I have potty trained four out of five of my children using the one-day method and I support this wonderfully positive and complete system of “Potty Teaching”. When my second child was around two years old, I asked a friend how she went about potty training her FIVE boys! (Two of them are twins!) She replied, “I read Toilet Training in Less Than A Day.” I asked her if I could borrow her book.
Her answer came swiftly, “No.” The book was far too precious for her to lend to me but she informed me that I could go to a used book store to get a copy. Much to my delight, my husband located a used copy of the 1974 edition! Hurrah! I could now begin training my second child.
My absolute fear of potty training is what led to the discovery of the one day method. I dreaded potty training more than Childbirth! In my mind, our first attempt at potty training was a failed attempt to “teach” our son to use the potty.
Potty training went horribly bad for him; none of the blame is his, but, mine and my husbands. We gathered no information nor made any preparation for this, the first of many teachable moments. My husband came home one Friday night and simply stated that it was time that our child be potty trained. My answer came swiftly, “No.”
You see, I am an organizer by “giftedness” and a teacher by choice.
Without proper information there was no way anyone was going to convince me to start any education process with my child. I had asked all my friends, family and even strangers in the Doctor’s office about this incredibly intimidating task ahead of us. The answers were so varied and many people I asked didn’t really have an answer.
Other than the, “Do-it-in-the-summer-and-let-him-run-around-naked Method”, nothing else seemed logical to me.
So, leaving him no choice, my dear husband set to the adventure of potty training our son himself. Only days into the Father-Son bonding experience, David realized this “adventure” was turning into a project. It seemed my husband, too, lacked the skills necessary to communicate the potty process to our son, despite being equipped for the task!
At first, the “Project” was a happy one. Accidents were met with encouragement and patience. Weeks later, I’m mortified to report: we both resorted to shaming and verbally reprimanding our sweet toddler.
Then, after months of worn out knees from scrubbing messes and frayed nerves from bashing our heads against the Wall of Lack of Communication, our brilliant son put together all the pieces of the jumbled up mess of a puzzle we handed him and was “trained”!
I use the word “trained” in the loosest sense of the meaning. We had taken the complex sequence of the potty process, chopped it up into unrelated “chunks” of randomly applied demands to perform, during hit-and-miss opportunities, over several months and like the Big Bang….viola! It just evolved into success over millions…. and….. millions of years! It wasn’t exactly potty “training”; it was more like potty “trying”, as in wearisome….for us all!
Well, I am delighted to report that our son Steven, is a happily potty trained fourteen year old and he survived the tears and trauma of the 6 month long Potty Project.
His siblings, however, had much more delightful experiences learning this important life skill. Through the one-day potty training method, I uncovered the secrets to teaching my children most any sequence based skill. With verbal encouragement, positive peer pressure, rewards, and loving guidance, I successfully “Potty Taught” the next four toddlers that blessed our busy home.
The one-day method de-constructed how children learn the physical, as well as the mental and emotional, steps of pottying. “Did you say emotional steps?” Yes…emotional steps.
Potty training is an emotionally charged time as you demonstrate your desire for your child to be independent of you for the elimination process. Once, diaper changes were a time of tickling, cooing, P-Uing, and toe nibbling; now, that time has transitioned into praise at learning a new skill, positive encouragement, pride in accomplishment, and growing into a “Big Kid”! But, this comes with emotions.
The one day method explained the emotional experiences my children would be walking through as we went through our training day and follow-up week.
The one day method of training gave me ALL the tools needed to effectively arrange the pieces of the potty puzzle neatly, positively, and in sequence! No more frustration tantrums …. and my toddlers were happier too! As each of our children approached their second birthdays, I was confident that their potty training experience was going to be successful and pleasant.
I looked forward to that day with excitement and joy, because I knew that my toddler would be transformed into a 10 foot tall “Big Kid” with a puffed up chest and an ear-to ear grin to greet Daddy with at the end of that day!
Does Potty Training in One Day REALLY work? You bet it does.
Can you barrow my copy? Absolutely not!
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