Potty Training In One Day

Let kids dictate toilet training

If Karen Bannister could do it all over again, she'd let her son lead the way to the potty instead of plunking him on the seat before he was interested.

Jack, who turned 3 in May, has finally mastered the art of answering Nature's call, at least during the day. But the whole experience, which took almost a year, wasn't one of Bannister's parenting highlights.

“I don't think he was ready,” says the Niagara Falls mother and editor of the parent network WeeWelcome.ca, who started the process under pressure from his daycare.

“He wasn't interested. At the beginning, it was really like beating my head against the wall. We had a lot of accidents.”

Her adventure underscores advice in a Canadian Medical Association Journal commentary released Monday, which concludes that child readiness and adult consistency are the best recipe for success.

“Toilet training should be started when both the child and parent are willing and able to participate,” wrote Dr. Darcie Kiddoo, a pediatric urologist at Stollery Children's Hospital in Edmonton and the University of Alberta.

The age of readiness and the length of time it takes to train covers “a huge range,” she added in an interview, with some kids training before the age of 2 and others struggling well into kindergarten.

It's tough when parents feel pressure from daycare, preschool or other parents to hurry things up, because you can't alter a child's development to meet someone else's agenda, she said. Ideally, wee ones need to be keen and the experience as stress-free as possible. Parents should be positive, not punitive.

“The more you worry about it, the more difficult it becomes.”

Her commentary, which reviewed the few studies on the subject, said there is little evidence to support one method of training over another. Over the last century, those have ranged from passive and lacking in structure, to coercive and regimented, and more recently child-oriented and semistructured. Among other conclusions:

  •  The Canadian Pediatric Society and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend starting at age 18 months, as long as the child is interested. Kiddoo says that's a good time to begin the conversation, unless a child is significantly delayed. How and whether to proceed depends on their response.

  •  Don't start if there are other big changes going on in the family, such as a move, new school or new baby.

Potty Training In Three Days? Not!

Recently I was asked by a colleague to lead a parenting workshop on how to potty train your child in three days.  After I picked myself up off the floor laughing, I told her that I probably wasn’t the best instructor for that course.  You see, of my four kids not a one of them was potty trained in three days.  Not even close .

That got me thinking.  What kind of child psychologist am I if I can’t even potty train my own children in under three days?  Or better yet just one day?  Dr. Phil advocates a one day approach using a doll that actually goes in the potty.  Let me tell you, no doll I showed my children going to the bathroom (not even a real live person) would have gotten them potty trained any faster.

Here’s the thing.  Every child is different in countless ways, including when they are ready to potty train (and how long it takes them to get good at it).  Trying to rush them into potty training in a day or a weekend might fit into the schedule of a busy parent, but it won’t work if your child isn’t ready.

My advice?  Stick with the recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics .  Look for signs that indicate your child is ready to potty train, usually between 18 and 30 months.  Once you feel that the time is right for your child, get started.  Introduce the potty chair.  Clean up lots of accidents.  Offer an abundance of praise.  Prepare yourself for setbacks.  And most importantly, be patient.  Eventually your child will be potty trained.  It’s okay if it takes them days, weeks, or even months.  Even for this child psychologist (and finally mom of four potty trained kids, well almost).

As a child psychologist and mom of four, my goal is to provide you with practical parenting solutions that actually work. You see, like you I know that textbook parenting techniques are often hard to apply in the real world. So here you'll get all the latest expert recommendations combined with real life tips to help you on your parenting journey.

Potty Training in One Day, A Guide for Today's Parents

Potty Train Your Child in Just One Day, Proven Secrets of the Potty Pro

Potty Training in One Day - A DVD for Today's Parents, Featuring Potty Scotty & Potty Patty

Toilet training in less than a day

Potty training, lifesaving techniques and advice for an easy transition