Oh Crap! Potty Training: Everything Modern Parents Need to Know to Do It Once and Do It Right

[lightreads]

Oh Crap!

2+/5? IDK, man. There are a lot of potty training books, but this tends to be the one at the top of a lot of people’s lists. I skimmed it, and on the one hand, there is useful information here. And, significantly, it is very refreshing to read a parenting book in which the author, gasp, swears. Unheard of.

On the other hand, she has strong opinions about lots of things, and she is dead wrong about one of the major ones, which makes you wonder about the rest of them. She strenuously argues that, if you haven’t potty trained by 30 months, all is terrible and everyone will suffer and you must do it immediately and it is going to be so hard, you guys. Casterbrook, to the contrary, trained with ease and minimal drama in, basically, a weekend, at age 37 months. So whatever, lady. I also really could have done without her theories about why kids get constipated (she thinks it’s the fact that parents are on the internet? Or stressed out? Or something? This was super eyerolly and hard to follow). Also, the sidebar on how she cured her kid’s eczema with the paleo diet was definitely a thing I could have gone without.

So, honestly, don’t bother with this one. Just google a few potty training cheat sheets and pick and choose your methods. That basically what I did, in the end.

Comments

[cahn]

lolololol. My younger one didn't potty train until... I don't remember the exact date, but it was close enough to his fourth birthday that we were sweating it a little (as it would have had an impact on him changing preschool classes). He was the last one in his class, by a healthy margin.

You know what was so hard? Trying to potty train him before he was ready. When he was ready he potty trained in, yeah, basically a weekend. (In retrospect I think there was some anxiety about the toilet that resolved itself when he got a little older and realized it was not a monster out to get him, or whatever he had decided it was in his brain.) No issues after that, and he night trained all by himself. (Older child day trained at 18 months, but couldn't figure out night training until she was 5, and even then -- with her full approval, because she was as tired of it as we were -- we had to get one of those moisture sensors that goes in the underwear.)

It's almost like kids are different, or something! (This is my long-standing complaint with basically ALL parenting books, especially since my older child, as we used to say, had never read any of the parenting books and insisted on not following any of what they helpfully said all kids should do! Except, I guess, for toilet training :) )

[lightreads]

Yup, exactly. We toyed with the idea of training Cb around 2.5, but it was so blatantly clear that it would have been an uphill battle and just, why? Could we have done it? Yeah, probably. But you don't get a medal for doing it the hard way. So many kid problems -- in many areas -- resolve themselves if you just let it be for six months and apply zero pressure about it.

[castiron]

Neither of my younger two trained until they were four. One picked it up after one weekend of plying him with water and letting him run around outside with a bare bottom; the other took a while before he stopped having accidents, but still picked up the basics quickly. We probably could've done them both a bit earlier, but at two they weren't ready.