Best toilet training books for children according to redditors
We found 59 Reddit comments discussing the best toilet training books for children. We ranked the 26 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
We found 59 Reddit comments discussing the best toilet training books for children. We ranked the 26 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the top 20.
damn its real
It might be painful, or it might be the last little bit of control he has over "poop". I would look into adding in Miralax, which should just add water to his poop, not bulk it or stimulate his colon. That will make it easier for him to "squeeze it out" and simultaneously harder for him to hold it in. I would also recommend this book by a leading pediatric urologist in the field.
I came here to say this, and I have a cautionary tale about it. Our 6 yr old became constipated slowly over many months, and we knew nothing about it because she continued to poop normally. Our first symptom was that she began having wetting accidents after having been toilet trained for more than a year, but the pediatrician pooh-poohed it and said it was normal for a 5 year old. Then the poop accidents began, and the doctor gave us a referral to a psychologist, but insisted there was nothing physically wrong. We asked about constipation, but he felt around the abdomen and said he couldn't feel any masses.
Then she wound up in the ER with severe abdominal pain, and the x-ray showed her little abdomen was completely stuffed with poop. Because it had become so severe for so long, she has now completely lost the ability to control her bowels and has lost most bladder control as well. Her long-term prognosis is excellent, but the doctor says we still have 6-12 months of treatment ahead before we can reasonably expect to get her back to normal.
TLDR- OP, talk to your doctor about constipation. Know that the only way to know for sure whether or not it's constipation is to get an x-ray. If you don't want to do that, you can try preemptively treating with Miralax to see if that helps the situation. For more information, including instructions on using Miralax to "clean out" suspected constipation, there's a particularly good book about it.
I read "Oh Crap! Potty Training". The author's recommendation is to not start until they are at least 20months and can sing their ABCs. My kid was speech delayed at that age and definitely couldn't sing her ABCs (and still can't, at 2.5yrs), but we dove in right at 20m and she trained super easily compared to most of my friends' kids, even training for naps and nights. It took us like 2w to get to where I felt like I could leave the house without accidents. And she learned to say "pee pee" when she had to use the bathroom, so that was a plus.
My second born will be 20m in 1 week and I can't decide if I want to dive in and go through 2 weeks of potty training accidents to get the sweetness of never needing diapers again. It's a tough call to make!
Anyways, we used the little separate training potty at first, so that she could put herself on her potty and go pee, and then eventually moved up to setting her on the toilet with an insert which was necessary for using the restroom during outings. By the time I potty trained her, she was also sleeping in a big kid bed already which was super helpful.. I would sit her little potty on a waterproof mat on her floor and if she woke up from her nap, she could quickly sit herself on her potty before I could even get in there. She rarely had accidents in bed.
We read a lot of books about toilets... "Everybody Poops", "Potty Time", and "Once Upon a Potty". Some other books I liked were "Diapers are Not Forever", "Potty", and "Let's Go Potty, Elmo!".
Not wanting to poop in the potty is a common kid issue apparently. My son did the same thing. The problem is it becomes a feedback loop because they hold it and it gets hard and then it hurts so they don't want to poop etc.
Here are the things we did: 1) purchased several books on pooping. Look on Amazon we got one called It Hurts When I Poop (https://www.amazon.com/Hurts-When-Poop-Children-Scared/dp/1433801302/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=) but there are several if you look geared for kids. We made these books regular stories for a while 2) we implemented a reward chart just for pooping. Everytime he pooped he got a sticker and when he got 30 stickers he got a prize. We only had to do two charts before he was pooping regularly. 3) we started giving him fiber gummy vitamins and fiber loading his diet i.e. Every meal had fruits and veggies 4) made sure he was drinking lots of fluids as hydration helps with normal stooling 5) cut out foods that constipate like rice and bananas. Not forever just until he was going poop on a regular basis 6) if he hadn't pooped by late afternoon/evening we would sit him on the potty and give him books or whatever to keep him there til he pooped. There were tears sometimes involved because he was scared to poop. We would read the above mentioned poop books and discuss how everyone has to poop it is part of being healthy so your body can get rid of bad stuff. We actually still at 5 have to make him sit on the toilet to poop because in his words "it is boring and takes too long." And finally 7) if he really wasn't pooping and back up our doctor said we could give glycerin suppositries. Within 30 minutes a kid WILL poop with those. It is not fun for anyone but we only had to do that a time or two and he preferred pooping naturally so would go before it came to that.
