Potty Training For Dummies [Paperback]

Diane Stafford (Author), Jennifer Shoquist M.D. (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 25, 2002

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.”

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

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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About the Author

Diane Stafford has written extensively on health issues.

Jennifer Shoquist, M.D., Stafford s daughter, is a family practice physician.

Product Details

• Paperback: 264 pages
• Publisher: For Dummies; 1 edition (June 25, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0764554174
• ISBN-13: 978-0764554179
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #588,049 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Pictured here with her daughter and co-author Jennifer Shoquist, Diane Stafford is an award-winning writer and editor who is known for her lively, upbeat writing style. She has been featured in dozens of articles and broadcasts nationwide. With a two-year bestseller (50,001 Best Baby Names, Sourcebooks), Stafford has fourteen published books and has sold more than a million books.
Stafford lives near the Pacific Ocean in Newport Beach, California, with her husband, Gregory Munoz, an Orange County superiorl court judge. Stafford has one daughter, three stepdaughters, and two stepsons.
Some of Stafford's published books include: Migraines For Dummies, Potty Training For Dummies, The Encyclopedia of STDs, No More Panic Attacks, 40,001 Best Baby Names, 50,001 Best Baby Names, 1000 Best Job-Hunting Secrets, Parent's Success Guide to Parenting, The Ultimate Baby Name Book, The Big Book of 60,001 Baby Names, and The Vitamin D Cure (with Jim Dowd, M.D.). Four of these books were co-authored with Stafford's daughter; her job-hunting book co-author was Moritza Day. Stafford's newest book is 60,001 Best Baby Names (Sourcebooks, August 2008).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

41 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Huh?, December 20, 2005

By 

The Cool Guy (The City, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Potty Training For Dummies (Paperback)

As a dad, I was really looking forward to a book on potty training to help me with my 2-year old. This book is lousy though. Why?

1. Stupid Writing. I got pretty sick of constantly reading all the sappy, "witty" remarks. "Dancing the Potty Mambo"? Give me a break!

2. Stupid Advice. This book keeps telling you to talk to your kid like he/she is an adult. I'm sorry, but a 2-year-old just cannot comprehend a long drawn-out explanation of why you want them or don't want them to do something. How about just saying, "Don't do that!" or "Hey, you want to try this?" That seems to work just fine for me. Why give your kid a doctoral dissertation every time you want them to do something? What's wrong with just telling your kid what to do (nicely), and expecting them to be obedient?

3. Repeating Content. This book kept repeating itself OVER and OVER. Okay, I got it already! I strongly feel that the author wanted to push this book over the 200-page mark when all that needed to be said could probably have been accomplished in about 50 pages (or less).

4. Too Many References. This book constantly refers to other chapters. I once counted 6 different references to other chapters on one page. I am not kidding! Huh? Is potty training really that freakin' complicated? All I want is some general ideas on how to go about it, how to get started, and a few good tips. I don't need all these detailed references. (Nor do I need the phrase "Potty Mambo" repeated to me ad infinitum.)

Here is all I wanted to know:
-How do I get started?
-What do I do?
-How often do I need to try it?
-Should I go for pullups or just keep him in diapers for the moment?

Maybe this book got to all of that, but I quit after page 60. I just couldn't take it anymore. After hearing the phrases "Stay Positive" and "Potty Mambo" repeated to me for the umpteenth time, I had to quit. I returned this book and got my money back.

If I were to say anything good about this book, I would say that it has a few good tips, surrounded by about 180 pages of filler.

Potty training still looms ahead. Will I be successful? Probably. But to this book I say, No Thanks.

32 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Potty Mambo? Ick., July 21, 2004

By 

SandyCB "sandycb" (Urbana, IL) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Potty Training For Dummies (Paperback)

My oldest daughter was a tough sell with potty training, so, desperate, I tried this book against my better judgement, having had little success with other books in the Dummy series. I still have no success with Dummy books. This book promoted doing potty training all at once in an intensive push. This might work for some kids, but it is by no means the best method for all kids. My pediatrician, father of six, says that kids will train when they're ready, no matter what you do, and forcing the issue will just take forever and frustrate all involved. I can't prove him wrong. Forcing a "potty mambo" on a kid who has decided that she prefers not to use the potty leads to a war you don't want to fight. (Note that the kid in question knew how to use the potty; she just didn't want to, as in "but Mommy, I don't want to use the potty", screamed at full blast in public restrooms everywhere.) My other complaint is that some of their "facts" made me fear that my daughter had major problems, when it turns out she was, in fact, totally normal. There have to be books out there with better ideas, or we'd all be better off waiting, as a friend did, until one day her 3-year-old said "Mommy, I want to wear underwear now." And within a week she was.

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I Felt Like A Dummy..., November 28, 2005

By 

K. Weirich (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Potty Training For Dummies (Paperback)

My daughter is only 17 months old, but her doctor said that at her 18 month check up we will begin to talk about potty training. Since she is my first, I like to become somewhat knowledgable about different milestones she will be accomplishing so I set out to read some potty training books. Now, even though I am a first time mom, I am not stupid. This book made me feel just that. I felt like the author was talking to my 17 month old rather than her 28 year old mom. I was never really sure what points the author was trying to make and the ideas that were used weren't in my opinion good. Not to mention, this book was a little longer than I would've liked which might have also attributed to my dislike of this book. I found that Mommy I Have to Go Potty by Jan Faull and Parenting Guide to Toilet Training by Anne Kruger were much easier, shorter and more helpful then this book.