Customer Reviews

Stress-Free Potty Training: A Commonsense Guide to Finding the Right Approach for Your Child

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is great!! It offers specific, easy to follow advice based on your child's individual temperment... We started potty training before reading this book. It's our first child and I've been working on tips and advice from various sources... This book seems to put it all together... I've found myself in nearly exact situations this book has described-- and it definately offers some techniques I hadn't thought of or tried...
Basically, if you're not committed to one style or method --and why would you be, every child is different-- this is an excellent book with a wide variety of techniques, advice and tools to help make this experience as pleasant as can be for you and your little one!

This book gives great, sound advice that tells you how to tailor your potty training to your child's personality.

You first take a quiz to determine your child's personality type, then it gives you universal potty training techniques followed by techniques for each of the 5 personality types.

It teaches you ways to prepare your child for potty-training months before you actually think you'll go diaper-free, so read this early--when your child is around 12-18 months.

Just before I read this book, I started my 3rd attempt at potty-training my nearly 3 year old twin boys and was finally having some success. When I read it, a lot of the the tips it gave were the things I had already figured out after much trial and error (and frustration). If I had read this book a year ago, I think I would have saved myself much of that frustration.

This book has really helped me with, even more than potty training my daughter (which worked!!), but alleviating my worries - I didn't want to put pressure on her, but I also needed to get her trained before she started school. I thought it would take all Summer, but it didn't!! Great advice, great stories. I highly recommend this book for first time, nervous parents.

This was the only book I read in preparation for potty-training my son. I found several of the book's recommendations useful, particularly the one about letting your child run around naked. However, I didn't find the toddler typology around which the book is structured particularly useful in my case, because I couldn't recognize my son's personality in any single type. I doubt my son is that unique; perhaps I over-analyzed him. In any case, readers of this book should read broadly and not rely solely on the recommendations in any single section.

Admittedly, I've read my fair share of potty-training tomes touting the "one-day-and-you're-done" theories and have only become more intimidated & frustrated, further from potty training our toddler than before. Therefore I was skeptical as I believe potty training is not "Stress-Free" but I now believe that the subtitle "Common Sense" is much more applicable after reading Dr. Stavinoha's book. His approach is just what we have searched for & intuitively knew: not all children are the same (and why would we want that?).

However, after reading "Stress Free", I was relieved to learn that we're not the only family for whom this is a tough process (and no, it is NOT done in a day) and that like most people we are not behind because we didn't train my child as 3 month old infant. In fact, once I read the book, I was confident that my child can learn quickly when we're aware of the signs (that she's ready) and we're consistent.

This book is a fairly quick read with well organized & concise with an emphasis listening to your child, maintaining a consistent routine & once you've begun, he recommends encouraging your child with love & affection rather than stickers, toys, gadgets, et al --- common sense, indeed! I highly recommend this book and am grateful for my good friend who told me about it, too. Best of luck & don't fret: your child won't go to college in diapers!

Wow! This is a must-read and must-have for all parents potty training. I read 15 books on potty training as I prepared to potty train my son and this book was FABULOUS, the cream of the crop. It addresses the concept that children have different personalities and learning styles. As my husband and I took the quiz about our son we realized strong characteristics in him that made a difference in how we approached the potty. I would recommend it to everyone!! If you are potty training a boy, I would also recommend Potty Training Boys the Easy Way by Caroline Fertleman. Both books are quick, easy reads with practical, common sense approaches to potty training! You won't be disappointed!!

The book had very good ideas, and I liked the fact that they try to teach you based on your childs personality type. According to the book my child is "Strong Willed" and it basically tells you that he will potty train himself on his own schedule and there is not really much you can do about it. As a mother of a 3 year old who has basically tried everything being told to sit back and wait wasnt very helpful for me. The book had good ideas and it may work for some but it was a waste of $20.00 for me.

Potty training by personality type? Really? Humans have been potty training their children for years without books and programs and personality diagnoses. Thanks, but no thanks. We can do this ourselves.

A year ago, when my husband, son, and I began the potty training process, I didn't believe we needed this book or any other book about potty training. However, I was getting a little desperate and willing to try just about anything. My 3-year-old boy has had #2 down perfectly for months (yay!), but recognizing the need for #1 was elusive. This book came very highly recommended by my neighbor. Figured it was worth a shot. Maybe we do need some help.

The book begins with some universal potty training tips. We had already tried several of these things with our son and most of them seemed to be fairly helpful and on target. The next section is the quiz to determine your child's personality type followed by chapters devoted to each of the types. My child had one dominate type, with high marks in two others. I read all three of those sections and have since been implimenting the advice. I am delighted to say that we have seen drastic changes in our child's progress! We've changed our approach and methods of guidance and now he's more excited than ever about using the potty and is realizing the importance and benefit of doing so. Meanwhile, my husband and I are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel!

I read about "potty traing in 3 days" type of approaches and tried that when my son was about 2.5 years old. The beginning was good. He quickly got the fact that bare bottom means a mess on a floor, so he started going on the potty on his own... Since he was doing so good with bear bottom, I thought that meant he was ready for this and we were happy he got it so quickly... However, as soon as we put his pants or underwear on, he lost interest in the potty. He's very independent, so having to tell us he has to go so we can help him pull his pants down did not interest him. At the same time, he had not much luck pulling them down on his own. That lead eventually to frustration on both sides and eventually we gave up after a couple of months. Then I got this book. While I kind of knew right away which personality type was my son before I even took the quiz at the beginning, and a lot of advices were "common sense" which I already figured out on my own, it still helped a lot. Having read the appropriate chapters for my son's personality, I was able to sort out things I should or should not do and most importantly, stick with it other than wonder if this is really right for him. 3 months after a failed 1st attempt, we tried again, and this time, he's doing much better. It helps that now he can pull down and pull up his pants on his own, too so he can do a lot by himself and feels that he's in charge. Listening to your friend's or family advice is nice, but their child personality might be totally different than yours. Things that encourage other children may work in the opposite way for your child. If you have an 'angel' type of child, maybe generic approaches described in other books will be good for you, but one size rarely fits all.
I do agree with another person's review though that the sample dialogs in the book are not that great depending on how old your child is. Some of those dialogs were too advanced for my son. Still, they did give me some ideas of how to respond to my son in a way it made sense for his age.

This was the best and most helpful potty training book to me. Before reading anything in the body of the book, you take a quiz to help determine your child's personality type. The writer then offers general tips that help all children. Subsequent chapters focus on approaches that work well with each particular personality type. Once I started following the tips for my daughter's strong willed personality, potty training really started to fall into place.