Potty Training Poll

The results are in! It looks like most of our boys were trained by age 3 -- but also that there's a wide variation in ages for potty training.

christinemm had a question, though, and she brings up a good point:

A note on the poll on potty training. I wonder if people misunderstood your word "by"?I take it if my son was trained at age 3 yrs 1 month I'd vote "by age 4". Every boy I know was trained while 3 years old, or four and one older than that due to having severe autism and being nonverbal.I cannot believe that even 5% of boys were totally toilet trained when only one year old. Refuse to believe it.

She's right: I probably should have been more clear about "by." But I was one of the five people who voted for "by age 2," and I did indeed have a son who was potty trained by one-and-a-half.

I had no intention of potty training Boy #3 before age two, but he apparently had other plans. Maybe it was because he had older brothers. Maybe it was because he has fabulous motor control; he walked early and now at age six, is athletically coordinated beyond his years.

Whatever the reason, though, when he asked to sit on the potty at a year-and-half, I listened.

I broke a lot of the "rules" with him. He didn't have words to tell me he needed to go on the potty; at a year-and-a-half, he wasn't talking much at all. Instead, he used his own signs and gestures and sounds to let me know when he wanted to go.

He couldn't pull his own pants up and down yet either. And he was so small that I literally had to hold him on the toilet set. He woudln't have passed this quiz, designed to help determine whether your child is ready for potty training.

But I didn't look at the quiz or the expert advice. I looked at my child, and he wanted to try going on the potty. I had no expectations of him whatsoever -- my plan, after all, had been to wait until he was at least two before even introducting the potty -- but it turned out that he was ready.

Anyone else? Who else had a son who was potty trained by age two?