I bought this book mostly because of the title. After reading the book and assessing my son's skills I really believed he was ready physically even though he didn't show any direct interest in learning to use the potty (he never asked to use it or really talked about it). I first tried to train him on my own as the book suggests, unfortunately it was a terrible failure where we were both crying and frustrated. My son is incredibly stubborn and willfully disobedient in all areas and this was no exception. I waited a few weeks and got my husband to help. We worked together and encouraged each other when we got frustrated and that helped us to be more encouraging to my son as well. We had a very intense 2 days then by the 3rd day he had it down well (except for bowel movements, those took a bit longer). He immediately started sleeping through naps without wetting even though up until that point he always soaked his diaper at naps. After only a few weeks he no longer wet the bed at night either. I am proud to say that my 25 month old son was potty trained after only 2 intense days. I really didn't think it could go much better than that.....until my daughter came along. At 18 months I bought her a potty chair and showed it to her. The next day I got her up from her nap and she said "I do poopoo in potty like brother" I said ok, thinking it would just be a nice practice sitting on the potty time. I was wrong, she immediately had a bowel movement and told me she was a big girl now. That weekend I pottytrained her by myself in 3 hours with no tears or frustration at all. She took longer to be dry at night and has had alot more accidents than her brother did but I figure alot of that is because she was so much younger. Now I have a completely potty trained 4 year old and 2 year old all because of this book! They are both very happy and proud of their accomplishments as well.

This book reallly works! I had doubts about it but I was desperate. My son is almost 4 and refused to do number 2 in potty. Although he has no problem peeing in it. This book was written in the 1970's so I modified it to today's time. Instead of using a doll, I used a stuffed animal. Plus we went to library and got many children's books on potty training plus watched potty training videos. Sure enough he went on the potty by himself by 11 am and said he never wants to wear diapers ever again. Wow I was really impressed by this book. This book goes into detail on what to do and how to do it. Plus it was easy & fun for him!

This book teaches a very thorough approach to teaching a child how to use the potty. The approach will allow you to instruct a child to do everything from pulling down/up training pants, to urinating & defecating in the potty, dumping out the potty, wiping, etc. I used this book to train my 24 month old son. We spent about 1.5 hours in "training". During the first hour, my child was very enthusiastic about teaching his teddy bear (we didn't buy a potty doll) to use the potty and getting treats for having dry undies. THEN, he turned on me! He refused to use the potty and resisted anything to do with potty training. At that point, I thought this book was WORTHLESS and I lost all hope that my son would ever be potty trained. We gave up for the day and went back to diapers. The next morning when I was putting on his diaper he said "undies!" and he has been potty trained since. So, this book DID WORK for us after all. I purchased it because of the positive reviews and track record for success. If the Toilet Training in Less Than A Day method doesn't work for you, don't give up. Give your child the time, and know that at least this book will teach him/her the skills he/she needs to be potty trained! Whether or not your child will immediately put those skills to use is another story...every child is different.

I used this book to potty-train my kids back in the late 1970's and both of them were trained in one day. It's an intensive day of focused training, but they understood the concept before the end of the day. They were both about 22 months old at the time of training.

This book was really designed for younger children than my 4yr old, but I was able to successfully adapt the concepts within the book and within one afternoon we went from diapers/pullups to underwear and dry pants. He is even dry at nights now. We did experience a reluctance to have a BM in the potty chair but even that wasn't as much of a struggle as in other attempts over the last two years. I was real pleased with how this book took you step by step, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to avoid the frustration of potty training, even if my experience wasn't ideal, it was more successful than any other method had been.

I was given a remaindered copy of this book 25+ years ago and made the mistake of not reading it in time to train my first son. It was a long, painful process with him. I had 4 more boys and, with the second, dreaded toilet training when he got to that age. I dredged this book out and figured I had nothing to lose and I was right. This worked like a charm with my 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th sons.
Toilet training is not fun and you really do need to take some time out to read the book before hand and be prepared, but this gets the job done (no pun intended) efficiently, effectively, and left my sons trained for night time as well. I just didn't believe it would work, but it did. I have been recommending it to people for a quarter of a century and no one who has used it properly has anything but praise for it.

This was a pretty good book, it helped my wife and I get over the hurdle of a "don't want to try" child.

