Thanks for your input (all of you). I still can’t figure out why something that seemed so monumentally important at the time is totally lost in my memory.
I think you can wait too long. I did. My kids’ nursery school didn’t insist that the kids be fully potty trained, so there was no pressure on us. But I should have started earlier. By the time I did start, both kids had gotten accustomed to having bowel movements standing up. One adjusted to sitting on the toilet within a few weeks, but the other took more than a year and was about four and a half before being fully trained.
Can you imagine having a child who is dry day and night but who has to ask for a diaper to poop in once a day? That was the routine at our house for more than a year.
My grandson was pretty resistant to potty training but needed to do it because he was in a 3-year-old preschool program. The thing that finally motivated him was a “Potty Watch”. No joke. It’s a digital device the kid wears like a watch (shaped, no kidding, like a potty) that goes off at what ever interval you set it for. When that watch went off, he went to the potty. He thought it was awesome! His mom also developed a pretty detailed rewards system with a sticker chart. Bam! Motivation established and he was done.
This is from remote memory, but we used to draw little targets on pieces of toilet paper for the boys to aim at. We als had their favorite tv character (ahem ahem…) call them while they were on the potty and tell them how proud they were that they were on the potty. The tv character only “called” when they were on the potty.
For the life of me I can’t remember what steps we took to potty train. I do remember it was not the winter, so my kid must have been about 2 1/2. I vaguely remember a reward system with stickers, and we had a potty seat.
What I do remember is that potty training made her realize the difference between boys and girls. The moment she was potty trained she insisted on wearing only skirts or dresses – I also suspect that they were easier to deal with when using the toilet. She didn’t wear pants again until first grade.
I worked full time when I trained D. We started when she wanted to wear “big girl pants” - she was around 2 1/2. She wore a diaper to daycare then underwear in the evenings and on weekends. I told her that as soon as she made it through a weekend day with no “oops” she could wear the underwear to daycare. As I recall this worked well for us and she trained very quickly.
ETA- this was totally against conventional advice. Most of what I read said for me to train her when I had a week off from work and could do this full time. But it worked for me.
The key is teaching the child how to stay dry, not asking them if they have to go to the bathroom. I used the book, “Toilet Training in Less Than a Day.” It was written in the 70’s by psychologists who were trying to help mentally delayed children learn to use the toilet. All 3 of my children learned in less than 8 hours using this method.
LOL. That might put him off of tootsie rolls forever.
" and the prizes."
I used the prizes method. Two days and he was completely trained and he wasn’t two yet. I went to the dollar store and bought 30 or so small things, wrapped them up and put them in a big bowl on the dining room table. S was very curious about what I was doing, so without making a big deal about it, I told him every time he went on the potty he could pick a gift from the bowl. I think he ran to the potty every 5 minutes in the beginning!
At 3, D2 was potty trained during the day, but would wet her bed at night every once in a while. I suspected she did it out of laziness or just too sound asleep. She saw a gift basket at her school’s silent auction that she loved (a lot of plastic jewelry and dolls) and we didn’t win. I told her if she didn’t wet her bed for 30 days then I would get her that gift basket. Every day we crossed out a day on the calendar and she was very good. I ran out on the 28th day to get all necessary stuff from Toys R Us to make the basket. It was a big day when we gave the basket to her on the 30th day. She was beaming from ear to ear. I was patting myself for a job well done.
Yup, she wet her bed that night!
We did it over the Thanksgiving.
Forget 2 y o. It just did not happen with us. She turned 3 at the beginning of October, so she was over 3 y o.
Was simple at this age. We knew that we have only long weekend, then she had to go back to her child care. So, we just put panties on her instead of any pull ups or whatever, at 3 y o they understand consequences of wetting your panties much better than a 2 y o would. it just did not happen, not a single time. She did not want to be uncomfortable and embarrassed. The #2 took longer, she was holding for 3 days and I was ready to give up and put the diaper on her. But then, she gave up holding and went to the bathroom. She was ready to go to her child care on Monday, we provided a spare panties, but they never had to use them.
Whatever program she was in was OK taking her while she was not potty trained. She ended up going to kindergarten early, actually started few days before she turned 5 y o which was not easy to accomplish, but we were ready to pay, so some private kindergarten took her.
Count me as another person who has no recollection at all of potty training. Which amazes me. 
I do recall that he was at least 3, and I was probably working several days a week at the time. So it must have been both us and his daycare.
ETA: It just came back to me that I asked my H to teach him to pee standing up. I felt that was his area of expertise. 
I asked my husband to teach our son how to wipe himself. I couldn’t figure out how a guy is supposed to do that. I mean, there are things in the way, aren’t there?
We waited till we had time off at Christmas. DD was about to turn 3. I set the heat to about 75 and had her run around naked. By that age she knew that life would turn upside-down if she peed (or worse) on the floor or furniture.
I think we still did pull-ups at night till there were no lapses for while. I think that learning muscle control while you’re awake trains the mind to use it at night very quickly.
Is it universal that kids wipe themselves with fewer “incidents” if they scrunch up the paper rather than folding it?
I don’t recall potty training either but I do have a picture of my oldest daughter reading wsj upside down while sitting on a pot. The second one completely escaped me,
OK, maybe this will give everyone a good laugh, but it’s the honest truth. Oldest S was 3, for sure, and wanted nothing to do with becoming toilet trained. Sheer stubbornness. So, one day I told him that we were going to stay in the bathroom all day until he used the toilet. I brought toys, games and books into the bathroom and stayed and played with him. He refused to use the toilet. Lunchtime arrived and I said that I would get his peanut butter sandwich and bring it upstairs to the bathroom so that he could have lunch. I don’t think he really believed me, but I brought the sandwich upstairs. He went right over to the toilet, used it appropriately, and that was the end of our war of wills.
I had a very judgmental mother in law during the days of potty training. She bragged that she had her kids " trained " at 9 mos 
…the reality was that she sat in the bathroom and forced her babies to sit until something came out…I so didn’t appreciate her input. One way or another , they all learned when they were ready , and that ranged from 2-3 years. One of my daughters was born with an issue with her bladder so staying dry at might was tough and took her years to be reliable to not have an accident. Another had an issue with her bowels that also made it hard to stay dry at night and had to wear pull ups until she was 5. I was kind of surprised at how common this issue is and some kids are MUCH older until they get full control.
We visited relatives, with 2 boys, slightly older than my son. Every toilet in their big house had a different potty. The boys ran around trying them out. My son wasn’t acing the TT, but that weekend was IT. He really got what all the training was about.
M&M’s. D was trained at 18 months and S (surprised me) at 22 months.
They both had a potty that we moved around from room to room and they sat, got an M&M, we read books and such.
A few days each. What I do remember is being surprised as I did not care about this. I do think the lack of pressure helped.
D was only 19 months and did not want the nighttime diaper on. A nurse I worked with had 7 kids and told me that if she did not want it to leave it off. I did and she never once had an accident. I was shocked.
I have pretty strong beliefs about potty training. One is physiologic readiness of the bladder. If your kid is waking up from naps/overnight with a dry diaper, they have enough holding capacity to start using the bathroom. Let the child watch how you use the toilet and speak about it in matter of fact terms. Never praise, never chastise, never reward. Stay calm and matter of fact about the entire process. Keep emotional reactions to a minimum, for some children praise can create a lot of pressure that can lead to problems.