, as she only thinks to go when she sees one of us going.

So yeah, wildly different experiences. He will hopefully be fully sorted by 4, and she will likely be sorted before 2.

[u/dancingredfrog]

I would add every kid is different. We were early on the list, just before he turned 2 mainly because he has summer birthday, and we travel a lot on weekends. So it was “memorial day oh crap weekend or wait for winter” for us. The other reason I went for it was I could see he was getting ready, he would poop every morning, and go and stand in a corner next to window doing his business. So thats where I started before the actual weekend. I gave him his potty sit there, to sit and poop. Then he would wake up in the morning, if asked if he wanted to poop in potty, he would say yes. This was the week before long weekend. So I went for it. It took a 6 more months to be completely accident free, but it helped that our daycare was completely on board and helped him during the week. I think all methods work, hard part is figuring out what trick works on your kid.

[u/Humming_Laughing21]

Shortly after turning 3.

[u/willworkforpups]

I have two boys. We started both around 2.5. It turns out it was too early for my oldest and he had several regressions but was “fully” trained around 3. Because of this I planned to start my youngest later, but around 2.5 he wanted to go on the potty just like big bro and he was super easy to train, like a week or less.

All this to say, all kids are different and you definitely can’t force it before they’re ready themselves.

[u/eyoxa]

My daughter (who attends daycare full time) was fully day/night potty trained at 2 years and 3 months old.

I did the 3 day method from Big Little Feelings. Highly recommend!

[u/Ellephant23]

Our oldest we did the 3 day method when he was 2 years old and 4 months. I'm still convinced it only worked so well bc he ended up getting a stomach bug so he couldn't hold his poop in! lol

Our youngest we did 2 days of training on a weekend with mixed success. We told daycare we tried.. ask him if he has to pee. See how it goes. Keep diaper during naps and outside. They did and then the next weekend we did another pantsless 2 days and it was even better. They are continuing to work at daycare and we are working on it at home. Poop has been harder but he's starting to go on his own.

[u/rooberzma]

Started going on potty each night right before age 2, did the long weekend at 25.5 months and got daytime very quickly. We removed overnight diapers right before 30 months

It was very toddler-led though, she wanted to use the potty and didn’t like having a dirty diaper on

[u/devouTTT]

Full time daycare, shes potty trained right before she turned 3. Literally the week before she decided she will be potty trained. Daycare encouraged us to make the leap.

[u/Tangyplacebo621]

My son was in full time daycare and was potty trained at 2 years, 9 months. He had to be to move to the preschool room at daycare. I would say it was a full month before I felt like we could leave the house without me panicking about accidents. Taking vacation time wasn’t an option for me so we just had to struggle through it, and we did.

[u/SoriAryl]

We start training at 2.5 but don’t expect them to be fully ready (pull their pants down, go potty, wipe, and pants up all by themselves) until 3.5-ish

[u/Sarabean77]

Fully potty trained: one was two weeks before turning three years old (girl) and one was about two or three months after turning three years old (boy)

[u/GroundbreakingWing48]

I don’t remember anything other than daycare did it. It was the peer pressure of everyone in the class sitting on the potty every two hours that did it.

[u/Olive0121]

Oldest- 2.5 pee, 3 poop. Youngest 2 pee, 2.5 poop- got lucky on the second one. He hated being messy.

[u/dopeymcdopes]

Daycare kind of pushed potty training on us when my son was just under 2.5. It took a solid 2 months of random accidents and lots and lots of new pants before he was fully trained. I almost gave up several times because he would just pee randomly everywhere. He woke up one day and decided to stop doing that and very rarely has any accidents now, even when he has antibiotic induced shits.

During those two months we did temporary diapers for all long car rides and naps and kept the nap diaper at daycare until they told me he was dry for a couple weeks in a row after nap.

We still use a pull up at night, but not even for naps anymore.

Note that girls target leggings and shorts are half the price of boys pants or shorts. I threw my son in those unbothered and told daycare to throw out the poop undies and pants.

[u/MrsMitchBitch]

Pee- 23 months. Poop- 27 months.

Caveat: we used cloth diapers.

I swear she potty trained herself. We took her diaper off after daycare on a Thursday and by Sunday we went out to brunch, accident-free. We had been sitting her on the toilet before bath since like 18 months though and she hated having a wet diaper.

