Customer Reviews

Toilet Training in Less Than A Day

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3 star:		(31)
2 star:		(42)
1 star:		(73)

 

 

The Azrin-Foxx toilet-training method really works. For a third of the price of a case of Huggies from Costco, you can get rid of diapers forever.

I used this book's method to potty-train my son three months ago. We spent from 9am to 2pm following the procedures outlined in the book, but he really had it down by noon. He had four accidents in the first week and a half, and none since. If I had been mindful of how long it had been since he last went to the bathroom, a couple of those accidents could have been avoided, but making the switch from changing diapers after the fact to a more proactive approach can take parents a little while too. I was concerned about putting him in Pull-Ups at bedtime, thinking they might feel enough like diapers that he'd revert to pre-training days, but it hasn't been a problem.

This book was written in the 1970's - those troubling times when moms were homemakers instead of fighter-pilots - and the text reflects the sensibilities of the era. The book also makes the suggestion that if bread-winning dad isn't on board with the process that *he* take over the diaper-changing responsibilities and see how quickly he changes his mind. The gender stratification of the day is obvious, but as a dad who trained his son (and *not* as a penalty for not being with the program) I didn't find the cultural anachronisms too off-putting or annoying. The book was written with a very academic tone - not surprising, considering the university research backgrounds of the authors - so it's not a quick and easy read. Because it is primarily a research document, rewriting it to reflect modern sensibilities really wouldn't enhance it.

One caveat: The book is written for training children with well-developed cognitive abilities and motor skills (the book recommends about 2-1/2 for girls, 3 for boys). If you need to train your child at a younger age, this book may not work for you - because children develop at different rates, the book gives has a readiness test to help you evaluate if your child has the skills necessary to successfully complete the training.

When your child is ready for potty-training, start with this book's method. If you provide the recommended followthrough this will likely be the last book on the subject you'll ever need.

I was skeptical about rather this book would work. My mother used it to toilet train me and my sister back in the '70's and recommended it highly. I tried training the traditional way first. Following a suggestion in a magazine, I let my 2 year, 9 month old son run around the house naked so he could get to the potty unencumbered. He kept peeing on the floor and crying. Eventually, when I asked him where he would pee, he said "on the floor." This is when I decided to use the book. I had some trouble getting my son to pay attention to me and follow instructions, because he is very stubborn. He is not trained as well as the boy in book (he needs to be taken to the potty), but he has not had an accident in three days (I trained him six days ago). On reading the book, you may feel that the approach is cruel, as a reviewer I read earlier on the site did. However, you must be aware that everything is done in a positive way, the emphasis is on teaching your child, not humiliating them. Also, because the training process is so rapid, your child is spared the continued humiliation of having accidents, especially in public (and you are too). It took me four hours to train my son. Since then, he has been genuinely more happy and self assured. Our relationship has improved immensely as well. This book taught me that I can be my son's teacher and he can learn from me. It also taught me how to improve my interactions with him by following the suggestions for making sure he listens to and follows through on my instructions. This has significantly decreased the times I get frustrated with him or yell at him for things unrelated to toilet training. This book was written to end the humiliation that most children go through before they are completely toilet trained. It is backed by research. It was originally designed for retarded children, and can be successfully used on children with IQ's as low as 30. I am a licensed master social worker, and I would not hesitate to recommend this book to anyone, including my clients.

This book is for organized and motivated mothers who want to potty train quickly. In a city apartment with no yard, no outdoor play space, and carpet everywhere except the bathroom and small kitchen, and having a low tolerance for mess, I felt I simply could not stand the "let them run around bare for a few weeks until they get it" method. So I tried this one.

It took a couple of months to gather up all the supplies, but even so, the night before training day, as I was reviewing the method, I realized that the Doll-that-Wets did not have two pairs of underpants, as needed, so that she could change into dry ones - so I did some late night sewing.

However all the preparation paid off. After 4 hours my 33-month old son (who had never sat on a potty before), could (and did) pull down his pants by himself, urinate, pull up his pants, dump the pot, flush, wash his hands, and dry his hands.

He was having such a great time with pottying, that that evening he kept excusing himself every 5 minutes to run to the potty, and was sometimes mildly disappointed when no pee came out.

