English: Toilet paper roll Português: Um rolo ...With two little words we have reached a milestone: poo poo. That’s what BB started telling me a week or so ago after doing a you-know-what in her nappy. Now she has started warning me before doing a you-know-what, which means there’s no getting away from it any longer: it’s time for potty training to commence.

This is a daunting prospect, especially given that her godmother started potty training her daughter, who is exactly the same age as BB, at seven months. That’s right, seven months. Now 21 months old, she is basically dry in the day and only wears nappies at night and on car journeys.

“I wouldn’t want to wear pants 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so why would a baby?” BB’s godmother told me. Quite. Her approach was quite simple – she learnt to read her baby’s cues (i.e. how she reacted when she needed to go to the loo) and responded to them by putting her on the potty. When she actually went, there was praise galore. When she didn’t, or ‘went’ somewhere else, it was no big deal.

In fact BB’s godmother credits this approach with helping her daughter to reach developmental milestones earlier because she could move more easily and wasn’t hindered by a nappy – she sat at five months, crawled at eight months and walked at nine months.

This is all well and good, but because I knew neither Misery Guts nor I could cope with the consequences of BB, who is like a whirling dervish at the best of times, rampaging around the house nappy less, we didn’t attempt it at such a young age.

The trouble is she is now even more of a whirling dervish. And I am filled with dread. How it will all pan out (excuse the pun) remains to be seen, but first things first: I’m off to buy a potty…