Lately he has liked having a footstool so he can have a better position to poop (like the new fangles squatty potty but cheaper)
Feel free to PM me if you want to discuss more. My husband and I spent a lot of time and effort to research this issue.
The same exact thing happened with my 4 year old. We tried everything but finally found a solution. I cannot recommend this book enough: It's No Accident by Steve Hodges.
It turns out the problem was my daughter had minor constipation. Her stool was pressing against her bladder causing her to have wetting accidents. As soon as we started treating her constipation, the wetting accidents stopped.
Every book?
Mine is 2.5 and we are potty training as well thou our situation is slightly different.
Mine started pooping on the potty before he was 2 about 90% of the time and now almost always will poop on the potty unless we slack and leave him too long when he wakes in his crib. That said peeing on the potty was a battle, he would fight me and argue and scream when i tried and i would get so frustrated. I finally stopped forcing him and followed his lead but we continued to talk about potty and watch mommy go potty and read tons of potty books.
He loved the potty books. Will link below the ones we have. Then i also got a star chart and man does he love watching it get filled with stars. We are now doing great with training.
I still let him wear pullups in the morning because i am pregnant and it has me pretty tired and sick in the morning plus we are on the couch or carpeted area. Once he wakes from nap we switch to underwear and he stays dry with me setting timers every 40 mins, once timer goes off we say time for potty and he says "siri says go potty" lol so we run and both go potty. Then we high five and run and do our stars more high fives, huge yays etc. he stays in underwear until bed.
Also many people in our 2-3 class we do just go bottomless so maybe if she won't wear underwear let her go without and see if that works. They all recommend that oh crap method.
Kenson Kids “I Can Do It!” Potty Chart Updated Toilet Training System! Includes Colorful Magnetic Chart, 30 Positive-Reinforcement Stars, Potty Training Book, Achievement Certificate, and Training Tips for Parents https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FFF9T1Q/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_CtLmzb7GG9BC4
Potty (Leslie Patricelli board books) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0763644765/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_huLmzbBFJ36KP
These books i have used to break a lot of unwanted habits like hitting, kicking and his paci... just ordered yelling since he started that
Diapers Are Not Forever (Board Book) (Best Behavior Series) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1575422964/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_UuLmzbS6Q6KAN
Also if you do screen time the daniel tiger potty episode is awesome, he watched that for everyday for awhile and now he sings it
My kid likes daniel tiger, so we got him this Daniel Tiger Potty Book. He seems to like it.
Also, daniel tiger is streaming on amazon prime if you want the real potty episode.
Yay! I'm so happy to hear everything is going good for you! My good news is that my little one is crawling! She's such a blessing. Right now she's really enjoying exploring the house. Also, I have visitors coming tomorrow. Most of the all, the sun is shining (FINALLY) the birds are chirpping, and well it's just a great day!
This would make me happy... Just getting ready for the inevitable!
Thanks for the contest!
Have you seen this book: It Hurst When I Poop!
I bought a bunch of books for my son when we were having trouble with potty training and this one seems perfect for your situation.
Diapers Are Not Forever is going over well with my two year old.
You mean Wimpy Fart?
If he likes bubbles a bit of dish washing soap in the bowl works as a motivator. My wife and I had to be really patent. Boys in general potty train slower than girls and autistic ones even slower than that. We just were able to potty train my autistic 3 year old (4 in a few weeks). It took months of work. We did the pull ups, taking him to the potty every 30 minutes, used kitchen timers, gave him treats when he did go in the potty, etc.
The first thing to work on is just getting him to go in the potty and get used to that. We were able to add it to our nighttime routine easiest. After that we kept enforcing it more and more, and each time he did it he got a treat. After that we moved to the no wet pullup treat, where if he had a dry pullup he got his treat. Once we got good results there, we moved to underwear. It was rough at first, lots of changes in clothes, but we finally got some Toy Story underwear and he didn't want to get Buzz or Woody wet. We still reinforce with treats, but he will tell us now when he has to go potty. Our biggest challenge was that he's a sensory seeker so he doesn't mind being wet.