After day three the novely wore off, and he is now (as of day 5) figuring out how long he can wait before going to the potty.
We have had one accident per day - but I think that this is because, after almost 3 years of disposable diapers, he is still learning how to recognize when he needs to go.

A few comments if you plan to try the method yourself.

1) Azrin and Foxx do say that if you child has a problem with general stubborness ("he understands what you have said, but he refuses to carry out your instructions") then "until this general stubbornness is overcome, you should not attempt to toilet train."

2) Azrin and Foxx also say "You may consider your child to be trained when he walks to the potty chair for the first time without a reminder and completes the entire toileting experience without the need for instructions or guidance." And that your child should continue to wear oversized training pants until "he has remained dry for several days". So realistically, even when this method works as advertized, you need to plan for not only one day for intense training, but a few days of staying at home or only going places where your child's potty will be readily available and where accidents will not be hard to handle. (We have visited friends, but have taken the potty with us.)

3) My son loves novelty and loves the idea of being grown up, so as additional motivators I waited until Training Day to (a) get out the potty (b) get out the dolly (c) remove the baby gate from the bathroom door to allow him access to the bathroom and(d) ever let him wash his own hands by himself in the bathroom

4) Azrin and Foxx's method neglects handwashing. By putting a stool at the bathroom sink, I made it possible for my son to wash his hands independently, and added this to the potty routine, right after toilet flushing.

5) I allerted Grandparents and a few good friends in advance, so that when we called them on Training Day, they were ready with lavish praise.

6) When my son's interest flagged partly through training, and I was running out of more positive things to say about pottying, I pulled out a potty book he had never seen before (he loves books) to give him a little break, while not really venturing off the subject of pottying.

7) I waited until after my son had trained the doll to take him out of diapers and put him in training pants, so that he would not have any accidents before he knew what to do.

8) It was very hard to find a simple doll-that-wets. I ended up buying a Potty Dotty. First I clipped the wires to the speaker to get rid of the annoying chatter. Then I put a magnet inside her leg so that she would pee on my son's potty, and not just on her own. With those modifications a fancy electronic doll has been reduced to one that can be filled with water with the switch in the off position, then with the switch in the on position, pees approx 10 seconds after you poke her bottle in her mouth.

HOWEVER: Don't feel you have to potty train this way if you don't want to. My sister-in-law took a look at the book, and her reaction can be summed up as "You gotta be kidding.". She has preferred a much more laid back gradualist approach that would have driven me bonkers.

CAVEAT: I realize even if a method is "guarranteed to work for all children" there will still be some for which it doesn't work. (For us, the issue was sleeping through the night - nothing we tried worked for that - and our son did not sleep through the night until age two.) So if this does not work for you then you have my sympathy, but unfortunately no helpful advice.

I recommend this book to every parent of an infant or toddler I meet. We followed the guidelines to determine if our son was ready to be toilet trained and if he would be a good candidate for this method. Not every child will respond to this method, but the book clearly helps parents to determine if their child will be likely to. My husband took the day off and armed with a bowl of snacks and plenty of drinks began training. Within 5-7 hours our son had the basics down. I'm not saying it was easy and he definately didn't like the practices, but a few hours time compared to months of frustration is worth it. By reminding him to check if he was dry every 10 minutes and to show us where he goes potty throughout the weekend, it was ingrained in him by the time he went back to daycare on Monday. Three years later, he has never had an accident, even at night after that first day. We also saw immediate gains in self-confidence after toilet training. I LOVE THIS BOOK! I love how the authors combine the different learning methods and positive motivation together. So, read the book carefully, follow the directions and you and your child will hopefully have as short and positive a toilet training experience as we did.

