I saw this book show up in an ARC program, and I chose it because I have a toddler and I hope to successfully toilet-train him soon!

The Premise

Written by a paediatric occupational therapist, this book is a comprehensive guide aimed at parents (or carers) to encourage independence in children in the toilet-training process — within just one week! It tackles every aspect of toilet training, including the tools the parent would need to reward good toilet habits and avoid stressful accidents.

The Pros

This was a well laid out, fully comprehensive guide of every aspect to deal with toilet training. Important issues were discussed such as signs to look for to know your child is ready to start toilet training, the types of foods the child should eat, clothes to wear, equipment to support the training process, troubleshooting issues, tips for dealing with public toilets, training children with special needs, different approaches in other countries around the world, and much more.

I appreciated that it was a holistic overview and included considerations for the type of personality the child has, tips for training when you have twins or other children, and much more. I also liked the incorporation of rewards system, and the toolkits provided via links — I subscribed and received free copies of these, which were very useful.

The Cons

While I appreciated the thought and research that went into this, it was a little overwhelming at times. Though I read it through quickly, I found it was a bit long (200+ pages in the PDF version I downloaded) which did feel like a lot on the topic, and there were a few things that got repetitive or could have been omitted.

I can also see aspects that I just don’t agree with or won’t try. I’m sure not every parent will be willing to have a naked baby for days while toilet training, and there didn’t seem to be any alternative to this in the guidance. Not to mention, getting the child to help with cleanup when there are accidents might be unlikely.

I also wish that some (say even 25%) of the “bonus” content was included in the actual book, because I found those even more useful than some of the long sections of text that the target audience may not have the time or patience to read in its entirety. Though it targets adults, even adults like to look at pictures and charts with examples WHILE reading, rather than after the fact if they go through the process to (1) confirm subscription (2) get account info (3) log in with account info (4) navigate to the toolbox (5) click through all the resources to download them individually.

Conclusion

Nothing here was absolutely ground-breaking or fundamentally brand new, so “The Holy Grail” might be a high claim, but there is a LOT of useful info that can be applied (especially all the bonus guides you have to subscribe to download). It expertly puts together a lot of concepts, and approaches toilet training — a seemingly “basic” thing — from both the parent and child viewpoints, to bridge that gap and enable the parent to help their child emotionally and physically to acclimatise to toilet training.

My only drawback was that at times it seemed to be more of a subject-matter-expert approach from an Occupational Therapist (i.e. an ideal), and I’m not sure if the authors have actually toilet-trained his/her own children, or how many children were successfully trained with this method. Theory is one thing, but application is quite another.

It does seem to be for fairly docile children — I am not looking forward to my upcoming time toilet training my hyperactive, easily distracted toddler! Nevertheless, I’m glad I read this, as it gave me a great base as a starting point. I would highly recommend to other readers, and wish them best of luck in their potty journeys!

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