Early potty-training tips

I trained our daughters at 25 and 18 months when they showed signs of being ready. I would look for those signs in your 14 month old if you think you're ready to start - Google or find a potty-training book to learn about this. I used this book for my first daughter, followed the instructions and had no problems - but again she was a bit older (25 months). 

I can't give you advice about training a 14-month old from experience - other than to say that even though my 18-month old was ready in a lot of ways, she had way more accidents than the one we trained at 25 months, so expect lots of accidents if you really want to do this. 14 months (and even 18 months) is just pretty young to be ready to hold it in.

You can buy toddler underwear with a thicker pad for minor accidents, but my guess is that a 14-month old would not be able to stop mid-stream so you will still need to clean up the mess and you might as well just go with regular underwear so she really feels it. Whatever you do, put away your rugs and cover up your furniture. :)

Hi! At 14 months you should consider using Elimination Communication strategies. Check out a book like The Diaper Free Baby, for example. 

You’re absolutely right that re-acquainting your toddler to feel wetness is the first step for her— I recommend Tiny Undies. You can layer their training undies with TinyUps, a thicker cloth cover to wear over their training undies:

https://tinyundies.com/products/tinyups

Lots of learning curve here so take it slow. 
Good luck! 

Look into Andrea Olson, she does elimination communication and has a lot of resources for toddlers too - I’m blanking on the name of the brand she has but sells underwear too although her recommendation is just naked and no underwear for the first several days!

The smallest training pants I’ve found is made by Tiny Undies (I have them and they shrink and run small, so chunky babies should size up). They also make a pull-up waterproof shell to wear over the training pants, as well as baby underwear. 

I am still in the process so I can’t speak to endgame, but here’s my experiences so far in case it is helpful. I have read (and observed) that babies physically can hold poo as early as 6mo, if given the opportunity. Our grandparents’ generation started pottying their babies between 6-12mo (some people still do it, I met a mother from Mexico whose mother encouraged her put her baby on the potty at 11mo), and after speaking to them about their experiences I started to put my baby on a potty chair at wakeups and diaper change time with toys, and baby was consistently pooing in the potty by 6mo with no additional input from me. There’s been maybe five poos hitting the diaper between 6-12mo, nearly all due to day-long road trips. My baby showed readiness before speech capabilities by crying and fussing whenever pooing in a diaper, clearly they were uncomfortable. I presented an alternative and it was accepted. At this point sitting on the potty is part of their life as much as sitting in the stroller or car seat or high chair. 

As for pee, it seemed pretty random until about 11mo, when I noticed dry intervals lengthened. I put my baby in cloth diapers and that gave both baby AND me better feedback about when pee occurred. I saw dry times lengthen from about 30min up to 1.5-3 hours at 13mo. Not quite there yet and not certain how to wrap up, but about every other day there’s no wet diaper. When outdoors I just put her commando in pants, as recommended by both my mother/grandmother and the popular Oh Crap! potty training book (starting with poo going into the potty gives me the confidence to do that, since pee washes of clothes super easy). It is a game changer to just pull down pants for the potty rather than fumbling with the diaper, as you said. It’s a matter of personal preference but I find it easier to toss a pair of peed pants into the wash than wrestle a fussing, arching baby into diapers. In any case it already feels like a significant life improvement to have only wiped five poos off my baby in the last half year, that alone is totally worth it to us even if pee is still hit-or-miss, so I whole-heartedly recommend a minute or two of sitting on the potty chair at wake up and diaper changes regardless of what happens to the pee. 

Ease into it with cloth diapers:  less stress re leak protection for you, and that motivating icky wet feeling for your young one.  

I used Tiny Undies to help my son learn to use the potty. The owner Andrea has a whole training on elimination communication (go diaper free) online + books. I started when my son was 8 months and he was wearing regular underwear by 1.5. I found her knowledge incredibly helpful in supporting my son. He’s now 3 and has only had a few accidents at night. But can go pee and poop independently since 2. 

Check out Elimination Communication, it will tell you how to potty train a child that young. I follow Andrea Olson. She has an IG, podcast, a book, and she sells tiny potty’s and reusable underwear. FYI planning to potty train my 9.5 mth old as soon as she starts walking. She’s been using a potty since she was 4 days old. 

Website: 
www.godiaperfree.com 

Hello! Both my children were potty trained before age 2 (maybe around 20 months). This is because they both went to a daycare who believes in starting kids on potty training very early. They do it in stages-the first stage starts probably as early as age 1 with going potty with the older kids and sitting on the potty throughout the day. This gets them into the routine and there's no pressure to do anything; they still wear a diaper during this phase. They get used to it very quickly and learn from their peers. They also get used to practicing pulling their pants down and up, which is important. Our kids started actually going potty at school eventually and then after a lot of practice their teacher let us know when it was time to start at home. For our first son she recommended no underwear and pants only. For the second she said underwear was fine. There were lots of accidents with our first for the first couple of weekends, but not a ton with our second. In general our second was faster to hold his pee for longer periods of time for whatever reason. We just changed clothes several times but didn't end up using padded underwear or anything for either one. This also meant both kids were comfortable going #2 at school, which I know can be a big issue for older kids. We actually had a harder time getting them used to going at home, but did lots of books, pictures, bribery, metamucil in water, etc. and they figured it out. For both kids I was very happy that they were potty trained before age 2. It just felt like they accepted that this is part of life and didn't protest much. For our first we had the watch the clock constantly so he wouldn't have an accident so it was not very relaxing for a while until he got the hang of it, but that was the only con for us. Our 2nd is almost 3 and stopped wearing diapers for nap several months ago.

Obviously you know your kid best, but just as a counterpoint, we waited a lot longer to potty train our kid (she had just turned three) and it was such a breeze -- fast and essentially no accidents, she just got it right away.  A lot of our friends who tried significantly earlier complained to us of so many potty accidents with their younger kiddos.

We haven't yet hit the potty trained milestone yet but we are also starting potty training early with our 10-month old, hoping to be diaper free by 18-months! We've been doing some form of Elimination Communication since 4 weeks old and our baby goes potty on the toilet first thing in the morning and we catch most poops in the toilet too. Check out Tiny Undies https://tinyundies.com/ or https://godiaperfree.com/elimination-communication/ (or join the Go Diaper Free Facebook group). There are lots of resources like undies, training toilets, and books.

I suggest the book Diaper Free Before 3. With my eldest, I got him trained to poop on the potty before he was out of diapers around 15 months which was great and made the subsequent step easier. 

If you search for "training underwear" there are several brand that will help contain a pee accident but usually won't prevent pants from also getting wet, but I preferred it to ending up w huge puddles on the floor.