I know it doesn't seem possible, but I have potty trained all five of my kids (now ages 2 to 15) using this book and IT HAS WORKED EVERY TIME. The first 4 of my kids (both boys and girls) were trained under 2 years of age. The fifth was trained at 2 1/2, mainly because it was hard to have private quiet time (becaues of all the other kids) where we could really concentrate on the pottying method. The time it took to train the kids ranged from 1 entire day to 2 hours, depending upon the kid. Here's what you need to know for this method to work: 1. Follow every detail in the book and don't omit any steps; 2. Don't hesitate to give the kids as rewards things they don't usually get, like soda and candy (salty treats like crackers work well because it makes them thirsty, which gives you more opportunities to successfully pee on the potty); 3. If you've used this method before and are ready to train another kid, RE-READ the book so you don't forget little details about what to do. Even read it several times before you use it the first time, just to be sure you know what to do. The method really does work best if it's the first method of potty training you try - if the kid has had bad experiences or has experienced failures at potty training, it takes more like a day to train under this method, rather than a matter of hours, but the method still works. The best part about this method is that its a wonderful and positive parent/child bonding experience and the kids feel so great about themselves when they are able to be BIG KIDS and go on the potty by themselves. Because you can train at under age 2 with this method, they are often potty trained before their friends of the same age and are VERY PROUD of themselves. It is very good for their self esteem and you'll feel pretty good as a parent too!!! I recommend this book to everyone who is ready to potty train their child, though for some reason few people I know have used the book and seem to think that their lengthy and traumatic potty training method is superior. I don't understand their reluctance because this method is all so positive; it works so well, you never have to lose patience or become frustrated with the child. One more tip: If you are a working mother, pick a long weekend to train the child so that he has had a few days of pottying by him/herself before going back to daycare.

After reading other reviews about how bad this book is and how people were failing ot get positive results I felt I should put in my 2 cents.

This book has specific "readiness" questions that must be answered "yes" for you and your child to succeed. From what I've read, the reviewers who failed had children that could not have passed the readiness test and were not ready for potty training.

You also have to be consistent. My daughter never wore another diaper after we started the training. At night and away from home she wore waterproof training pants (from Baby Dipes). During the day she wore underpants.

We were done with the practice and exercises training in a little over 1 hour. Then I let my daughter play while I continued to remind her about using the potty and doing the "dryness tests".

We used a cloth doll and a water bottle for the "peeing doll". I did not have my daughter empty the pot because we trained in the kitchen (less distractions) and our bathroom is upstairs.

I admit I didn't follow this book to the letter, but the principles behind it worked very well on my developmentally delayed son, age 3 yrs 10 mos. He had exhibited most of the typical signs of readiness since he was two-and-a-half but he always seemed too busy to pay attention to his body's signals. The book suggests spending the whole day without distractions working on potty learning and I think that's what finally did the trick. Without TV, toys, books, younger sibling, etc., he was really able to pay attention to the process. The added bonus for both of us: a whole day with Mom's undivided attention. I did modify the process for my son, however. I knew that using snacks as motivation would not work, but that dropping pennies into a musical bank and dancing around the kitchen would (silly seems to work well). Also, practicing 10 times after each accident wouldn't fly with my very sensitive child. However, practicing three times did. Did it take less than a day? No! In fact, I spent 7 hours with my son on Saturday with no success. When we started fresh the following day, we had better luck. All in all, it took about a week to get him 100% trained. However, I tried several other methods in the past and had zero success with them. One word of advice: although the book seems rigid, you know your child best. If you feel that something in the process needs modifying, trust your instincts and re-adjust your expectations.

As an educator, I found this book very compelling. It is complete in that it addresses all the learning styles of children. Toileting oneself is a skill and the book teaches you how to be a skills trainer for your child.

My own 2 1/2 year old son was successful in being completely trained over a weekend. He had no urination accidents at all after the first 3 hours of training, and was successful with the rest over the course of the next few days. I will begin training my daughter when she is ready, based on the readiness assessment check list in the book.

It seems to me that the negative reviews of this book have not come from people who have read the entire book, nor from people who have employed this method. To use the book you MUST follow the instructions carefully, adjusting to your child's personality, of course, and you MUST have some persistence yourself. The first hour or two can be challenging but when your child is successful the first time, you'll know it was worth it.

The book recommends potty training in the kitchen, using a potty-training doll, providing many opportunities for practice with the use of salty snacks to promote fluid consumption, positive and negative reinforcement, recognition and reward, and more. Again, from an educator's standpoint, it is a terrific book in terms of addressing basic learning cycle models.

As an added benefit, there is basic parenting information about disciplining a small child to obey his/her parents, as part of the readiness assessment. My own observation as I see other children misbehaving everywhere I go is that that information is sorely needed.

I have bought and given this book away to friends 7 times. I am about to buy it one more time to prepare to train my 21-month old daughter.

