Ausgirl - the books suggests if the child is over 22 months and can communicate (not necessarily with speech, but even with gestures, behaviours, sounds, signals) then they are ready
Actual interest in the toilet or wanting the nappy off etc aren't important, its more about being able to read the signs of when the child needs to use the loo. The theory is that kids will mimic/copy as part of natural development and going to the toilet is no different that any other thing they pick up/learn from older kids/parents
They learn the signals pretty quickly having just undies on. You probably have less accidents with a slightly older child who's learned to hold on a little bit, but the program worked for us. I've solved a couple of things:
1) The wet nights we had were due to me putting his pj pants back on. With just undies and a top, he's dry, with pj pants it was like a switch was flicked and he'd wee. I reckon either just the undies, or pj pants with no undies - something that feels different from a nappy.
2) Poo has started going into the toilet. We're two weeks down the track and it seems to have just clicked. So a couple of weeks of poo in undies (argh, awful) and now it's going in the toilet.
Anyway, two weeks for day and night toilet training (2 days for wee) is still pretty good! I think we've had a total of 3-4 accidents since the first two days, usually when he's distracted and refuses to go, so wets himself.
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