Oh Crap! Potty Training: Everything Modern Parents Need to Know to Do It Once and Do It Right (Oh Crap Parenting) Paperback – Illustrated, June 16, 2015

This book is THE BEST, most current book on potty training available. I purchased this book before beginning in earnest the potty-training process with our daughter. We introduced the concept of the potty at 16-18 months, and did the potty training over the course of 5 days (1 long 3-day weekend and 2 days off from work) when she was 21 months old. The author of Oh Crap!, Jamie Glowacki, is very glib, so I can see how some people might be put off by her style. If you're interested in getting a sense of her methods and style, I recommend visiting her blog (jamieglowacki dot com) or viewing some of her videos on YouTube (channel "oh crap with jamie").When it comes down to it, her method WORKS. However, even though she says to follow her methods exactly, she also says in other parts of the book that you can do what you think is best for your child -- but if it doesn't work, then you've been warned! Fair enough. We did the bare bottom for days 1-2. Day 1 wasn't great, but on day 2 something just clicked and she actually started going to the potty on her own! Day 3 she was commando, but was running to the potty so often that she didn't have her pants on very much. Listen to Jamie's advice, don't give your under 2 year old extra fluids. On day 4 we tried commando again, but it just didn't work. When she had an accident, it just made her socks wet and her upper pants stayed dry. There was no real discomfort associated with peeing her pants. So after her mid-day nap, we switched to training pants - with no pants. This worked great! Only 2 accidents. Day 5 she was in training pants most of the day, with pants on to go on trips outside the house. Day 6 fully clothed all day with short trips outside (5-10-15-20-30 minutes) and everything was great. Only issue was number 2, which she still wasn't comfortable with. Day 7 she was back at daycare, no accidents, except a number 2, but later went 2 in the potty! Day 8 perfect, a couple small accidents, but still going 2 in the potty. Day 9 same. Day 10, back at daycare again and ZERO accidents.Based on our interpretation of potty trained, our daughter is fully potty trained: she can now verbalize when she needs to go, will sometimes go when prompted, and will sometimes go without telling us (we've surprisingly found her on several occasions peeing on the potty with her pants down), consistently goes 1 and 2 on the potty, has a complete potty routine, and stay dry for naps. Averaging 0-2 accidents per day, with 0 days more often.In terms of nap and night training, we also deviated a bit from Jamie's method. Our daughter has been staying dry for naps while in diapers, so we didn't put her in a pull-up for that, and just used training pants. She's had zero accidents during naps. Dry every day. So she's completely day-trained. At night we're using a pull-up (technically pampers easy-ups), but even still, she has woken up on at least 4 mornings with a completely dry diaper and has begun to consistently self-initiate the morning pee. So, we're happy with it as is. We have no intention of waking our daughter up in the middle of the night. We're just going to continue having her use the potty before bed and upon waking, and hopefully we will see a progression to more dry mornings. If not, and we're getting close to the 2.5 year mark, we may intervene and use Jamie's method.I get why there are negative reviews for this book. Jamie tells it like it is, and some people don't like that. It's a book, it's not like she's there with you, making you do anything. If you don't want to do it her way, then do what you think is best for your child, but honestly, she knows her stuff and her advice works. Slight modifications here and there are fine, but you can't hodgepodge different methods together or deviate significantly and expect the same promised results.This book is THE model that you should follow. This is the ONLY book you need to buy on potty training. Just BUY IT, READ IT, THEN START the process when you have 3-5 days to devote exclusively to spending time with your child. This book has everything you need. Plenty of chapters of prep, a clear how-to chapter, a chapter on nighttime training, chapters on trouble-shooting related to each stage or block of the potty-training process, a chapter on poop, a chapter on daycare - just look at the Table of Contents in the Amazon Preview. This book even has a Dad's cheat sheet (which could have a more neutral title, but you know, hetero-normative gender roles...), as well as a general parents' cheat sheet. Both of these were extremely useful. My husband would not read this entire book, but did read those two cheat sheets.Lastly, I would also attribute our potty training success to the following products and books used in conjunction with Oh Crap!- Elmo's Potty Time Sesame Street - Elmo's Potty Time Yes, you can rent it via Amazon on-demand, but trust me, you're going to want to have a hard copy that you can watch infinite times.