Hi,
I decided to buy this book b/c we have another child on the way and it is in our best interest to have our soon to be 3- year- old potty trained. The book was helpful. It is a little lengthy but I am all about books when it comes to my child. The book is a little intense and I didn't follow everything it said to do. I am a stay at home mom and have plenty of time to train him without being as intense as the book. We certainly were not potty trained in a day because of this and that didn't bother me. This is a good book to have and it is a great freedom to be out of diapers.

This is how potty training should be done. You TEACH your child how to do it - in a POSITIVE way spending ALL your attention on the teaching of the child. If your child can complete all the preliminary tests in this book, then he/she is ready to be potty trained. It is an intense day of teaching and learning but your child will love it.

You will be SO proud and amazed at your child's ability to learn so quickly. It's incredible. My daughter is 2 years 8 months old. She had literally never ever sat on a potty or toilet before yesterday at 7:30am. By this morning at 11am, she walked past me in the kitchen, walked in the bathroom, pulled down her pants, pooped on the potty, wiped herself with toilet paper (albiet not well and in the front,notback) pulled up her pants, dumped her potty cup in the toilet, replaced the potty cup to the potty, flushed the toilet, washed and dried her hands, came over to me in the kitchen and said, "I did it!" and gave me a high five! I sware - all true. She is so very proud of herself, and I am proud of her. All she needed was the instruction on how to do it.

YOU have to be ready to take it on 100%. Spend the time getting ready. Buy training pants, a potty and snacks. Get the other kids out of the house for the day. Shut the computer, turn off the phone and give your kid 100% of your attention for the day. Your child can do it if you are willing to put the effort in.

This is how potty training should be done. You TEACH your child how to do it - in a POSITIVE way spending ALL your attention on the child. You will be SO proud and amazed at your child's ability to learn so quickly. It's incredible. My daughter is 2 years 8 months old. She had literally never ever sat on a potty or toilet before yesterday at 7:30am. By this morning at 11am, she walked past me in the kitchen, walked in the bathroom, pulled down her pants, pooped on the potty, wiped herself with toilet paper (albiet not well and in the front,notback) pulled up her pants, dumped her potty cup in the toilet, replaced the potty cup to the potty, flushed the toilet, washed and dried her hands, came over to me in the kitchen and said, "I did it!" and gave me a high five! I sware - all true. She is so very proud of herself, and I am proud of her. All she needed was the instruction on how to do it. YOU have to be ready to take it on. Just do it!!

I used this book in the early eighties to toilet-train both my daughters, successfully.
Although the method is mega-labour-intensive, it worked both times.
The key was that both my girls were old enough to understand the process and took pride in their new skill. Both were two years old and had been dry in the morning for some time before we attempted to train.
The goal is for the child to be able to handle all stages themselves, from knowing that they have to use the potty, be able to handle pulling their new underwear down, then up, and empty the potty into the toilet, flush it and replace the potty in the potty-chair. At the end of the training NO diapers are ever put on the child. They sleep in regular underwear the first night, hence the need for them to be waking up dry.
I recommend this book absolutely and am continually amazed at all the parents who spend months and months toilet-training their children when ONE DAY was certainly effective for both my kids.
It was certainly an intense day though, feeding them salty snacks, lots of water and repeating the steps of the process, guiding them through and then...................success!!!

I am a psychologist and mother of a 20 month old. As a psychologist I can tell you that the foundation for this book is excellent and the research is very accurate and easy to digest. As a mom I love it. My daughter is on the young side for this (I am due with our second soon so am eager to get her started) so we are not using the book exactly but it is still working really well. The ideas like reinforcement and using praise from others (grandpa will be so proud) are very effective and i have been using them to get her to do lots of other things like nap by herself and walk independently down the stairs (she liked to be carried but I'm getting too big). I think this book is fantastic.

The techniques in this book didn't work for my child. It may be do to my error. We did successfully potty train by trail and error. When he figured out that he didn't like the wet feeling of "going" in big boy underwear, he started making it to the potty in time.