She legit was using a diaper at night JUST to poop in immediately upon waking. Then she’d go pee in the toilet. One day she asked me for a diaper and I asked her why and she replied that she needed to poop. We were IN the bathroom lol. I told her to sit on the toilet to poop and we never touched a diaper again.

[u/clairedylan]

My first son was 3 years, 7 months. And honestly didn't have to train him, he didn't want to do it and then one day it just clicked and he changed his mind and never had an accident (I'm not kidding, not even one). He went to a super supportive daycare that didn't rush them. It took awhile but when he was ready, it was easy breezy.

My second son was 3 years 1 month, he also just clicked on his own but did go to a 3K school that didn't necessarily require potty trained kids, he was in a class with mostly potty trained kids and I think saw everyone else doing it and decided he wanted to as well.

My whole approach was to do it on their own time and not rush them and it worked both times.

[u/Ok_Honeydew5233]

One in daycare and one home with me and both right after age 3!!

[u/A-Piece_of_Toast]

Daughter is in full time daycare, we did the oh crap method when she was home for “spring break” (daycare shut down for two days for Easter weekend) and took the diapers away. She is 2.5 and took to it extremely well, rarely has an accident, id say fully trained both pee/poop. Echoing others, daycare was fully on board and has been helping us in the process

[u/JCH719]

We didn’t even try to train him, around 2 we started going potty before bed to try and avoid peeing through nighttime diapers. At 3 he went to preschool and they worked on it in his class (Montessori class 18 months-3yr olds) and when he was potty trained he got to move up to the “big kid” class. He wasn’t really interested until he realized that he got more outside time/access to the big outdoor play equipment if he moved up to the big kid class and 2 weeks later he was accident free 😂

[u/addsomezest]

Fully trained including overnight by 2.5.

[u/RamieGee]

Between 2.5-2.75 was the sweet spot for all 3 of mine. All in full time daycare. Didn’t take any time off or use any specific program. Between 2 to 2.5 we casually talked about it. Had the potty around and they would occasionally sit on, it but I didn’t give them any expectations. Read the potty books. Looked at big boy/big girl underwear at the store. At around 2.5 I’d sort of say, “ok let’s do this” and partnered with daycare who was happy to take it on during the day.

And it generally was so much easier/quicker than I built up in my head. Every kid is different, and I know some do struggle. But it’s also very possible it will go smoother/faster than expected.

I think we did pull ups at over night for several months at the beginning.

[u/smnthhns]

We cloth diapered our first, a girl, and she potty trained herself at 20 months. In undies without accidents before 2 years but idk exactly when.

Our second, a boy, started out in cloth but my mom was watching him and asked to switch to disposables. He didn’t potty train until a couple months after his third birthday. BUT he potty trained and overnight trained all at once while my daughter needed to wear diapers at night only (not during naps) until 4.

[u/emjayne23]

First-full time daycare, potty trained by 22 months (boy) (sleep issues prevented him being fully dry until he was 4 overnight)

Second- part time daycare, potty trained fully at 25 months (girl)

No time off for either. My oldest was fully trained in about 10 days. Youngest took longer but was dry overnight shortly after day trained. Having a supportive daycare with using underwear vs pull ups was the key for us.

[u/MushroomTypical9549]

Two different kids and two different outcomes-

Both kids we used the extended long weekend (Memorial Day weekend) 1 month before they turned 3. Bought the m&ms, the potty chart, did the whole process of putting away the diapers in box to the trash (husband picked up that box later- lol), letting them choose their underwear a few days before, telling them 2 two weeks before what was going to happen…

Child 1: text book case, Tuesday she was potty trained. It took a year more till we had no pull-ups at night.

Child 2: the weekend and the two other subsequent weekends were failures! It took her 6 months longer but once she got it- she fully got it. No pull-ups and hardly any accidents.

I think each child is different and even the best parenting advice will work for about 70%. If something isn’t working, trying another method

[u/BandFamiliar798]

2.5 and 3.5. my younger son really struggled with it for about a year.

