The author, Elizabeth Pantley (website here), also wrote "The No-Cry Sleep Solution" which my wife and I found to be very helpful... and which we heard about either through "The Baby Book" by Dr. William Sears or from a talk on sleep by Dawn Fry (website here).
Anyhoo... here's the highlights I took from the book (not necessarily in the order the book had them)...
Concepts to remember:
- Potty training is only going to work when both the child and parents are ready for it
- Takes 3 to 9 months to complete the process to where there are not accidents
- Will be toilet training setbacks
- Many kids use nighttime diapers for a year or so after daytime potty training
- Potty training is different than anything related to bed wetting... which is a physiological thing that self corrects eventually
Safety suggestions:
- Install child safe covers on outlets
- Teach kids about hot and cold water from faucet
- Store electrical stuff out of reach
- Put all medication elsewhere
- Install ground fault circuit interrupters on outlets
Getting ready suggestions:
- Use cloth training pants rather than pull ups
- If you use pull ups, use ones with a liner that kids can feel moisture on
- If using a child toilet seat (which goes on a regular toilet seat), make sure you've got a light step stool to get up there... as well as any needed stool for hand washing
- Can buy a folding seat adaptor for when on trips
- Give fiber rich food and avoid junk food
- Have available diaper wipes for the first poop wipe... can use toilet paper after that
Process suggestions:
- Go potty in the morning and before bed... as well as 10 to 30 minutes after a full meal
- Can set a timer for potty reminders every two hours
- Fine to sit there for a while, both should and needs to be a relaxing time
- Make sure that hand washing is part of the process
- Best to have as little clothing as possible when learning
- If your child wants to keep pooping in their diaper, have them do so in the bathroom
Enabling suggestions:
- Don't ask, use a positive suggestion like "let's go sit on the potty now"
- Try to make it fun (games, songs, stories, sticker books, posters, prizes)
- Specific examples of this would be a potty prize treasure box with gift wrapped items to open or a song of all the steps involved
So... all in all, I'd say Pantley wrote another really helpful book about a topic that one doesn't think about much unless they have kids at the age in question, then it's a big deal.