I ordered this book and after reading it prepared to train my son (28 months at the time) in March. The first day he went to the potty 7 times and had 3 accidents. The second day he refused to go, was crying hysterically for a diaper and going to a corner to pee. I become upset and yelled at him and then thought this is riduculous and put him back in diapers. I may have chosen a bad time to train him also. I found out three days later that he had a bad ear infection in both ears. It might have just been too much at that time for him to handle. Now, I am going to tell you why I liked the book. It seemed logical to me. Every other thing I had read on potty training just seemed to tell me 'you'll know when they are ready' with no real help on how to help the child learn. I didn't find it humilating and neither did my son. I truly think he wasn't ready. Last week I started training again, using some of the book's techniques. Since May 31st, he is using the bathroom now on his own. I still have him in diapers for naps and bedtime, but I plan to stop that next week. He is very proud of himself. I am giving him treats and lots of praise when he goes. He even went outside our home for the first time today. This is what he did learn from the book: *how to take off his pants and pull them up. Unlike most toddlers, my son has no interest in having his clothes off and had not initiated dressing and undressing. *how to listen to me and follow-through on a request I make. He is really so much better at this than before we used this book. * how to dump his own potty chair and clean up messes he makes. He's not perfect at this, but he thinks it is part of using the potty. If I would have known about this book, I would have used it when he was 20 months old and first started showing a bit of interest. He wasn't as stubborn as he is now. The one thing I didn't like about this book is that it lead you to believe that the next day the child would have it down perfectly. Now I know that is not true. I should have before. It is a learning process. He pushed us all weekend for diapers and had frequent accidents. Monday he quit asking for diapers and even had 2 BMs in the potty without me pressing him to go. No accidents yesterday or so far today either. Hope this helps. If you would like a training guide, it's a very useful book. And as a former school teacher, I will say, that people do learn some things much the way you train a dog: with awards, praise and reminders. The book does not advocate punishment, nor does it advocate you yell or humilate your child. I made a big mistake loosing my temper and I think if I would have pressed on the second day he would have gotten it in March.

2008 UPDATE TO THIS REVIEW: I have now used this method successfully with FIVE of my children. Two were three and three were 2 1/2 years old. It has been a great blessing for our family.
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I found reading all the reviews on this book to be very helpful on my training day.

MY STORY: I intended to do this method from the beginning but waited until the timing was best for our family. My daughter showed readiness signs at 2 1/2 but it was best for us to wait until she was three as I was nursing the baby and we were moving. As the book warned, I never attempted any toilet training method with my daughter until the Big Training Day. My husband got everyone out of the house for the day, and after four hours of training she ran to the potty, pulled her pants down and peed in the potty all by herself! The rest of the day she continued to do so and she has not been in diapers since. I was petrified about going out in public, and took about six changes of clothes with me, but we have not had one accident in public. I take the potty seat that fits on top of a toilet with me and she tells me "Tee-Tee Potty!" when she needs to go. It is fantastic to have a child who INDEPENDENTLY toilets herself. I added hand-washing into the training as well.

WARNINGS: I say the following just so you will be better prepared for what may be ahead for you:

I did not realize how emotionally difficult the training would be for ME! She was fine during training, loving all the snacks and books I let her read. But I was about to pull my hair out sitting for four hours trying to "talk potty" and waiting. It was very, very hard to do!

Also, I was not prepared for the several accidents that followed the next few days. There were four the first day after training and then three and and then two accidents the next few days. After the first week, we had about one accident per week for several weeks and then all accidents ended. The drills running back and forth and practicing definitely work and are worth doing, but I had no idea how emotionally difficult and physically exhausting it would be for me. She would laugh half the time and cry half the time and I would be near tears and in a sweat after each drill.

Pooping in the potty took her several days to learn--she just held it and I ended up buying a few little dollar store presents and told her she would get to open them when she pooped in the potty. It worked! I believe it helps to know what things make your child happy and use it as a reward for a newly acquired skill.

Staying dry at night and during naps was not a problem--just a rare accident--until we went on vacation. She never had an accident on vacation but seemed to relapse at night once we got home. It took a couple of weeks after we returned for her to stay dry while sleeping again.

FINAL NOTES:
I loved this method and heartily recommend it to parents who agree with what are considered by many to be "tough" parenting methods. However, I would not suggest it to my friends who prefer child-centered parenting methods. It is not fun at first and requires strict observance to drills for a short time. But then the short-term hard work is over and you have a happy, independent kid who toilets herself without any assistance from you!