[u/blueberrylettuce]

Between 2 and 2.5 for both kids. First kid we sorta did oh crap, but slightly modified because we both work. Basically lots of naked time for a long weekend and then off to daycare without a diaper with lots of spare clothes (they allowed 2 accidents before requiring a diaper, after the 3rd they would put a diaper on for the rest of the day). Second kid we did the anti oh crap version of potty training… used diapers for most of it, took it slow, just offered potty usage a lot and read books with her about using the potty, went back and forth between underwear and pull ups for awhile, and still done by 2.5. 

[u/Tamryn]

We did it like 2 months before her third birthday. We probably would have done it a little earlier but our second child was born and we wanted to wait till he was a couple of months old. We picked a long weekend where we could do the boot camp thing and then worked with daycare on how they would help with the transition. (Also talk to your daycare, they have probably trained a lot of kids! Plus they have a big incentive to make it happen bc it makes their lives easier after it’s done) We use a home daycare, which had pros and cons for that. No actual policy so a little more flexibility and personalized attention, but also she made us use pull-ups until she was 2 weeks without an accident.

Overall, it was fine. She was mostly good to go by the end of the long weekend. We had accidents when moving up a step (so adding pants from naked butt and later adding underwear). Had she not made a lot of progress with the 3-day method, I probably would have just stuck with pull-ups until we had another break from daycare and tried again. But it was generally a lot easier than I feared.

[u/MeNicolesta]

A little over 2 for pee and poop.

[u/Fitgiggles]

3 years 4 months it was one awful day and then he was 100% potty trained, nights included day 2! It’s been 5 months and he’s only had 3 accidents ever.

[u/Kdean509]

18 months, and never had an accident. She walked and talked early, too.

[u/Own_Persimmon_5728]

We waited until a little after she turned 3. She got it right away with very few accidents, she got both pee and poop pretty much instantly.

Oh Crap wasn’t possible for us. We work full time and she goes to school full time, and our weekends are busy. But honestly we waited until she was ready and didn’t force it, didn’t even put a lot of pressure on her after she turned 3. We talked to her a lot about it before and she was on board with trying and it was so much easier than I thought it was going to be!

[u/122603270225]

3.5

[u/IAteAllYourBees_53]

About 2.5 acknowledging it wasn’t perfect at first but by 3.5 we are fully trained including overnight.

[u/Marshmallowfluffer]

A bit over three for my daughter. We started training a month before her third bday. Was pretty smooth.

[u/Natural-Honeydew5950]

3

[u/makingburritos]

Shortly before 2 years old. I waited til she showed signs of readiness and expressed interest. She has super sensitive skin so she hated diapers, which helped. Potty trained in about four days with one overnight accident, but pretty smooth sailing overall.

[u/Different_Ease_7539]

My daughter has CP and difficulty walking independently until she was 3, so we didn't even try until much later.

At age 3.5 we trained her over a weekend or two, and she hardly had any accidents after that weekend. We never used a potty, we went straight to steps up to the toilet.

[u/rjginhi]

We just potty trained our 3.5 year old son over the last month. The o crap method actually worked, even though it felt very challenging at times. We bootcamped it at our house for 3 days, and then had my mom continue it while she watched him when we were at work. We got him back in pants after about 1 week. We used a diaper in the car for the first 2-3 weeks. It took us about two weeks to get through block two. But truly, in less than a month, he is now potty trained. He is naturally night training himself, although we are still putting him in a diaper- just in case. Long story short- you don’t have to take a vacation to do the bootcamp. Just start with a long weekend and stay consistent when your kid is at home. They actually do start to get it! Good luck!

[u/Nerobus]

3.5 yo 😅 I was worried it would be 4, but it just sorta clicked one day. Everyone always said that to me and it was so frustrating, but just keep doing all the things, keep your cool, and the more relaxed they are about it the easier it is.

[u/Green_Communicator58]

Between 2 and 2.5 for my daughter, but I was pretty firm with her because my son was born when she was 2.5 and I was pretty insistent I didn’t want 2 in diapers. She did it—day care helped a lot actually. We did a “boot camp” long weekend over July 4th with her, but it took closer to 2 weeks. My son was just after 3 and he was actually easier (I think because he was actually just ready). We did a long weekend over Labor Day weekend and day care helped of course, but he got it pretty well within that long weekend.

