Potty training 18 month old?

Toddler 1-3 Years

I wasn't planning on potty training until 2, but my almost 18 month old is obsessed with the potty. I'm a first time SAHM. She always comes with me to the bathroom and gets excited to go see the potty. She will talk about it, grab toilet paper and pretend wipe herself (over her clothes), and recently she built a structure with blocks, sat on it, and called it a potty. She shows some other signs of readiness too, like waking up dry from naps, tugging at her diaper when she pees, occasionally saying "diaper" and pointing to the changing table if she needs a change, and saying "poop" while pointing to her diaper if she poops and sometimes even if she is about to poop.

I got her first potty tonight and she was very excited to sit on it. She definitely knows that poop goes in the potty because she was 'pushing' while sitting on it and passed gas a few times while saying "poop" but she normally only poops once in the morning so nothing else happened. I think poop will be easy because it's something she's aware of and can talk about and she poops on a regular schedule, but I'm not so sure about pee. Should I just start with poop? How do I know when she needs to pee?

I'm not in any rush to get her potty trained. Like I said I wasn't even planning on starting this early. But it seems like something she wants to do, so I feel like I should take advantage of it right now while she is so interested.

Any tips would be appreciated. There's a lot of information out there, so Google is a bit overwhelming to me right now. I've been a lurker in the parenting subs for a while, so I thought it might be helpful to start here. Thanks in advance!

Posted Dec 8, 2025, 3:37 AM UTC

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