This is an outstanding book. My mother used it with me & my sister in the 70's! She gave it to me with the doll for my sons 2nd birthday. I read it & did it a couple of days later. He had severe autism & still did it by 4pm that day. I potty trained my next child & she was 22months. Just recently I potty trained my 3rd child, 20months old & she did it without a hitch. Nothing cuter than seeing a baby running for the potty, pulling down her pants, going, emptying it herself & flushing. My only obligation after the first day of potty bootcamp is to jump up & down & give her a treat for her hard work.
The first day is hard work, but well worth it & no negative standing around or shame involved.

Reading this dry, chauvinistic, 70's era book was boring and the process itself was tedious and frustrating. That being said, we did, in fact, toilet train our daughter (age 2 3/4) in just one day and after the first week had almost no accidents (has been several months now). We still use pull-ups at night (which I don't think even existed when this dinosaur-of-a-book was written), but the basic strategies really do work. Using this method made for a long, painful day, but has led to months of dry panties and no diapers...so was worth it to me!

I cannot recommend this book at all. We tried the method in this book for 2 days, and all we have to show for it is a lot of tears and two stressed out parents. Our 2 1/2 year old daughter is now even fussier about going to the potty than she was before.

Please be aware that if this method fails, you will be out more than just the price of the book. You'll be out your time, which can be very valuable in home with 2 working parents, and all the money spent on snacks and drinks and a sleepless night or two from the guilt you will have for putting your child through this potty training boot camp.

I have a 38 mo old "stubborn" daughter. We had been potty training for over a year with little to no success. The potty training method was very intense, exhausting and I've almost lost my voice... but it was successful. It was very intense, no TV, toys, books, husband or sibilings. Only a potty training doll, lots of Capri Sun and me continuously talking about the potty and giving her praise. I was almost ready to give up by 11am when I didn't see any results, but then I saw her "getting it" and trying to hold it in. By 1:00 she was peeing on the potty. We still had a few accidents the next day but she is showing signs of improvement. I think the key to success is following the book to to a T. It gives step by step instructions for a reason. All the reptition and focus are needed for "rapid" results.

I cannot say enough good things about this book. If you follow it to a "T" things should go very quickly. We potty-trained "Dewey", the doll, in about 45 minutes and a few minutes later, my child was using the potty, JUST LIKE THAT! You have to use all of the positive reinforcement techniques mentioned in the book and have the enthusiasm of a cheerleading squad, but it's all worth it. My child was 3-1/2, and Totally Resistant to potty training until the day we trained the doll. She still has some accidents, but nothing worth getting upset over. It's been about two weeks now. On the third dry day at daycare she wore her big-girl underpants and has not gone back to pull-ups!

One additional note: we did NOT run back and forth to the potty ten times after an accident! I don't even recall reading that, but apparently it must have said that. We ran back ONCE quickly to practice. And my "Big girls go on the potty!" statement was not said with an angry tone...more of a "phony", or almost "sing-song" tone of disapproval. She got the point just fine. DO NOT PUNISH the child during the process! I never got the impression that it was the focus to PUNISH -- very much to the contrary, I felt that positive enforcement was emphasized MUCH MORE than some folks (who've rated the book). Perhaps it's a matter of interpretation. I don't know, but I can tell you, THIS BOOK IS WORTH A SHOT! And remember, use the "YOU CAN DO IT" mindset. Picture a cheerleader, and be silly with the cheering and encouragement. The child will most likely soak it all up.

I used this method for all three of my boys many years ago and it worked great. All I can do is put it into the hands of my daughter in law and hope for my granddaughters sake she reads it. The "Secret" is waiting until the child is ready!

excellent. We trained out 2 year old in 1 day. By the end of the week he had only 4 accidents. I recommend this book to my patients.

Florida Physician

It's definately the most specific book I found in laying out a plan for training, and it might even work with some kids. But it had mine screaming and us more frustrated than if just winged it. And it made me buy a stupid leaking doll. this book is a year older than I am and even in reprint hasn't made up for societal changes in the last 30+ years. It left me with a few good ideas in the end, but no way can I do it their way with my kid.

The copywrite date is 1974 and this says alot about the book. I am an early childhood educator and can tell you that this does not align with current theories. It emphasises punishments for accidents and requires you stay in the kitchen with the child for the entire day pumping him/her full of liquids. I wish I hadn't wasted the money on this extremely outdated book!