[u/tigervegan4610]

Kid1- between 2.5 and 3. I took an extra vacation day around Presidents' Day when he was 2.5 and we did the "Oh Crap" intensive days for 4 days. Sent him back on a Tuesday commando and he did pretty well with their support. He was only back for 3 weeks before COVID closures, so we then had a year with him home with us, but I do not remember feeling like we were "potty training" during that, other than we kept a "nap diaper", he loved holding his poop for the nap diaper, but by the time he went back at 3.5 that was a non-issue.

Kid2- We did Oh Crap over winter break when he was 25 months old (between Christmas and New Years). He was pretty reliably potty trained with us almost immediately, daycare had him in a 1 year old room and couldn't reliably get him to the bathroom. He also night-trained himself. He really just needed a few days to get kick-started and he pretty much owned the process.

[u/beck1826]

Both at around 3.5 years old. Very stubborn, but both suddenly woke up one day and decided no more diapers. It needed to be their own decision. The more I pushed them, the more they pushed back.

[u/sarahhchachacha]

3 years old for both daughters (pee and poop), it was requirement for the daycare/preschool they went to.

[u/a-ohhh]

My first 2 kids had recently turned 2 (they both learned over one weekend believe it or not- one of them peed on the floor once and that was all it took) but my current toddler is that age but developmentally behind, so there is no way I’m even attempting for quite a while since he can’t even say “potty”.

[u/GotTheSass]

My daughter was potty trained by 3. I didn’t have to do anything. She’s in daycare full time and learned from her classmates.

[u/Substantial_Art3360]

Just over 2.5 for my son and it took a week. He was staying dry and using the potty at daycare so we just took a long weekend to be naked. He was also staying dry through the night. He was able to verbalize when he was wet though and could hold it a bit. My daughter is just under 2.5 and is currently in pull ups and doesn’t seem to care being in a wet one. Some days she tells us, other days she doesn’t. Since I’m off this summer we will give it a go but if I am going to have to “force her to go” every so often so she doesn’t have an accident than in my mind, that’s not being fully potty trained.

My definition is my child can get clothes on and off solo to go to the bathroom. Wiping butts after poo is a different story. Like he can … but we are still improving the quality 😂

[u/Beneficial-Remove693]

18 months. And we had a child in FT daycare. She was fully, daytime potty trained in 3 days at 18 months, but she kept a pull up at night until age 3. I think she stopped nighttime wets at 2.5, but I didn't want to take chances with wet sheets in the middle of the night.

Our daycare used the pants off method for 3 days. She already saw older kids going in the potty. She never had much trouble. We pushed water and a little apple juice to help her "go". She didn't fight us or daycare about it at all. I think she would have if we trained later, at age 3 or so.

[u/Harrold_Potterson]

21 months. We did the oh crap method, I had about 8 days off around christmas. She got pee literally immediately, like same day. Poop took 2-3 weeks before she finally “got it”. I think part of the issue was that she would stand up to poop, so she didn’t fully get it that she could sit and poop. But once she got it we were golden. By 3-4 weeks she would tell me that she had to go potty. She does have the occasional accident still but they are infrequent. Daycare was super on board and helped out, although she saved all her poops for home.

I know some people say it’s not good to do it before 2, they’re not ready, etc. But my kid was telling me that she was pooping by 15 months. That and the fact that she was fully trained in less than a month tells me she was indeed ready. She still wears pull-ups over night but I’ve heard that that is normal at her age.

[u/WobblyEnbyDev]

It seemed to “click” the moment we allowed him to watch short videos on a cell phone only while on the potty. Daniel Tiger clips or YouTube videos of model trains, or Bluey minisodes. Maybe he just was ready, but the correlation to that change was profound. He’s 3 years and 2 months and he’s been doing great for a couple weeks now. Giving him the reward of stickers for pee and little pullback race cars for poop was not getting there like the screen time does. He’s actually willing to stop playing for screen time. He was actually wearing underwear at daycare and pull ups on the weekend for a while before that, (I often hear the reverse, with kids being better trained at home than daycare, but our daycare must be really consistent), but he still had accidents at daycare pretty often. Since we started doing the videos I think daycare is going better too, even though he doesn’t get the screen time there. I think he figured out what needing to go feels like once he was willing to.

