By providing a potty before age twelve months, noting children's schedule of elimination, and having them sit on it several times a day (perhaps while you read a story to encourage them to stay put), toddlers may accept the potty as a part of life. With lots of praise for an occasional success and compensation for the loss of the pleasurable time having their diapers changed, some youngsters can be trained very young — if they are physically capable of stopping and starting the flow of urine.

Few children have this ability before age one, however. In some cases, parents who claim their youngsters were trained at a very young age may in fact have trained themselves to predict their toddler's need to use the potty and get them there at the right time. Most children will be in diapers throughout most or all of their toddler years, so parents should consider all the diapering options.