This book is amazing! I was so NOT looking forward to teaching my son how to potty train since people say it is harder to train boys than girls. It turned out to be so easy, I was kickin myself that I hadn't done it sooner!(this was 8 yrs ago) Since then, I have successfully trained son #2 with the same results. Son #3 will be trained within the next couple of weeks and I can't wait to get rid of those diapers!

I used this book to potty train my son. He suffered no ill effects from the methods that now may seem harsh. By the way, he is now 35 years old, has twin daughters and I am recommending the book to him.

I have used this book and method for potty training 3 generations of our family. It works every time if followed accurately. If used before the child is mentally and physically ready you are doomed. Use the test in the beginning of the book, and if your child is ready, follow the instructions exactly.

As a parent educator, mom and grandma I have recommended this book to countless parents over the years. I also recommendOnce Upon a Potty -- Boy (or for Girl) to be used for approx. six months before you intend to start toilet training. Its great stor and anatomically correct pictures make it a real favorite with kids and the perfect way to introduce the idea of using the potty.

I purchased this book as I was having MAJOR problems potty training my son. He was 3 1/2 and just not getting it at all. I was at my wit's end. Then, I read some reviews on this book and thought well, for $6.99 what can it hurt to try? Well, the book is definitely and "old school" book (it tells you to keep treats in your APRON) but I just happen to have an apron with pockets, so I did it. The 1st few hours were really, really hard and I almost gave up, but after lunch, that was it! HE GOT IT! He has only had a few accidents since them (mostly #2, but hardly EVER #1). I can't believe this book actually worked - I would recommend it to anyone and recommend that you read it, cover to cover, before starting and, as ridiculous as some of the suggestions sound? DO IT! IT ALL WORKS!!

I loved this book. Honestly I protested a bit becasue of how old it is and wish they would coem out with an updated edition. But this process was so successful with my daughter. We Potty trained when she was almost 2 1/2. She loved training the doll, and loved the "friends chart". We didn't wuite stick to the schedule, and did not stay i nthe kitchen but basically did eveyrthign else liek it recommended. We spent 1 week reading a ton of potty books and potty movies, and then 1 day doing the training. She had 1 accident the first day, 1 a week later (at church...she does not like pottying in public!) and 1 little "dribble" out at a store (also due to the anti public restroom thing) it has been 2 months and she is doing great.

I also like the readiness test. Interest is not the same as readiness. The day before our training she protested sitting on the potty, but I knew she was ready. She did great. Do not allow your emotions (or YOUR selfish desires) to get in the way. A potty trained child can at times be more invconvenient... becasue we have to think more about getting them ready to leave and potty before we go. But it is SO worth it!

I also wanted to note that she is wearing underwear at night now. We did pullups at night and they were consistantly dry for 2 weeks (the first week they were wet) and she was waking i nthe night to potty. She now wears undies at night and I take her potty at 11 before I go to bed.

Buy this MUST HAVE Book!

I loved the book, even though there were a LOT of out-dated things in it (aprons, etc. ha ha). Our son didn't like the traditional potty so we ordered a urinal and he DID train in one day. We couldn't use this method because we couldn't order the doll that goes with it because it was out of stock. So, we took the basic principles and trained our son that way. I was really looking forward to using this method, but the doll was unavailable.

My husband and I are impressed! This truly is an amazing book, for the first time, step by step actions on what *exactly* to do. My 2 yr 10 month old son was accident free in the day-time by the 3rd day (counting day 1 as the day we started training)

The only add I have is on helping new pee-ers, to also poo in the potty - use fake poo (tootsie roll works) and follow exact directions on how dolly takes a pee (just this time, she has a poo). Son now also poos in grown up potty - we are 100% happy parents!

This book does just as it describes. I was very skeptical and decided to try it because it couldn't hurt, my 2 1/2 year old daughter was not potty trained at all when we started. By the end of the first day she was going to the potty herself, wiping herself, dumping her potty into the big toilet and coming out of the bathroom intensely proud of herself! The role play with the baby doll was the best idea ever! Worked wonderfully!!!!!!!!

A friend recommended this book. Wish I'd known about it when my daughter was closer to 24 months--I'm confident she could have been trained well before 30 months, which was when I got the book. Heartily endorse.

My mother SWORE by this book when she trained me and my siblings 25+ years ago, so I decided to give it a shot. Although there are parts of this method that make me cringe inside a bit, I know MANY MANY people who have had great success with it. I am tweaking it some to make it work for me and for our son, but for the most part I'm following Azrin at his word.

