Missing the PL/PT Window?

[mashrb]

Hi,

I've been reading all of your amazing advice and support for quite some time, but am, admittedly, a lurker. Maybe now I'm a reformed lurker?

Anyway. I'm hoping for some thoughts. My daughter is 21 months old. Over the past few days, she has started expressing fairly serious interest in using the potty, and has also developed some more of the stuff on those readiness checklists you see out there. So. I don't want to miss this window of opportunity with her--she's a fast learner with everything else, and my mom SWEARS she is going to potty train fast and early (she's actually been right about this type of stuff before). But we are traveling out of state for my sister's wedding over the holidays, which I know makes this a less than optimal time to start doing potty stuff, right? Or should I go for it anyway and just figure she might lose interest while we're gone?

Thanks for any guidance you all may have.

Monica

[JudiAU]

Get a potty and start. "Starting" just means having access, talking about it, sitting there at various points. I'd really suggest Diaper Free Before 3 too. It was very helpful with my son and we started at the same time. He was diaper free during the day within 5-6 months of starting and diaper free at night within a year.

[lifeguard]

I agree - go ahead & start. It's a process & part of that process is adapting around being places other than home. I never did very well at staying home for several days straight to focus on pling. We were out of the house almost every day when ds was pling & it went just fine. He was out of diapers by 22months.

[ASusan]

DS learned when we were visiting relatives out of town. Our first day staying at SIL's house, I asked DS, "Underwear or diaper?" and he said, "Underwear!" and didn't look back. He went to the potty about 45 times the first day, 40 times the next, and by the end of the week, he was down to a normal number of visits. Had about 3 misses all week.

He didn't even use a potty seat - just balanced on whatever big toilet was around.

[mashrb]

Thanks for the replies. We have had a potty for a while, and she liked sitting on it at first (several months ago), but then wanted nothing to do with it for a long time. Until this week, in fact. But she says she needs a "new potty," which is actually true--the one we have is teeny tiny. So I guess we'll go get her a new potty and see what happens. I'm annoyed that Diaper Free B/f Three isn't at our local library, but I can prob. find it at the bookstore. I've searched the forum for general starting out advice, and I've gleaned that naked time is good, taking her to the potty at regular times throughout the day is good (like after nap, etc.). Anything else? THANK YOU!!