Potty Training For Dummies

If you could remember your own potty training, you’d probably recall a time filled with anxiety and glee, frustration and a sense of accomplishment, triumphal joy and shamed remorse. You’d remember wanting so much to make mommy and daddy happy, and at the same time to make them pay for being so darned unreasonable. And you’d recall feeling incredibly grown up once you got it right. Maybe if we could remember our own potty training, it wouldn’t be so tough when it came our turn to be the trainers. But as it is, most of us feel like we can use all the expert advice and guidance we can get.

Potty Training For Dummies is your total guide to the mother of all toddler challenges. Packed with painless solutions and lots of stress-reducing humor, it helps you help your little pooper make a smooth and trauma-free transition from diapers to potty. You’ll discover how to:

• Read the signs that your tot is ready
• Motivate your toddler to want to give up diapers
• Kick off potty training on the right foot
• Foster a team approach
• Deal with setbacks and pee and poop pranks
• Make potty training a loving game rather than a maddening ordeal

Mother and daughter team, Diane Stafford and Jennifer Shoquist, MD separate potty-training fact from fiction and tell you what to expect, what equipment you’ll need, and how to set the stage for the big event. They offer expert advice on how to:

• Choose the right time
• Use a doll to help model behavior
• Say the right things the right way
• Reinforce success with praise and rewards
• Switch to training pants
• Get support from relatives
• Cope with special cases
• Train kids with disabilities

And they offer this guarantee: “If your child is still in diapers when he makes the football team or gets her college degree, you can send him or her off to us for a weekend remedial course—and ask for a refund of the cost of this book.”

Introduction.

Part I: Setting Up for Success.

Chapter 1: Launching the Potty-Training Adventure.

Chapter 2: Assembling Your Team.

Chapter 3: Using the Tools of the Trade and Dressing for Success.

Part II: It's All in the Timing.

Chapter 4: Recognizing Readiness Signs.

Chapter 5: Choosing the Right Time.

Part III: Surefire Steps for Ditching Diapers.

Chapter 6: Prepping for the Big Game.

Chapter 7: Dancing the Potty Mambo.

Chapter 8: Keeping a Good Thing Going.

Chapter 9: Training Outside the Home.

Part IV: Using Psych-Up Skills.

Chapter 10: Staying on Message.

Chapter 11: Understanding Your Trainee.

Chapter 12: Getting By with a Little Help.

Part V: Coping with Special Cases.

Chapter 13: Managing Major-League Backsliding.

Chapter 14: Dealing with Day-Slippers and Bed-Wetters.

Chapter 15: Handling a Hardcore Balker.

Chapter 16: Soiling Beyond Toddler Years.

Chapter 17: Training Children with Disabilities.

Part VI: The Part of Tens.

Chapter 18: Ten Answers from the Expert.

Chapter 19: Ten Ways to Pump Up Potty Prowess.

Chapter 20: Ten Reasons to Let Your Child Lead.

Chapter 21: Ten Woulda-Couldas If You Got Do-Overs.

Index. Diane Stafford has written extensively on health issues.

Jennifer Shoquist, M.D., Stafford s daughter, is a family practice physician. Praise for Potty Training For Dummies!

"Potty Training For Dummies provides practical, nitty-gritty tips for dealing with the mother of all toddler challenges: potty training. This highly comprehensive book arms parents with the facts they need to make the transition from diapers to the toilet as stress-free as possible for toddlers and their parents." ?Ann Douglas, author, The Mother of All Pregnancy Books

Surefire steps for ditching diapers and conquering setbacks

Help your little one make the transition without trauma or tears

Packed with practical, painless solutions and plenty of good humor, this friendly guide offers you step-by-step directions to help your toddler move from diapers to the potty in record time ? with can?t-miss advice on managing everything from motivation to bed-wetting to daycare providers.

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