Things to try:
This happened to my daughter when she was 2.5 and had been potty trained for a few months. Had a hard painful poo and then pretty much refused to poo "ever again". Her record was 5 days. It was horrible and stressful. We called our excellent pediatrician and I researched a tonne. Here's the plan that we made.
Within 2 weeks we had her doing pretty well. Going every 2 days or so. Within a month we were down to 1/4 dose of Miralax a day. Within 2 months it became a distant memory. You want to treat it aggressively IMHO because it can lead to worse problems.
Sorry was lazy yesterday about linking from my phone. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0764152319 this is the one we have. Here is the boy one (havent read it, assume its basically the same) http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0764152327
For anatomical stuff I recommend Amazing you (my daughter is thrilled that she has egg parts haha) http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0142410586
I'm sorry, I know how awful it is. My daughter had the same issue and it was hell.
These books helped:
"It Hurts When I Poop" http://www.amazon.com/Hurts-Story-Children-Scared-Potty/dp/1433801310/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1463792611&sr=8-3&keywords=poop+books
and "I Can't, I Won't, No Way" https://www.amazon.com/Cant-Wont-No-Way-ebook/dp/B0061YV93G?ie=UTF8&keywords=poop%20books&qid=1463792611&ref_=sr_1_6&sr=8-6
She didn't like "Super Pooper" but a kid more into superheroes might. https://www.amazon.com/Super-Pooper-Book-Potty-Training-ebook/dp/B00D0DKM8E/ref=pd_sim_351_1?ie=UTF8&dpID=51iyQdIcJYL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_UX300_PJku-sticker-v3%2CTopRight%2C0%2C-44_OU01_AC_UL480_SR372%2C480_&refRID=HP8KA01VTG58ZYP69TM9
Sorry that my links aren't fancy. Good luck!
I'm almost certain A Potty for Me was a big contributor to my development of this fetish. Growing up, my dad worked a few towns over and would carpool. On Fridays's we'd meet him at the local bookstore and we'd all kinda just hang out reading our own things for an hour or two. when I was 7 or 8 I stumbled upon this particular book and reading it over became something I did whenever I found myself alone in the children's section. What caught my young eyes in particular was the inclusion of pant's wetting and "nighttime only" diapers because of a string of day accidents i had had when I was 6 and my ongoing struggles with bedwetting.
my almost 4 year old had his first accident today. he's been in undies during the day for about a month, maybe a little longer. he's also ASD, high functioning/level I whatever term is PC this month, biggest challenge is language and communication.
2 things made a HUGE difference when we got serious about starting to potty train. Daniel Tiger and Elmo.
if you're kid watches either, they both have potty episodes or segments, there's even a game for the tablet with Daniel Tiger specifically for the potty.
we got this book and this one ( this one was his favorite) as well as this coloring and activity book we tried the chart with stickers, but it didn't really make that big of an impact, but he liked coloring and I think just seeing the characters and potty activities helped.
the other thing that helped was day care. over the summer we had him in day care half a day 2 days a week, just to keep up the social piece he was missing with no school. they sat them about every hour, he saw other kids going, and I think that made a big difference in his desire to WANT to use the potty.
we didn't do rewards, just lots of praise and clapping, making a big deal, sometimes we'd offer watching a show or other preferred activity. it worked. he script, so a lot of his communication is in the form of repeating shows or movies or songs. so we'd hear him script Daniel tiger's potty song, and we took that as our queue to get him to the potty.
he's getting better about going independently, but we still have a long way to go. and he still needs help with clothes.
my biggest advice is to not rush, which it doesn't sound like you're doing, I think us waiting until he was ready made all the difference.
good luck mama! keep us posted!
You might want to try some books on pooping in the potty, not just vague "I'm a big kid and I use the potty" books, specifically ones that talk about pooping. These two are both really great for getting kids to poop on the potty. If you can't find a book that works, I'd suggest making a social story.
https://www.amazon.com/Cant-Wont-No-Way-Children/dp/1466453737/
https://www.amazon.com/Wheres-Poop-Julie-Markes/dp/0060530898/
As you said, it doesn't sound like bowel control is an issue, and since she's been peeing for a year it sounds like the toilet itself isn't a problem either. You could also try bribing her with stickers or toys, but I babysat for a woman who did this with her kid and he started pooping just a tiny bit at a time and demanding a toy after every little deposit.
