Potty-training books - compare, contrast and recommend please!

[Mij]

DD is coming up to 20 months, and has been showing a great deal of interest in the loo for ages, will sit on one of two potties we have quite regularly in various states of undress, and once actually managed to have a wee in it. She doesn't yet try to tell me if she's done anything in her nappy but will answer fairly reliably when I ask her if she's had a poo. Apparently she also has got the changing mat out for her childminder on occasion, but not sure if that's just her playing around or actually asking for her nappy to be changed.

For some context, we're a pretty baby-led family, we co-sleep and breastfeed so my natural instinct is to give She Who Cannot Be Named a wide berth but having read another couple of threads that say it's a good book, I'm prepared to have my mind changed. We're cloth nappy users too, so she's used to feeling wet. I did buy 3 motherease cloth pull-ups at an NCT sale but they look enormous, and she's a dinky girl.

Not sure if she's completely ready, so wasn't expecting to do that 'cancel everything for a week and do nothing else but potty train' kind of thing yet, but she does hate having nappies put on and off so was just wanting to do some reading-up in advance, in case there's stuff we can do early on to help her make the transition.

thanks for reading

So, anyway, after that ramble, any recommendations!

bumping for some help...

We got Ruby's Potty out from the library to read to my ds when we were thinking of potty training. It's a lovely rhyming story book and he really got the idea of what a potty was for. After reading several books on potty training aimed at the adults including the one by SWMNBN. I found I didn't actually learn anythinbg from them.

The best thing I found was to follow ds's lead and potty training took a couple of days although up to that point he did run round a lot without a nappy anyway. However I am yet to get him to do a poo anywhere other than his pants, but that's another story.

Good Luck with it all. I really found that for myself the books were rubbish. I didn't bother with pull ups (I had mother ease ones too, but they are great for when you are training them at night). I just let ds have no nappy on when we were at home for several months and cleaned up any accidents, and then all of a sudden it just seemed to click in his brain and he was potty trained (well wee's anyway). He has had very few accidents in the last few months and I am really proud of him.

We're a pretty baby-led family too, I breastfed till DD was 22 months, and co-slept till she was two and a half. I refused to read SWMNBN's baby book, but I did buy her potty training book and thought it was good. I didn't follow it to the letter, just used it as a basis and then was guided by DD's temperament really. And she was dry within a week. We were out and about by day 3 and had very very few accidents.

The book has a long lead-in period of familiarisation with the potty before you go for it properly, and it all seemed basically sensible and worked well for us. Though I must say I ignored her instructions to do things like repeatedly put DD on the potty every 10 mins or whatever it was, and was much more led by DD's inclinations.

I can't compare with anything, as it was the only book I bought.

ds is 20 months and I'm in the throws of potty 'training' I've put it in inverted commers because I have a 7 week old and ds1 is very keen to be in pants and I'm just being led by him and trying to juggle them both

We've been doing it for about a week now and started with just doing it at home - first no pants for a couple of days then just pants and now he's in pants and trousers and we did our first trip out in pants (after a melt down when I produced a nappy for him to wear at toddler group) yesterday and he's been in pants at the childminders today.
I got him a potty book last week, Potty Pig and Nappy Duck (the others seemed aimed at older children) which he loves as well as 'Who's in the loo' and I've only been reading the toilet training chapter from the Baby Whisperer which I think has some good hints - I have to say I've been putty ds1 on the potty from 10 months, first thing in morning, after naps and meals and before bath - it just saves us some washing but I think its helped him make the transition on his own. I'd only put him on for as long as he was happy and obviously massive fuss if we caught anything.

I've found that because ds has always been in cloth nappies the training pants (ones that look like they have a bit of terry towel in) are no good because when wet they feel like a cloth nappy, pants and wee actually running down his legs seemed to be more of a break thro with him knowing what was happening.

hth and good luck!

Hi Mij,

I would second the advice about books being a waste of time but my kids did enjoy relevant books from the library for them to read whilst sat on the potty.

Mine were both out of cloth nappies early (18 and 20 months and dry at night well before 2 years old - v. proud of them) and I just did a process of familiarisation and bare bums in the house. Never used pull ups first time but tried BrightBots this time and felt like it slowed the process down.

Tesco do really little knickers (18 months) so why not have a trip out and choose some with your DD? Than the next step is to make a huge fuss when she does anything on the potty! We had a speial song (cheerleader style) and I also used incentives such as choc raspberries when she was having a lazy few days.

HTH and hope you are nappy free soon.

You too Incywincy - sounds like you have your hands full!

Don't bother with potty-training books, as with Contented Baby book etc you'll just feel like a failure if potty training doesn't go to the book's plan. (although a story book about potties is fine )

We just left a potty out (1 upstairs, 1 downstairs) for a couple of months and let DD decide if/when she wanted to use it, with just a few gentle suggestions that she might want to sit on it (and huge praise if she used it) Some of her friends are a few months older so she was keen to copy them when they used the potty.

I never set aside a week or anything, just waited til she announced at 2.5yo that she didn't want nappies anymore, she started using the potty herself and only had 3 accidents where she didn't make it in time - so we were able to carry on usual daily activities

A padded toilet seat does help them using the toilet.

So many friends struggled with potty training, had several attempts etc because they led the process rather than their children.

We bought the Pop up potty book.
DH loves reading it and it has bits to pull in it etc with actions like the little girl sits on the potty etc.

I hate the Gina Ford book and want to burn it!

On pants Tescos seem the best to me, got some from M&S but they are huge round the legs as DD is so slim.

Also this toilet seat is fab, especially if you have more babies planned....Rymax Family seat. This is about the cheapest I've seen it too and you can also get it in wood effect.

I used GF for contented baby and potty training and found them brilliant.
I think as long as you dont take it all too seriously its fine.

ds was trained within about 6 days and now one month on he is also dry in the night. Its been a very easy transition with lots of bribery

just popped back on to second the pants from tesco (we've got 10 pairs from there) I got them with out ds but make mistake of taking him to Asda the other day and they have 18 mo Noddy pants and he just had to have them too!

how are you getting on Mij?

Never read a book on potty training. Both mine were a breeze (smug). Its just common sense, isn't it? (prepared to be shot down in flames if not!!!).

Have used Elizabeth Pantley s 'no cry solutions' for all my baby guidance,its baby led and geared towards us co sleepers and militant breast feeders!Having said that it is common sense really as daphne says just wait til they whip their nappies off in protest! Oh and boys are very often just as quick as girls!

Thanks lovelies.

DD chose to sit on her throne-like potty last night (I think she finds the conventional one too low, and the toilet seat too hard) several times while we read, confusingly, a Pooh book (have to call him Winnie-the while we're doing this, I think) and kept hopping up to see if there was anything there. There wasn't this time and she seemed quite disappointed.

We do quite a lot of nappy off time anyway, and have never worried about accidents - she trots off to fetch a cloth for mopping off if she wees on the carpet - so based on above advice I'm thinking of extending that. Only thing is we have new carpets in downstairs. Not sure how to deal with that one...

Nice pants seem like a good incentive.

Just out of interest, how do you co-sleepers deal with nighttime training?

Yes, we found the same thing with the conventional potty - the whole thing was a bit of a non-starter till we bought one of those potty chairs.

We stopped co-sleeping when DD was 2 and a half, and she didn't stop using night nappies till about two and three quarters. But I don't think it would have made any difference actually, as I kept her in night nappies for a month after she started waking up dry! She has only wet the bed 3 times since, all at moments of high emotion (eg has Father Christmas visited me?? poor little sausage...)