Toilet Training: A Practical Guide to Daytime and Nighttime Training [Paperback]

Vicki Lansky (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1984

The best book on toilet training, from the bestselling author of Feed Me, I'm Yours, is now available in a revised and updated edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 112 pages
• Publisher: Bantam; Rev Upd edition (July 1, 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553371401
• ISBN-13: 978-0553371406
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 5.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,565,159 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Feed Me I'm Yours, my first book, began as a local fund raising cookbook in 1974 and turned me into an author. I thought it was the only book I'd ever write and then for a while, I thought that each new book would be my last. Was I wrong!

Along the way I also became a publisher. Feed Me I'm Yours was first published from my husband's and my home on Meadowbrook Lane (i.e., Meadowbrook Press). Our company grew very fast as we learned the publishing business. After our divorce 8 years later, I left Meadowbook Press with no plans of being a publisher again. However, as the books I wrote for others went out of print, I established my own imprint, Book Peddlers, which now publishes over half of my 30 titles...including (naturally) Vicki Lansky's Divorce Book for Parents.

When you write parenting books, everyone glances critically at your children. Thank goodness mine had the good grace to turn out well. Despite my mistakes (and they'll be the first to point them out) my thirty-something twosome have survived and thrived in spite of having had a "professional" mother. Lucky me!

I think my mother would be astonished to know that I give out cleaning and household advice to millions of people as a columnist for Family Circle magazine. After all, she 'not I' had made a career of homemaking. In 1988, when Family Circle asked me to be a contributing editor to their "Help" column, I was delighted. This would be a place for me to share "grown-up" tips. I was now moving beyond the days of needing to know that peanut butter removes gum from children's hair!

Writing about household hints has been more of an education than I ever dreamt. I'm often asked what my favorite tip is. Usually it's the one I've not heard before, which is what keeps my work so interesting. My books on Baking Soda tips and Vinegar tips have sold in the hundreds of thousands copies. Amazing. How lucky I am to be able to share so many helpful ideas...and it is good, clean FUN too.

I'm not sure of my next projects as I've decided to cut back a bit on my book life and work a little more on just my life. But I'm never far from my computer and I know there are idea gremlins scrambling around my brain waiting to escape. Stay tuned.....

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A first-rate resource for new parents, January 4, 2003

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Toilet Training: A Practical Guide to Daytime and Nighttime Training (Paperback)

Now in a completed revised and updated edition, Toilet Training by Vicki Lansky is a first-rate resource for new parents on the art of teaching toddlers how to take care of themselves in the bathroom. Step-by-step instructions, wisdom from experts, advice on the question of whether to use potty chairs or adapters, means to deal with bed wetting, and more fill this pages of this welcome, necessary, and "user friendly" guidebook. A bonus children's book, "Koko Bear's New Potty," is included for reading aloud to one's toddler to help him or her become used to the transition. Also very highly recommended are Vicki Lansky's earlier parenting guides, Feed Me! I'm Yours (Meadowbrook; ISBN: 0671884433); Games Babies Play: From Birth To Twelve Months (Book Peddlers; ISBN: 0916773582); and Practical Parenting Tips: Over 1,500 Helpful Hints For The First Five Years (Meadowbrook; ISBN: 0671792059).

3.0 out of 5 stars A Good Start, November 13, 2010

By 

R. Silva "Rick Silva" (Cape Cod MA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Toilet Training: A Practical Guide to Daytime and Nighttime Training (Paperback)

This short overview provides a good general guide to a subject that many new parents approach with apprehension, if not outright dread. Lansky does a good job of reassuring parents that whatever their particular toilet training issue, they are almost certainly not alone.

She takes the approach that each child and each set of circumstances is different. So instead of prescribing a single effective method, Lansky gives an overview of the different techniques that have been popularized in other books on child psychology. While her approach is even-handed and inclusive, it is not a very decisive one. The idea that there is no single universal solution is a major part of her point, but some readers may still get frustrated with the lack of specific recommendations beyond "try what works for you".

Still for someone without a clue as to where to start, this book provided a good introduction to the topic and nicely laid out the likely (and less likely but still worrisome) challenges and complications, all while keeping a calm and reassuring tone.

20 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Offensive and irresponsible, November 12, 2005

By 

Paige's Mum "Jamie" (McDonald, PA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Toilet Training: A Practical Guide to Daytime and Nighttime Training (Paperback)

I found this book to be offensive. On page 2, the author acknowledges the language differences of the process (toilet training vs. toilet learning). As a reader, I understood her position and was comfortable to progress onto further pages. As I continued reading, I was content with the author's writing until I accessed Chapter 4, where she discusses the positions of experts and references some of their works. On page 47, she references the controversial book of "Toilet Training in Less Than a Day," by Nathan Azrin, Ph.D. and Richard Foxx, Ph.D. and that their "program was devised not for speed, but to help the retarded learn this difficult skill." I think the term "mentally challenged" or "developmentally challenged" would have been more appropriate. In spite of my shock that someone would write a book and refer to those with special needs as "retarded", I continued on until I accessed Chapter 6, "How Can I Train My Child Under Special Circumstances?" Under the section "Using Public Restrooms Alone", the author discusses what she considers "supervised" use of facilities. She states that a parent can stand outside the door while the child uses the facilities alone. She states that a parent can "ask an appropriate-looking man to take the boy into the restroom while you wait outside the door. (Same for situations with girls, Dad.)" and to "only let a child alone to one that is in shouting distance or in view." In a world where pedophiles are lurking in such areas and seize those moments when a child is alone to harm them, I find that advice to be completely irresponsible. At that point, I could no longer continue reading this book and take advice from someone who would make such irresponsible suggestions. I would rather have my child in diapers for the rest of her life! Over 275,000 copies sold -- I wonder how many of those were returned, as mine was.