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We did the 3 day method. On day 2 she was going by herself!

We waited until she was ready. She was around 2.5 years old. It took less than one day and she had very few accidents (most accidents happened in the bathroom because she couldn't get her panties off in time)

We kept putting it off until 2.5, but she was trained in a day with no accidents so I guess it was ok to wait!

We used Jamie Glowacki's approach (not a 3-day method) with C at 19 months. He was trained within about 3 weeks for day and within a month for night. It took longer because in his toddler room at daycare they didn't have little potties in the room until he moved up a class so they couldn't get him to a potty as quickly each time and he didn't like the standard size toilet that was closest for awhile. It was overall a great approach for us.

@locavore_mama: Yeah, we did stuff like ask if she wanted to sit on the potty, letting her wear training pants sometimes, watching the Elmo Potty Time DVD (there is a fun song on that one), and giving her mini M&M's when she produced something on the potty. But we didn't really push it. Her teachers at school also would ask her if she wanted to potty at diaper change time. Then we picked a 3 day weekend and did it. I have a feeling it's gonna take a little longer with my DS though.

@locavore_mama: we did the 3 day bottomless method at 24 months and it worked great! @chopsuey gave me lots of good tips. I wrote about our experience on another thread...I'll copy and paste

That was one of my biggest fears - getting sick from diaper changes while pregnant. So we just potty trained my 24 month old girl in early November. We did the 3 day bottomless method and it worked great. I LOVE not changing poopy diapers. She does her business in the little potty chair but dumping out a poo into the big toilet is soooo much easier than handling a poopy diaper in my opinion.

Chopsuey gave me lots of great tips. I also read this baby center post over and over again.

http://www.babycenter.com/0_potty-training-in-three-days-or-less_10310078.bc?showAll=true

Honestly, the first two days were awful - accident after accident and I was nonstop cleaning up pee...I almost wanted to give up bc I was tired of staying home and tired of cleaning pee....but on the third day she just started walking to the potty chair and going pee and poo herself...it was awesome! There were a few accidents when we started going out with pants but I learned to start taking her to the potty every hour and now we have been accident free in public for several weeks.

They say accidents are key to learning bc they start paying attention to their body and what they are feeing...and they learn to listen to their cues and go walk to the potty when they feel the urge to pee. So when you see them peeing you carry them to the potty and they finish in the potty...and they say after 10-15 hits in the potty they "get it" and start using the potty independently. I tracked our potty days and sure enough after 11 hits on the potty she got it. We are still bottomless at home just to reinforce her listening to her body but we are able to go out and do our usual activities. She does wear a diaper at nap and bedtime and it hasn't caused a regression. I tried using pull ups in public and it caused a major regression and we had to retrain and stay home for a day....so I don't use pull ups ever.
18 months is super young but the baby center article says it can work as young as 15 months. I met a 16 month old who successfully potty trained so it is possible. I felt like 24 months was perfect but looking back I think I could have tried earlier

ETA: my mom took a day off of work to help me one day and that was a big help...one adult should be with LO at all times so when LO starts peeing you take them to the potty. We put the potty chair in the play room area. She also got one M&M for every success and after a week I stopped and she forgot about it.