[SKL]

I think the first thing you want to do is define your philosophy about this skill. I say this because you may get a wide variety of answers, from "start 'em ASAP" to "wait until he tells you he wants to." You may want to do some Web research and read not only what the "experts" espouse but also some parents' comments. Believe me, there is a ton of discussion on this if you just do a quick google search.

I decided to start early for a variety of reasons. It means that I had to be very in tune with my daughters' eating, sleeping, and elimination cycles and, initially, spend more time in the bathroom than I would have spent changing diapers. My daughters started at 9 and 12 months old, and were out of diapers day and night at ages 17 and 19 months. They are now 22 and 25 months old, and I still need to help them in little ways, like reminding the younger girl that she needs to go to the potty periodically even if she doesn't want to stop her play. I still need to be mindful of how much time has passed since my younger daughter's last meal/drink/potty stop, and we need to make multiple potty stops when we are out shopping and such. So while this is fine with me, it isn't for everyone.

I started by paying attention to when the girls would have a bowel movement, and started putting them on their potties around those times, and gave them something to do so they didn't want to jump right up again. Pretty soon they didn't feel right having a bowel movement in their pants. A little later, I began setting them on the potties approximately once every hour and encouraged them to pee in there (saying "psss" - sounds weird but it works). I was catching most pees this way and switched them to pull-ups at age 12 mos and 15 mos. Soon thereafter, I started offering treats - one for being dry, one for peeing in the potty - to encourage them to try to hold it or ask to go potty. Finally, when it got warm enough for them to go outside barefoot and mostly naked, I brought the potties outside and put them in panties full-time. At that time, my then-20mo was pretty much trained already (we just used back-up protection for outings and sleep), and she's only had about 2 daytime accidents since then. Within 3 days, my younger (then 17 months) had learned to hold it and get to the potty almost every time. About 2 weeks later, I started putting them to bed in panties, and they usually woke up dry.

Well, that's what worked for us. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.