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Go for it! I am a huge proponent of “early” potty training. We trained DD2 when she was almost 21 months and it went great. Compared to when we trained DD1 at almost 24 months, she seemed to just take for granted that this is what we do now. Like your daughter, DD2 seemed to get distressed when she pooped and would definitely be upset if she just did it on the floor or in the shower, and she ended up potty training on her own really (we didn’t have to put her on the potty, she would just do it).

DD2 still has some accidents, mostly when she’s sick or distracted. She is almost 100% successful at school so idk if it’s a weird thing about being around me and having accidents. I also won’t be attempting nap and night training anytime soon.

We successfully potty trained at 21 months, but looking back, I'm not sure if it was the right decision or not. She caught on to daytime potty training pretty quickly (within 3 or 4 days), but couldn't seem to master naps/nights. The book we used (Oh Crap! Potty Training --love this book!) strongly suggested doing both night and day at the same time, but after another ten days of only 50% success at night, we finally just decided to use diapers then and potty train nights/naps later.

I think the book was right. We would haves saved money on diapers and a lot of stress later if we'd done both simultaneously. I think it took us another year to finally ditch nighttime diapers. We took the path of least resistance but I don't think it was the wise thing to do.

It's worth noting that the book lists 21 months as the very earliest age to attempt potty training. Was my toddler capable of night training if only we had stuck to our guns, or was she not developmentally ready? I don't know. But if we had waited even just until 24 months, I would have been more confident that she could do it and I think we would have had more success.

Of course, you could argue we were successful because she was 90% trained during the day. And yeah, it was so much more convenient than diapers. But if I could do it all over again, I would be 100% adamant she potty train both night and day from the start, and if she couldn't do that at 21 months, I'd go right back to diapers until 4-6 months later when we could try again. Just my two cents!

@Stardust17: it suggests doing it at the same time and picking two times to wake your child up. I think 10 and 2 kind of thing. She says do it in the dark or a dim light and just quietly wake them and put them on the toilet or potty and hold them up because they’ll likely be asleep and then put them back into bed.

She says if you don’t want to night and nap train at the same time then just explain why you put a diaper on at those times to your kid. {That’s likely the style of training the kid you nanny is doing, it’s just gradual. Neither way is necessarily better and the same goal is achieved. }Say something like “it’s hard to remember to wake up when you’re sleeping for a long time so you will wear a diaper and then when you wake up we’ll take it off and you can go and pee and poo in the potty”.

I did not want to wake my child up to do night potty training as she doesn’t nap anymore and I feel her sleep is precious. 28 months old. We have been doing it nearly 2 months and her night time diaper has much less pee in it and she does a huge pee in the morning and gets upset if she can’t get her diaper or pull up off. The few times she has passed out on the car or in her bedroom for a nap 1.5 hours or less she has never peed in her underwear. I’m hoping she’ll just gradually not pee at night or wake up by herself because I’m not interested in being woken up anymore than I am by her younger sibling. I consider it a plus that I no longer have to change poos and pees all day so one slightly damp diaper per day is no big deal to me.

I think the reasoning for doing day/night simultaneously is that some kids will hold out for a nap/night diaper rather than actually using the toilet. Most kids are developmentally ready to be dry during sleep at around the same time they can daytime potty train, others simply can't until they're much older.

The other thing to keep in mind is that kids who potty train young typically can't go independently until they're 3 or older. My almost-3-year-old is still in pull-ups overnight even though he wakes up dry 90+% of the time because if he does need to go overnight, he can't necessarily get one of us awake to help him in time for us to get to the bathroom. The amount of time between "I have to pee" and "I did pee" is SHORT for toddlers.