Potty Training: Sharing your advice

SALT LAKE CITY — After sharing my personal experience with potty training a child, as well as the different methods I learned along the way, I received several e-mails from readers who had some very good ideas of their own. Rather than keeping them to myself, I felt another article was needed to share some of these techniques with you.

Here are some of the best suggestions I received:

• "What I recommend to anyone that I hear is 'training' their child to go potty is to read 'Toilet Learning' by Alison Mack. ... I learned from the book thatthere is no need to 'train' our child to go to the potty. We didn't train the child to rollover, sit or crawl, eat cheerios and walk; they learned. And our child can and will learn to use the potty. ... I have read and used this book with my three children: ages 10 ½ (boy), 8 (girl), and 4 ½ (girl). They all did excellent in learning how to go potty. When they were ready to use the potty, they did.For my children it was a sense of accomplishment. For my husband and I, we felt accomplishment with them rather than frustration. I would like to recommend to parents and caregivers to read this book before buying rewards, DVDs and cute panties." –Emily
• "I battled with my now 3-year-old for over a year with potty training. ... I had googled the topic of potty training MANY times and tried everything that they suggested, to no avail. Finally, I came across this article ('Toilet Training Problems: Underachievers, refusers, and stool holders') a couple of months ago and it has worked wonders. ... After reading this, I took my son to the store and had him help me pick out an awesome Hot Wheels track set. This was mine, and I explained over and over that it belonged to me until I knew he understood. When we got home, I told him that if he used the potty or at least tried, he could play with it for 30 minutes. He immediately ran upstairs and went with no arguments. Thirty minutes later when it was time to put it away, he ran upstairs and went again! I called my ex-husband and told him what I was doing, and when he picked our son up for his time with him, he took him to the store and started the incentive idea immediately. (My son) has now been consistently using the toilet and has even been sleeping in underwear with only one accident in the past week." –Natalie
• "I went to do some love and logic classes and I asked the teacher what they would suggest for my daughter since she was really stalling it. She suggested that I throw her a princess potty party. What I did for this is: bought a new potty training toilet, new princess panties, a princess crown, cake, drinks, and got some movies that my kids would like to watch. I made her a cake and she wore her crown, and I put the panties on her that day. I explained to her that we were having the party because it was the first day of her being a 'big' girl and using the toilet. She went to the bathroom all day and never had an accident since. I never had to use Pull-Ups at night or anything. I am going to try this with my now 3-year-old and see if it will help." –Melissa
• "What I wanted to add is something I think a lot of people don't understand, especially when they are potty training for the first time: Every kid is different and potty training is ALL about how ready that particular kid is. ... The thing is, we get a lot of outside pressure from family, friends, especially parents (who, let's face it, were extremely motivated to train by 2 because that generation was still using cloth diapers), that we think if we haven't potty trained by 2, or especially by 3, then there is something wrong with us — or worse, our child. The pressure to begin before they are ready is often times the reason we fail and fail and fail before we finally reach a time that it clicks and we have a progression of small successes and finally, finally are diaper and wet pants free. I am not saying that sometimes we need to jump start a bit — Skittles and M&Ms can be the magic bullet, but not until there is at least SOME interest on the part of our kids. And come to think of it, I don't know any high school kids who have to bring a change of undies to school with them. The point is, we need to relax, give our kids time, ignore other people's time tables (or repeated telling of how their 10-month-old was potty trained in a day), and remember that they will all figure it out." –Dionne

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