Be warned, the book was originally published back in the early 70's, and it is a VERY dated read. However, the training principles are sound, so if you can get past that (and I will admit, it wasn't easy to do so!), you should find success.

Toilet training is so stressful. As a young mother of two toddlers, I have to say that toilet training has been my least favorite task as a parent. I finally decided that after Christmas I would work on potty training my daughter. She just turned 3 and everyone else in her class at church is potty trained. She has previously shown no interest in sitting on the potty.

We have affectionately called the method from this book "Potty Training Bootcamp." It is bootcamp because it is intensive, one day training for your toddler. The method involves sweetly encouraging your child to help a dolly pee pee on the potty, clean herself and toss the pee pee into the big potty, etc. We worked for about 2 hours doing this with my daughter and during the training, she sat on the potty but didn't actually do a pee pee.. Two days later, I told her she was a big girl now and she was going to go on the potty. I put underpants on her, and to my amazement, she sat on the potty and went through all of the same steps we had done with the dolly two days prior. She has been happier and more independent as a result of this training. I am still amazed that she took to it so well after mentally being so against it just a few days before that. It is now a month later and she is doing really well. She is making very few mistakes.
It is worth a try if you are a mother like me who is stressed by the prospect of training. I was surprised to see that this book was written back in the 70s.

My son is 2 1/2. I've tried to "old" method for a while now. The first day was difficult trying to keep him on task, especially when he just wanted to play w/ his toys. It took us 2 days, but by day 3 he was p/p self-initiating all day w/ no accidents! I'd recommend this any day!

I thought I would learn something from experts that I could not by surfing the web. This is not true. The book is not well written and doesn't have any useful advice (at least for me!).

Potty training is a skill, such as crawling, walking and sitting up...see it as such and do not use this insane method to train your child unless they are completely ready!I bought this book on a recommendation of a friend. I tried it several times and felt like I was a failure and my child (who was well over 2 yrs.) was incapable of being potty trained. What a joke!! I waited another 6 months, and he did it by himself! BY HIMSELF! A week or so after that he no longer needed pull ups at night! Since then he has had a total of 5 accidents (daytime AND nighttime accidents combined) in over a year. FORGET THIS BOOK and wait a little longer...avoid all the strain, stress and pressure on both you and your child.

Potty training is a skill, such as crawling, walking and sitting up...see it as such and do not use this insane method to train your child unless they are completely ready!I bought this book on a recommendation of a friend. I tried it several times and felt like I was a failure and my child (who was well over 2 yrs.) was incapable of being potty trained. What a joke!! I waited another 6 months, and he did it by himself! BY HIMSELF! A week or so after that he no longer needed pull ups at night! Since then he has had a total of 5 accidents (daytime AND nighttime accidents combined) in over a year. FORGET THIS BOOK and wait a little longer...avoid all the strain, stress and pressure on both you and your child.

I used this book and method more than 20 yrs ago to train both of my children. They have completely different personalities, yet it was successful for both, neither wore diapers again after our training day. One did have a problem with BMs, simply stopped having them because she thought that was what we wanted. Eventually, with the help of metamucil (pediatricians idea), she understood. And that is the moral of the story: this method works excellently if directions are followed, but you need to adapt how you explain to the personality of the child and to yours. What was needed for one was a bit too harsh for the other. Relax and use your best judgment. Apparently it did not scar my children too badly, as they are using it to train their own.

I don't remember much of the book as I had borrowed it from the public library after a neighbor told me about it over 25 years ago. I think the book had just come out and was in its earliest edition, sometime in the 70s, when I first used it. I do remember the book advising that boys were harder to train than girls and it was important to wait until the children were at least 2 years old before training as they might have problems with bedwetting later if trained too soon. It was also based on the rewards system - almost like training a dog. But it worked very well for me with both sons without all the hassles I've witnessed in other children and their parents at that stage. The concept was grasped almost immediately by both sons and it was a very pleasurable experience for all of us. No problems whatsoever. Several years later with the 2nd son, I never had to read or refer to the book again. In fact, I remember showing the book to the first son and he just "understood" from my explaining whatever pictures were there. I didn't even read the whole book, maybe 2 or 3 chapters (?). I just remember praising them highly and making a big deal out of it when they successfully pottied, giving them a piece of candy, and not making a big deal out of it when they blew it. :-) One day they were in diapers, the next day they were in training pants, then on to the fancy superman or whatever briefs, never to return to diapers. Potty training was a breeze that lasted 2-3 days at the most, if that long. And it was so much FUN. Would highly recommend book.

