Stress-Free Potty Training: A Commonsense Guide to Finding the Right Approach for Your Child

I was not blown away by this book, however, I did find it interesting to read in order to understand your child's personality. It did not make a difference potty training my son, but I did find it educational. I already knew my child's personality, but this book confirmed what I already knew and so I found it interesting and educational. I believe I would recommend this book to a friend, especially one who needed to understand their child's personality (aside from potty training). I thought naked time was a little strange, not something I would embrace. I thought the dialogue was a little weird, but I understand their reason for "naked time" however my conversations with my children would be a bit different. The conversation was not inappropriate, but I would put my own spin on it to fit my personality and the way I talk if I were to embrace "naked time." Otherwise, there are some common sense advice in here, but may be helpful to parents that do not know. Overall, it was okay. I would recommend it to a friend who was struggling.

I read about "potty traing in 3 days" type of approaches and tried that when my son was about 2.5 years old. The beginning was good. He quickly got the fact that bare bottom means a mess on a floor, so he started going on the potty on his own... Since he was doing so good with bear bottom, I thought that meant he was ready for this and we were happy he got it so quickly... However, as soon as we put his pants or underwear on, he lost interest in the potty. He's very independent, so having to tell us he has to go so we can help him pull his pants down did not interest him. At the same time, he had not much luck pulling them down on his own. That lead eventually to frustration on both sides and eventually we gave up after a couple of months. Then I got this book. While I kind of knew right away which personality type was my son before I even took the quiz at the beginning, and a lot of advices were "common sense" which I already figured out on my own, it still helped a lot. Having read the appropriate chapters for my son's personality, I was able to sort out things I should or should not do and most importantly, stick with it other than wonder if this is really right for him. 3 months after a failed 1st attempt, we tried again, and this time, he's doing much better. It helps that now he can pull down and pull up his pants on his own, too so he can do a lot by himself and feels that he's in charge. Listening to your friend's or family advice is nice, but their child personality might be totally different than yours. Things that encourage other children may work in the opposite way for your child. If you have an 'angel' type of child, maybe generic approaches described in other books will be good for you, but one size rarely fits all.I do agree with another person's review though that the sample dialogs in the book are not that great depending on how old your child is. Some of those dialogs were too advanced for my son. Still, they did give me some ideas of how to respond to my son in a way it made sense for his age.

So, I had one of those REALLY tough to train 3.5 year olds. My daughter had been "potty-training" for a year, but I still couldn't convince her to poop in the potty chair....most of the time she would hide and poop in her pants...we tried everything to get her to poop in the potty chair (sticker charts, candy rewards, small toy rewards, promise of getting to do big kid things like play soccer, punishments, and "doing nothing"....we tried each of these different tactics for 1-2 months, then would try the next tactic, but nothing worked). Finally I bought this book, and sat down and read about half of it in a day. I learned a lot about how my daughter functions (she's sensory-oriented and goal directed) and learned some good "potty training language" this includes how to recognize when I am sending the message that potty-training is stressful, even when I don't want to send that message. The book gives a lot of common sense tactics, nothing that I hadn't already tried, but the most useful thing I gained was how to take the stress out of potty training for me. Less than a day after I read this book, and directly after a spectacular pep talk from her aunt (talking about how she could go to the city's art center and take classes, all the cool art stuff they do there, and how you can't wear diapers, all the kids there use the potty chair to poop and potty), my 3.5 year old went into the bathroom and pooped on the potty chair by herself! She's been doing it ever since. I can't say that this book made that happen, but I know it played a part in helping me to get my head around how my daughter functions and how I should respond to her. If you have a "non-pooper" like I did, I would suggest reading this book, give them "pep talks" from time to time about the cool things you can do if you are big/don't wear diapers (she had about 20 of these before it motivated her!), and of course, give it time....sometimes kids just need to mature a little more before they can "get it." Good luck and GOD BLESS!

Cons:- Starts off on the defensive about not potty training before 20-32 months and posits that most kids are not ready before then, which is really not true or practiced outside of the US or prior to 1960s. They say their isn't much research (not true) and then site a small study done in Wisconsin as proof for their entire age approach. Apparently "stress free" means wait until they are much older?- Very vague advice with no real plan of action (which, ironically, is stressful)Pros:- Interesting points on tailoring your approach to your child's overall personality (true with all aspects of parenting)- Good questions at the beginning for parents/caregivers to ask themselves before training so they are on the same pageOverall - a good skim or focus on specific chapters is interesting, but not worth the time or money

I liked to read about temperaments and found out different ways to approach my son. The potty training is taking time but I feel more confident about applying the right techniques to it and I've seen some progress I had before reading this book

Esperaba encontrar más claridad para tomar la iniciativa de quitarle el pañal a mi hija, pero son estrategias de enfoques que se orientan en el niño y no tanto en decirte qué hacer como papá. Aún así me abrió los ojos a muchas cosas que ni siquiera habría considerado de otra forma.