My first grandchild is starting to potty train. It's been years since I had to go through the process with my child. Bottom line, it takes patience and understanding to get the little tykes fully trained. (There will be some "accidents" down the road once they're out of diapers, however.)
When I potty trained my child, we lived in a one floor apartment house with the bathroom on the same floor. This made the potty training easier, as the bathroom was near. Although, initially the potty chair was kept in the middle bedroom. My current home has one bathroom on the second floor, so the task may prove not as easy this time. My grandaughter is two years old now and can understand most instructions. My plans are to ask her to let me know when she has to go to the potty. Then, we'll make the trip to the bathroom. (She already tells me when her diaper is wet - so that's a start!) I know this make take a while, but when she's home with her parents she's starting to get potty trained the majority of the time, too. I had to get my daugther potty trained when she was not quite 18 months. This was due to a requirement at a daycare center she was going to attend. (If they were over 18 months - they had to be potty trained for this particular center) . At the time, she was a little young to verbally communicate very well. So, I made a schedule of when to place her on the potty: in the mornings after she woke; mid-afternoon; before and after dinner; and at bedtime. She received praise and clapping when she completed her business in the potty - which she loved! She still had accidents at times at the daycare center, but that was expected of the children under 2 years old. I've read over the years that the time to potty train varies for each child - I believe that to be true.
The best article I've read so far about the timing for potty training was on pottytrainingconcepts.com:
http://www.pottytrainingconcepts.com/A-Potty-Training-Age-Readiness.html
I also found an interesting article about cleanliness and potty training (below). There are some useful tips about keeping areas clean (most are common sense).
Potty Training the Clean Way