All three of my boys have successfully toilet trained using the method described in this book. Yes, they were all trained at 2 1/2 years of age. Yes, they were all trained in less than a day. However, it was not easy. It took a lot of preparation and determination on my part. Many of my friends have successfully trained their children using this book, and many have tried and only succeeded in great frustration. Here are some of the things I have heard while troubleshooting this training method with frustrated parents:

"I used a few ideas from the book, but it seemed so involved that I skipped a lot. It didn't work."

"I did everything except to make her 'practice' when she had an accident. She hated that part, and it was just so time-consuming. It didn't work."

"Hey, I've been at this for 3 hours now, and it's not working. He just urinated all over the new carpet! What? Did I help him to practice? What's that? No, I haven't had time to read the book, I'm just looking at it as I go along. No, he didn't teach the doll to practice--we don't have a doll that wets. I'm improvising. What page is this practice thing on anyway? Oh, no, he just wet the floor again! And the new baby is screaming! I gotta go feed the little one now. This doesn't work!"

In this book, the authors clearly lay out a specific method designed to quickly toilet train young children. In addition, they discuss the importance of adhering to the method in order to achieve and maintain the desired results. Just owning the book will not help to train your child.
If you do read the book and don't agree with the method, or don't think you can carve out the time required, or are unable to find someone to care for your other children during the initial training period, just don't do it. If you read the book and decide that this is something that you can give adequate time and attention to, this works.

Read the book. Prepare well. Follow the training method. Be consistent in the days following. With preparation, patience, and determination, your child can be toilet trained in a day, too!

I don't remember much of the book as I had borrowed it from the public library after a neighbor told me about it over 25 years ago. I think the book had just come out and was in its earliest edition, sometime in the 70s, when I first used it. I do remember the book advising that boys were harder to train than girls and it was important to wait until the children were at least 2 years old before training as they might have problems with bedwetting later if trained too soon. It was also based on the rewards system - almost like training a dog. But it worked well for me with both sons without all the hassles I've witnessed in other children and their parents at that stage. The concept was grasped almost immediately by both sons and it was a very pleasurable experience for all of us. No problems whatsoever. Altho' several years later with the 2nd son, I never had to read or refer to the book again. In fact, I remember showing the book to the first son and he just "understood" from my explaining whatever pictures were there. One day they were in diapers, the next day they were in training pants never to return to diapers. Potty training was a breeze that lasted 2-3 days at the most, if that long. And it was so much FUN. Would highly recommend book.

My family and I just returned from a short term work assignment overseas. When we were down to only two weeks left in our trip my wife was becoming very anxious. Our 3-year-old son was to enter preschool as soon as we returned and he was supposed to be potty trained. I had previously trained our daughter at 2-1/2 years using the book but wasn't sure my boy was ready. He showed no inclination for potty training and seemed perfectly happy to continue to wear diapers. Despite the reservations I went ahead and trained him according to the book. He seemed to enjoy it for the most part and thought it a bit of a game. He quickly grasped that the potty was were he was to do his job, but over the next few days he had random accidents during the day and wet his bed almost every night. With our daughter we had deviated from the book's recommendation and put pull-ups on her at night. This was a big mistake and prolonged her gaining control. With the boy we were determined to follow the book and a few middle-of-the-night ordeals ensued. These must have been as unpleasant for him as for us because after a few days he gained control. The BM's were another problem at first, for some reason he was afraid of these and would wait too long. We had to keep extra clothes and zip-lock bags with us wherever we went and were dreading the all-day/all-night airplane flight. We continued to do what the book recommended for accidents and by the time we left for home they were infrequent. We made it through the flight without incident, I think he actually got a kick out of using the airplane bathroom. Today, approximately a month since I trained him he has no accidents during the day or at night and it's been this way for some time.

