She sat on the potty - now what!

DD2 marked her 18 mo birthday by telling me she wanted to sit on the potty, and making a successful deposit (poop).
Considering my awful track record with helping my toddlers through this stage, I'm looking for ideas of how to go with her motivation without "blowing it".
DD1 was about this age when she showed me she wanted to use the potty, and was in underwear in the house at 21 months when ds1 was born, but then regressed and had a really hard time becoming dry again, which she achieved much later (closer to 3.5). The boys were even harder to get out of diapers.
I really hadn't considered working on this till dd was older, but if she's showing an interest, I don't want to hold her back!
So, if you had a toddler who can't even say the relevant words yet, but is showing an interest in the potty, how would you proceed?

Put the potty out in plain view and follow her directions?

I don't know if this will work for you but we have wood floors and not a lot of non-family traffic so both of mine have trained just by being naked for several days and having access to the potty...they each had a few accidents on the floor and then realized they had to get to the potty. I waited to start until they showed definite interest. Congrats to your dd2 on her accomplishment!!!!

My dd is interested in sitting on the potty but has yet to do anything other than pee (she's 23 mo). Ds1 wasn't interested until he was over 3. Ds2 trained spontaneously around 28 months when I wasn't expecting to even raise the topic with him before ds3 was born. So much depends on the individual kid!

So, do you think this was a one-off, or should I do some encouraging?
I'm worried about making too big a deal of it and turning her off. But, if she's ready and I don't make the most of the opportunity, then will I miss the boat and make it harder to train her when she gets older?

I think a lot of the impetus at the moment (she sat on the potty yesterday with her diaper on, then again today) is because she is with me when I go, and she sees the potty in the main-floor bathroom (plus she loves to join ds2 who keeps forgetting to close the door properly!). I talked to her a bit about big kids not wearing diapers, in the same way that we talk about big kids deciding not to nurse any more.
How can I tell if she's really ready?

Just keep providing no-pressure opportunities, at that age. Keep the potty in the place where she seems to want to sit on it. Take off her diaper before you use the toilet, if she's mimicking you. Get her a picture book about potties (we have a sesame street one, and another one with a hedgehog) to read while she sits, if she wants. Let her pour out the pee into the toilet and flush... and help her was her hands and play with the sink water. Positive experiences will help her want to go back for more, and if she doesn't pick up on the connections (and that first poop was an accident that landed in the right place) it will be obvious she's not ready.

There are different levels of "ready". Don't discourage it or anything, but don't do the full-court-press of aiming for dry underwear, either, she's just too young for it to matter to her consistently.

She's emulating you, fantastic, let her practice, but don't expect anything.

Thanks Shira and LFE. You both echo my hunch about this. I wouldn't be surprised if we don't have another deposit for a while, and I can relax and not worry about letting it drop. I might find a second potty to keep in my bathroom, which is where the diaper pail is, so that when I deposit the pail and take the opportunity to make my own deposit, she can sit too, if she feels like it. Otherwise, I'm going to let it drop, and just follow her cues.

ds2 has also shown a lot of interest/ability since he was about 15 months - at a year he was removing his diaper and by 15 months he was telling us sometimes before he peed - so sometimes, we actually removed his diaper and put him on the toilet (on a potty insert seat). And sometimes, he pees. We applaud. We flush together, wash hands together, then put on the diaper again and resume our activities. We don't make it a big deal, but ds2 is now just turned 2 and is recognizing the sensation of needing to pee, so that's great. Like you, we don't expect a lot, but are happy to facilitate and make it possible if he's ready.

this post is very apropos. DS 18 mo is just starting to talk about "pishy" and telling me when he is wet. I was wondering what the next step was and figuring I'd just buy a toddler seat insert and put him on the seat whenever I change his diaper to give him the opportunity to pee in the toilet. Is that too aggressive an approach?

Not so much aggressive as pointless.

It is a good idea to cultivate awareness of how the body works, talk about pishy, and how big people have dry underwear. Just informational at this point.

There's no way he can be consistent at this age, and any intermediate thing you do will have no long-term effect or meaning.

Next year Pesach time, you can do a seminar with him where you actually practice having dry underwear. It's a very good and realistic motivational method. But only when he's old enough to take care of himself, and now he is not.

Adina, a potty insert would be quite pointless b/c YOU are the one putting him on every time. But a potty seat on the floor + naked time may be appropriate now (actually, scratch the naked time, it's a bit chilly for that unless you use heat). This way you can see if he's really ready and you don't have to do a thing.