Just expect for it to be a months long process. Once I accepted that potty-training wouldn't happen in three days (at least for my kid), the whole ordeal became much more bearable. Also, books. This is B's favorite: https://www.amazon.com/Potty-Sesame-Street-Lift-Flap/dp/038538369X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=p+is+for+potty&qid=1557770203&s=gateway&sr=8-1
Sorry if the formatting is whack!
Preschool teacher here. I have had a few parents swear by this book. Haven't read it myself, but know for a fact it's helped a few of my students.
At least it's not this
I never realised how awful constipation was in a toddler until our daughter suffered from it, shes had on/off problems with it since she moved onto solids at six months, she's three and a half now. Its been well under control (in that she goes nearly every day) for over a year now but we still keep an eye on it. I remember when she was younger every poo was a victory (I think her record was two weeks) and everytime she had one it was like resetting the clock and we would begin the process again of trying to get her to go again.
Our daughter has always been good with eating fruit and veg, and always had plenty of water. She'll happily eat a punnet of strawberries or a whole avacado in a sitting, I never felt that her diet was a problem - although I feel it did help cutting a few stodgy foods out, she generally has wholemeal pasta/bread but we're not obsessive over it or anything.
We'd been to various GP's (we are in the UK) who would prescribe a short course of meds, either lactulose or movicol. These would sort things out temporarily but afterwards it felt like we were back to where we started.
It was very frustrating, we would go through good and bad patches, things were pretty good until we started potty training at two, then she just stopped going again. You probably know that constipation can be physiological (a medical cause) or functional (dietary or often psychological). How I understand it that often there is an initial cause for the constipation, perhaps something dietary that causes it, this causes the poo to be painful, so then the child witholds their bowl movement from fear of another painful bowl movement, this of course sets you up in a vicious cycle that often gets worse and worse.
What worked for us was a new GP, he said that current guidelines said that childhood constipation should be managed longer term (I think it was for as long as the child had had constipation - so in our case a long time) and he suggested putting our daughter on a long term course of movicol (which I believe has Macrogol 3350 as the active ingredient) He said she could have up to three of the sachets a day, but less if she was going reguarly and there were no problems. We had a series of follow up appointments, we just had one last month where we decided to leave the perscription open so we could use it as and when - currently she's probably on a sachet every other day.
we also had a few books that helped a bit [this one] (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Constipation-Withholding-Your-Child-Soiling/dp/1843104911/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1412067509&sr=8-1&keywords=children+constipation) and [this one] (http://www.amazon.co.uk/It-Hurts-When-Poop-Children/dp/1433801310/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1412066940&sr=8-3&keywords=children+constipation). Take from them what you will, there are good bits in them - I decided not to tell my daughter that the poo would be angry if it didn't come out as it wanted to play! A bit too Mr Hanky for me!
There different types of laxative, I believe movicol is an osmotic laxative so it bulks up the stool with water so its easier to poo, and as I understand it it never crosses out of the intestines and stays in the gut binding to water, its not the stimulant type of laxative that stimulate the gut itself that is not recommended to be on long term.
Once our daughters stools were soft from the medication it all fell into place as it were, we kept up with her good diet of course. We also found that reminding her to do a poo worked well, we would often let her sit on her potty in front of a TV programme she liked. When she does a poo she gets a sticker for her reward chart, lots of praise and a high five. I also say things like "doesn't your tummy feel good now that you've done a poo".
I hope that things get easier, I would suggest if you're not having much luck with one sachet talking to your doctor about increasing the dosage for a while. Good luck, I wish many poos upon you - in the best way that someone can say that!
Phew, that turned into rather more of an essay than I intended.
Berenstain Bears on the Moon. This was the first book I can remember reading by myself at age 3.
Also, my parents used to read a book called The Clown Arounds to me when I was a baby. Read it to me so much the cover fell off from use.
The last major influence on my young life was Canadian author Robert Munsch. Most Americans I find are familiar with his heartwarming story Love You Forever which was a big hit with baby showers when I worked in a book store. Little did anyone know that he writes a ton of other books that are hilarious to kids. Such as Mortimer which is about a kid who doesn't want to go to bed. Or I Have to Go! about a little boy and his finicky bladder. The big one though was The Paper Bag Princess about a princess who has to go rescue her handsome prince after the dragon burned down her castle, but all she has to wear is a dirty paper bag. My mom even took me to see this guy live when I was like 5 years old, performing his own stories. I used to love the stories, and when I have kids, I'm going to stock their library with all of them.
