How much work is potty training?

We followed a book called "Toilet Training in Less Than a Day", which is a book from the 70s, but very good, in my opinion. And truly does work. My mother actually did it with DD, when she was 25 months old. It does very much what it sounds like you are already doing (doll, etc), but in a concentrated way. Basically you set aside a morning with no interruptions and go for it.

What I really liked about it is that she is trained all at once. Not over the course of weeks/months, back and forth with accidents, etc. Not that we never had an accident, but very few, much less than I hear from other parents who are following the tradional method of training over a long course of time. I think that the child is also happier this way because they are capable right away, and they can't like accidents much either?!? Another bonus is that this method teaches the child how to do it all by themselves, as it they have to go, they go by themselves.

You would probably have to do a search online, if you are interested in the book, because it is most likely out of print, although I can't think why. I think that it is so awesome!

Thanks for the support Mamas! Moonshine- My mom still has her copy of that book, that's how she trained my brother and I, but that method doesn't seem to be working for dd, maybe she just isn't ready. Though I admit to getting the cliff notes and not reading the whole book.
Oh,well, you can put the kid on a potty, but you can't make her pee. :LOL It is good to hear that success comes in many form for differnt children. I guess we'll just keep trying at dd's pace.

i am still laughing at "you can put a kid on the potty, but you can't make them pee".

i totally agree with following the child's lead. otherwise it becomes a power struggle and can be frustrating for all involved. i think each child is different and it is impossible to compare. my daughter seems to have a big bladder, she can go for 12 hours at night and went for 9 hours today because she refuses to use public toilets right now (bad experience with a self flushing toilet, scared the wits out of her, flushed while she was on it, poor thing). I think that has a lot to do with it, too, whether are not they are even physically ready.

people i know never seem to understand that i kinda miss her being in diapers. she has so many cute dipes, i really wanted another summer of t-shirts and super cute cloth diaper bums. i even miss washing and sorting them... oh well, have to wait for the next one.

My dd is 32 mo and just this week decided she wanted to be in big girl underwear instead of diapers. We've had the underwear for about 6 months but she never really wanted to wear them. For the past year or so she's had a potty chair and would occasionally sit on it when I was in the bathroom. We talked a lot about how some day, when she was bigger, she'd go potty on the potty instead of in her diapers. She liked to talk about it but would only do it very sporadically. Then this week I asked her if she wanted to wear underwear and she said yes. She's had them on all week and only had two accidents (one the first day and one the second).

She got her first tooth at 4 months, walked at nine months. Potty training was about the only thing that took her longer to learn, but it certainly was not something I had to work at. It might have been tougher for her because she visits her father every other weekend and he has been trying to 'train' her the past 10 months to use the potty by giving her M&M's. I'm sure she's a bit confused!

I believe in following their lead in allowing them to figure out what needs to be done and when. I figure her father's been working at it for 10 months and I haven't been doing much and she learned when she wanted to learn anyway!

LOTS AND LOTS OF TIME AND NASTY HARD WORK!

my opinion, is it is hard , nasty and time consuming, but necessary.

my son is almost 3 years old and we just started...................

we put cloth training pants on each morning at 8am and keep them on until 6pm........................he pees on the floor about 5x per day, and he pees on the pot about 3x per day.

he NEVER volunteers to pee, i always have to talk him into it.

it sucks

but, i'll be happy when we are done.

i dont think my kids would EVER learn on their own, , except maybe for senior prom.