Right after I posted the question, dd got sick, and I figured that was the end of the whole thing. I figured I'd wait till this summer, and take advantage of being able to be outside and spend nakey time. What with the temperatures dropping, I'm not in a hurry to encourage anything.
So, I was totally surprised today when dd pointed furiously at the bathroom door when she saw her brother go in and close it behind himself. Despite being barely verbal, she managed to communicate that she wanted to sit on the potty, that she didn't want to go upstairs to sit on it (it was in the upstairs bathroom) and she wanted it brought down to the main floor bathroom, which is where we had been keeping it (for visitors). She did sit, produced a #2, and seemed confused and gave negative signals when I dumped the contents and flushed (not distressed, just that I shouldn't dump the potty out). Then she sat back down and produced a #2 whilst pointing to the appropriate part of her anatomy. So, we dumped and flushed again, and washed hands and then we put on a clean diaper.
I verbalized what she'd done, and talked about how the diaper keeps her clothes dry.
After supper, she pulled at her diaper again, I took her to the potty and helped her undress, and she produced again. She didn't want to go upstairs to get a new diaper, so I let her play without one for a while until it was pj time. I reminded her about not wearing a diaper, and needing to use the potty. I made a comment at bed time about how she had kept her pants dry.

Now that I'm back to following her lead, what do you think I should do?

More of the same

If you see that it goes on for a few weeks straight, you might consider going all in, and doing the "dry underwear thing"

Usually, they're too young at this age (plus winter), but maybe she's done with diapers

She's asked to use the potty 3 times so far today, and successfully deposited twice. I'm concerned about her getting discouraged by lack of success. Do you think we can take it really slowly and still make progress? I was thinking that if I kept her in diapers, and took her only when I saw her making obvious signs, and kept naked time to a minimum (eg when she doesn't want a clean diaper after a try), then she will still get the concept?
With two of my kids, despite asking and showing readiness signs early, we had to take big steps backwards when we were almost done with diapers. DD1 went back into diapers despite being in underwear at home, when ds1 was born. DS2 went to nursery almost trained, and the teachers couldn't handle the accidents and insisted in pull-ups, which essentially put him back in diapers for the entire school year.
I think a big part of the difficulty each kid had was the inconsistency and the lack of confidence that happened when they took a break.
Any wise words of advice?

The important thing to not discourage her, is to not let her sit very long. I had the child count to 10 slowly, and if nothing happens, get up. Call it "practice".

That is the crux of the dry underwear method. Fine, let me go over how it's done (although the right time for that is spring and summer, not winter).

1. Motivation: dry underwear. Mommy has dry underwear, Daddy has dry underwear, Cinderella has dry underwear, etc, etc. It's not about what goes into the toilet, that's just the method for keeping underwear dry.

2. Practice. This is the script: "Lets say you're playing over here, and you have to make a pishy. What do we do? We say, "No, pishy don't come out!" and we RUN RUN RUN to the bathroom! (you're doing this along with her, see? not just talking her through it, actually running alongside, it's a lot of fun. continually talking her through the process: "Then you pull down your underwear (just her this time, with a bit of assistance but not much, or else what's the point?), and sit on the toilet. Then we count to 10, 1..2...3...10. It came out? Good. No? Next time. OK, now we wipe, we flush, we pull up our underwear (by herself as much as possible), and LOOK! YOU HAVE DRY UNDERWEAR!

This needs to be done dozens of times throughout the day in order for the practice to be effective. Just like when she was practicing to walk.

You have to interrupt what she's doing for the practices, that's part of the point that keeping dry underwear entails stopping what you're doing to go to the bathroom.

3. When the underwear is not dry, we change the underwear and clean up (that's you, knowing how to clean up is not part of the basic skill here), and LOOK: YOU HAVE DRY UNDERWEAR!

Throughout the day, point out how wonderful and mature she is that she has DRY UNDERWEAR. Most of the day, she will.

This system works beautifully with 2yos. Within a few days, they can stay dry at least at home, and often even outside the home.

I used it successfully with everyone after my oldest (because I had no clue as a first time mother). The younger ones barely needed any practice, because they had older siblings to emulate, who all had dry underwear.

What I like about it is that it puts the emphasis on the correct part of the goal: staying dry. It's not about producing or not producing, and gets rid of the boring, annoying, and confusing aspect of toilet training: sitting on the toilet until something comes out. Who'd want to do that?

Now, what here is relevant to you now? The counting, the concept that when she's big, she will have dry underwear, the concept that pishy goes into the toilet, etc.

Hope this helps