- Fisher Price singing potty (do you really want to be checking between your child's legs every couple minutes to see if they peed? This tells you instantaneously, even if you're in the other room, and my daughter loves the instant gratification and fun songs) Fisher-Price Potty Training, Learn-to-Flush- Baby Bjorn potty chair BABYBJORN Potty Chair, Gray Because you'll need a second potty, and because everyone told us we HAD to get this one. It's fine, perhaps more ergonomic. Definitely more portable than the Fisher-Price chair.- Big Girls Use the Potty! (in paperback) Big Girls Use the Potty! It breaks the process down step-by-step for young girls (it also comes in a boy version) and has a sticker chart and stickers. We didn't use the stickers as rewards (my daughter was too young to grasp that concept - Jamie also advises against rewards), but did use the chart as a visualization of our daughter's potty progress - a concept she COULD understand and she took much pride in counting all her stars.- Potty by Leslie Patricelli Potty (Leslie Patricelli board books) Cute, easy for toddlers to understand, simple text and pictures with room for improvisation by parents- Oxo Tot 2-in-1 Go Potty OXO Tot 2-in-1 Go Potty for Travel - Green Eventually you're going to have to take your child outside for more than 30 minutes, and this is where things get complicated. Public restrooms are gross. Put this on the FLOOR as far away from the toilet as possible in the large accessible bathroom stall. Once they're older/bigger this seat also morphs into a potty seat for use on the toilet. It's extremely useful for all the random times your child tells you they need to go - at the park, immediately after arriving somewhere in the car, in the elevator...

It's funny what some people will lock on when reading a book. I bought this because I was having issues potty training my 3rd child (the first was essentially potty trained by a day care and ended up with long term bowel trouble, the second trained very late and only because we took away all TV until he was trained). Even if I had a great method before, I had my third when the other two were 10 and 7 - it had been too long for me to remember how to do this.For me, the two biggest take-away CLICK! moments were 1) Don't ask, plead, beg, or fuss at your kid to go potty. Just say "Time to go potty, and then you can come back and play more". My 3 year old said NO the first two days, but I picked him up and took him to the potty, sat him down, he peed, and was proud of himself. By day 4 he was telling me that he had to go! 2) She asks "What is your child capable of?" my Word! Of COURSE he was capable of walking to the potty, pulling down his pants, and going! He had been casually telling me for weeks that he had peed, and needed a change - of course he was capable of learning how to go potty! Those two mental shifts were all I needed to get going - he was clearly ready and waiting for me.The other very helpful thing about this book is the clear step-by-step expectations. A child has to stand before walking, walk before running. By the same token, a child must learn THAT they're going, what it feels like when they're about to go, and then they can tell their parent that they need to go. She doesn't jerk you around with the idea that your kid will be flawlessly trained in 3 days - she gives reasonable expectations for each step of the way. Most importantly, she tells parents about times where their child will likely struggle, even if they had been doing fine until then - and not to give up then!As for the negative reviews - as a third time mom, I'm pretty used to taking what I think is helpful and discarding what isn't from various sources. For example, for my kid, I didn't even need to do naked time - I've been pretty in-tune with his potty signals for a long time. But the logic behind going commando is faultless - undies feel like diapers around the tush, and it's hard to break the habit of a lifetime without making things feel very different. I don't think she was shaming or deliberately guilt-tripping anyone - I think the people taking that away from this book were already feeling conflicted and freaked out about how long it's taken to potty train or are feeling very defensive about having to work outside the home. I've been both, and I remember how sensitive I felt anytime someone said BOO about me sending the kids to day care.She does give tips about how to make this method work even if you are a working household and have to deal with daycare. That said, it's unequivocally easier to potty train if you have the freedom to do it yourself at home. Otherwise you have to get all other caregivers on board, and that can get tough. That's not guilt tripping or shaming - that's a plain fact.The night time advice isn't all that helpful, but to be fair it's the exact same advice my pediatrician kept giving when my older son had bed wetting trouble. It must work for some kids, otherwise it wouldn't hang on this long.All in all, a book that helped THIS mom and her 3 year old get with the potty program before baby #4 came on the scene!