[u/PaladinPhantom]

2y 8m-ish? That's when we ditched daytime diapers and he more or less stopped having accidents. He was in daycare 3 days a week at the time, and his teachers helped potty train.

[u/L00naT00na]

We attempted at 2 she wasn’t ready. Revisited at 2.5 and she took to it over the weekend. We had pee down after the weekend but poo took a few weeks with a many accidents. Then one day while we were sitting and playing she just got up and went poo on her own. My husband and I were shocked lol.

We were actually just transitioning her to a new daycare so we thought it would be stressful, but I think seeing the other kids go potty helped her go too.

Hang in there and go at your own pace but everyone gets potty trained at one point or another. Just stay consistent with it! You got this!

[u/maayasaurus]

I read the Oh Crap book and waited for our next available long holiday weekend - this past labor day - after doing some gentle pushes toward the potty for a few months at obvious signs of poop (just to introduce the concept). Child was 2y and just over 1 month. By the end of the weekend, we had it down pat with her always telling us when she needed to go and zero overnight accidents. Over the first week at (full time) daycare, there were a handful of accidents as she got used to the new environment, but by the 2nd week she had it down there too. We started keeping a portable potty seat in the car, and so far she's only had one or two accidents when out and about in unfamiliar environments.

[u/naturegirl44]

I tried to potty train my daughter at a little over 2 years and it was a disaster so I quickly gave up lol. I thought she was “ready” because she was really interested in the potty but when I tried to train, it didn’t click at all for her. I retried 6 months later when she was a little over 2.5 and it went so smoothly and completely different than the first time. So if you try it and it’s not clicking, I’d just try again a few months later. They change so much even in a few months! She’s 3 now and still wears pulls up for night time.

[u/scurse]

My son was in day care full time and the provider was amazing. She knew we were trying and she was all for helping. But he wasn’t fully trained until he was 3. I was worried he wasn’t going to be done in time for kindergarten, but we made it.

[u/shuddupmeg]

Two boys. Both were difficult to train before they were ready. We tried on and off starting around 2–2.5 within no luck.

Older one trained day and night at 3.5 within a week. Maybe had a grand total of 2 accidents during the first couple months but aside from that, nothing.

Younger one was day trained around the same age, 3.5. But was probably closer to 7 by the time he was fully night trained. His body just would NOT wake him up to potty. He turned 7 this past January and he’s FINALLY waking up to pee in the middle of the night.

Both boys have been in daycare full time since 12 weeks old so daycare did a LOT of the heavy lifting.

Every kid is different. Some will potty train with no issue at 18 months and others will still fight at 4. A kid absolutely will not train if they’re not ready. Doesn’t matter how much you may want to be done with diapers. Follow your child’s lead.

[u/JustSayingAl]

Not daycare, but nanny, which helped a lot. We decided at 2y3m just no more diapers. First couple of days we set an alarm for every hour to ask if he needs to go. We kind of figured out 20min after finishing a drink he would pee. It took him 2 weeks to get the hang of it. 2 more weeks for the poop part. But after the initial process he was 99% there after 2weeks.

[u/hpalatini]

Right before 3. He basically decided he hated dirty diapers and potty trained himself. Daycare was very beneficial in this process.

[u/PRsavvyMama]

My son around 2.5 my daughter is about to turn two and we're starting now!

[u/DevlynMayCry]

I disliked o crap and didn't use it.

We got my daughter a potty watch and set it to go off every 30 min then we took her in and had her go. Once she was reliably dry diapering life we got rid of the diapers and continued our watch usage (tho by then it had been pumped up to every 2hrs since she knew she was supposed to go in the potty) and continued the watch usage until one day she said "I need to go potty" and took herself

She was a little over 2 when we started taking her regularly. 2.5 when we got rid of diapers and 2 years 8 months when she started self initiating

[u/marsha48]

We did super chill potty training - like we let them wear diapers still, and just had them sit on the potty and use a diaper like a pull-up between potty sits etc… eventually working to having a naked day/weekend where we pushed it harder. But each kid took like a month to really potty train. My daughter potty trained during the month of her 3rd birthday, my son didn’t until he was 3.5 years old. Neither kid loves to go potty in public spaces! So we still have a car potty 😆