Yeah...it reminded me of my potty training book!
EDIT: THIS ONE!
Oh, one other thing that helped us with the whole "no, I don't have to go because I want to keep playing oh wait I just shit my pants" thing: if she likes a particular show see if they have a potty training episode or book. Ours loves Daniel tiger and there's a petty good potty training episode and we got the board book that they made out of it. That goofy song helped my daughter a bunch.
And bribes don't have to be treats. We users food coloring to color the water when my daughter pooped and she thought that was the coolest thing ever.
I have never read it personally, but I hear The Whole Brain Child is a good one. How did you like it?
I've read A LOT of parenting/child care books because I study child development in university.
The absolute BEST parenting books are (i included links):
The RIE Manual by Magda Gerber [link]
Elevating Childcare by Janet Lansbury [link] (All of the books by Gerber and Lansbury are really good!)
It's no Accident by Dr. Steve Hodges [link]
There really are dozens of great ones I could list, but those are my three favorites. If you want more, hit me up!!
That one and this one were good distractions for poops.
On becoming potty wise worked for me. I did 5 kids in 3 days with my in home childcare.
On Becoming Pottywise for Toddlers: A Developmental Readiness Approach to Potty Training https://www.amazon.com/dp/1932740147/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_dmm9Bb64ZXADK
I borrowed this from our local library and used it as a guide
Oh Crap! Potty Training: Everything Modern Parents Need to Know to Do It Once and Do It Right https://www.amazon.com/dp/1501122983/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_J9eFybACN09E1
And I read this book to her about a week before Day 1 of training
Potty Book for Girls, The https://www.amazon.com/dp/0764152319/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_H-eFybXQC3YPM
We started on a long weekend (Saturday to Monday) and she went back to daycare in undies with only about 2 accidents that week.
We still haven't night trained though.
I associate the name Prudence with going to the potty, surely I'm not the only one with a daughter...
Here's the book I first heard it in.
My daughter had this EXACT same problem. If she didn't have a diaper on, she would hold it for days and then poops would hurt.
I bought her this book: http://www.amazon.com/It-Hurts-When-Poop-Children/dp/1433801302/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1371965287&sr=8-1&keywords=scared+poo+book
It helped her understand what was going on. It did not cure her overnight, but it puts into words they can understand.
Ultimately what ended up happening was we told her that if she had to poop, she had to ask for a diaper, put it on herself and poop in it. When she was done, she was back in panties. Pull ups for naps & nights. We made sure to keep her ultra "lubed" up with tonnes of berries, veggies, flax seed, prunes. We stayed away from anything clogging for a while like breads & cheeses. Then one day, a poop just slipped out when she was on the potty peeing. We made a HUGE deal about it. It eventually happened more and more and within a week of her breakthrough she was potty trained.
He will potty when he's ready. I know how frustrating it can be, because you just want them to not hurt their own body by holding in their poops. For some kids it's a scary transition. It is also a comfort thing sometimes. They have worn diapers for their whole lives and to let go of that change can be very emotional. Hang in there, it will happen! :)
We have Duck Goes Potty and Potty Time with Elmo. My daughter likes both, but, in my view, the duck one is cuter and clearer. It also gets a bonus for including poop, which my daughter never fails to point out. I can't speak to their effectiveness since we haven't really started the potty-training process yet.
My daughter really liked this one: http://www.amazon.com/Potty-Girls-Alyssa-Satin-Capucilli/dp/0764152319/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396150916&sr=8-1&keywords=potty+training+book+for+girls+Hannah. Potty Book for Girls. THe main character's name is Hannah.
I think this is the boy's version: http://www.amazon.com/The-Potty-Book-For-Boys/dp/0764152327/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1396150940&sr=8-1&keywords=potty+training+book+for+boys.
We didn't start our kiddo on potty training until she was almost 3 so she was really into the whole "being just like Hannah" thing. Potty training is my lease favorite milestone to accomplish. At least she hasn't shit in her underwaer in a while so hopefully we're past that now!
Whatever I can do to help.