I think the techniques of the book are effective because they are based on basic principles of human motivation, having fun, approval, mild disapproval (of actions not the child) and are also mindful of how we learn, i.e., precept upon precept based on verbal instructions, visual demonstrations, and the kinesthetics of practice and touch-based guidance. I also thought it was brilliant having the child potty train a doll-that-wets using the same procedure I was using on him! The book is not an easy read however, the technique evolves as the child learns each skill. I found the book somewhat tedious and had to take notes in order to keep the methods straight in my head. I'm giving it 4 stars instead of 5 because I thought they could have beefed up the section on BM's and nighttime accidents a bit more. Overall an excellent and effective book.

This book has a lot of good ideas, however, it did not help with training my 3 year old. It requires you to load up your child on liquid so he/she has the urge to go, which is a good idea. However, checking to see if he/she has dry pants every 5 minutes isn't feasible. Your conversation with your child the whole time is supposed to be about going on the potty - however many hours it takes to get them trained. My son got bored with the conversation and didn't pay attention. And once the child gets the whole going on the potty thing, they aren't supposed to tell you when they have to go, they are just supposed to go. The book states that you should put the potty where ever they may be - outside, inside, in their room - so it is easily accessible to them. I would rather have my son come and get me when he has to go.

Needless to say, my son is still not potty trained and it's been 3 weeks since we've received this book.

We used this method with our 22 month old daughter (in 1985) who was to enter a preschool that did not allow diapers. We worked all day Saturday and part of Sunday (probably took longer than a day because of her young age), and she attended preschool on Monday with no accidents. It's important to work through the pre-skills to make sure the child is "ready" to train, but if the child demonstrates the requisite skills, the program is highly successful with typically functioning young children. The process is intensive, but effective. I highly recommend it!

This training wasn't really for us. I know it's worked for others, but not us. Sure, if you have all the time in the world, it may work, but not for us busy parents. When you're kids are ready to be potty trained, they're ready. I waited to fully train my oldest at 3 and she got it right away. Of course, there were a few accidents, but that's expected. A trick to night time training is to stop giving fluids at least 2 hours prior to bedtime and make sure they go potty before you tuck them in at night.

It was involved but worked wonderfully. My son did just fine and is very proud of being a big boy now.

This book is horrible. People should not teach their children to be ashamed of their bodies and its natural functions. Telling your child they are dirty and bad or clean and therefore good...talk about developing a Freudian complex! These methods are completely out-dated. I am shocked that it is still in print.

This is a truly wonderful, wonderful method of potty training. I began training my 3 year old son the old way (making him sit on the potty every hour or so), and by the end of the first day him and I were both practically in tears. He did not go in the toilet once. So I gave it a couple of days of rest, and then started all over again using the method in this book.

I was blown away! Within an hour he was willingly going to the bathroom on the toilet (instead of a potty chair, I used a potty seat on the regular toilet). Within 3 hours he was going all by himself. And we both enjoyed the experience very much.

I would recommend this method to anyone! The only thing I wish is that it gave more help with bowel movements...in the book it says that it should follow naturally after the child has learned to pee in the toilet, however I have found that this is not always the case. It has taken a lot more coaxing for my son to get that down, but I still used the same basic methods in the book.

This book actually suggests shaming if your child doesn't get potty-training down immediately. I don't agree with shaming a child who is struggling with potty-training. There are other suggestions in the book, like sitting your child on the potty for long periods of time, but when that doesn't work, you're supposed to tell your child that he is disgusting for having accidents. Not that accidents are gross, but that the child is gross. Really disgusted by the book.

i was recommended this book by a friend who used it when she trained her two youngest children...two boys. she did let me know to read through it first and modify what i needed for my daughter and my situation (i'm a single dad and recently had to travel quite a bit for work). not having a lot of free time and yet still wanting to get her started, i decided to prep her over time and then spend one day doing the teaching. in the end, i just used a couple hours over 2-3 days (friday nite, saturday morning, sunday afternoon) to do the majority of the teaching and it still worked out...

i'm sure the book seems to some out-dated or that there are no big secrets in it but i think those people are missing the point. if you can figure out how to do it on your own, great...if you can't...for $7 here's a formula you can use or modify for your purposes. the book is informative and gives you a good process for teaching your child how to use the toilet but it's up to each parent to see how that process works for them.


good luck...if i, a single dad could find the time to do it...i'm sure you can too...