Potty Training in 3 Days: The Step-by-Step Plan for a Clean Break from Dirty Diapers

I'm don't have a child, but my boyfriend does and we needed to start potty training. As a non-parent, I was 100% clueless on how to go about this process. My boyfriend's daughter is 3 and his only child so it was time, but he was clueless too. I tried consulting with other parents who had tips, but no real strategy or plan to offer. I asked my mom who had the helpful reply of: your babysitter potty trained you! So off to the Amazon book shop I went! I perused a bunch of books and this seemed to be the best fit for me. It was written by someone with expertise in the area, it claimed to be able to do it in a short period of time, and it was relatively short. I thought it would be a good jumping off point. It was a quick read! It bullet points the important stuff and gives all the relevant information without a lot of fluff. I like that. I ended up not purchasing any other books (though I did read through a number of online resources just to see other theories and practices and pick which best suited our situation). I gave the book to the boyfriend and then we were off to the races! Potty training went well! She had just turned 3 about a month earlier and was ready to give it a go. We followed the instructions on talking with her leading up to it and then throwing out the diapers. We also used a reward sticker chart (which she lost interest in after three days) and candy. After five days she had only had 6 accidents, three of which were during nap time so I didn't really count. We have been sticking with it and it has really worked. I think the book provided good practical strategies. The one thing we ended up using that the book discouraged was a potty watch. I thought the potty watch seemed like a gimmick, but it has worked really well for us. The 3 year old is only with us half the time so it provided a certain level of consistency for her. Also, we ended up setting timers on our phones to remind us to take her to the potty every 30 minutes or so and she got accustomed to hearing the alarms. When she'd hear our phones go off, she'd yell: Potty time! And race off to the bathroom herself. So since she took to that, I got the watch and it has worked really well for her. She still hasn't figured out all the signals from her body that she needs to go, but she's getting there. So for now the watch is helpful little reminder. We are only about three weeks into the whole potty training thing, but I am very happy with the results. I highly recommend this book. All the strategies in it may not work for you or your child, but it explains the reasoning well enough that it provides you with the knowledge to make the best decisions for you and your child.

Great book for a first time young mom with ADHD/ADD in addition to the potty training watch. Book was quick to read through, offers personified guidance that is a “one size fits all” approach for toddlers regardless of what stage your child is in. I was potty training my 2 year old and our Pomeranian puppy at the same time. This book did help with both to be honest as far as what not to do AND tips that made all the difference for a toddler learning to catch on to where we “need to go to use the potty” AND what are the signs as a parent to keep in mind and watch for to catch your toddler needing to use the potty before not making it. I was surprised to get actual results pretty quickly without extensive practicing that lasts forever. As i mentioned though. We did use a few other tools in addition to this book. Between a potty watch(that we also bought off amazon) that came with a bedtime potty book that gives a child friendly breakdown of identifying and learning to recognize the signs of what cues mean potty time(we read to this book to my daughter once a day). The potty watch helped me as a mom tremendously in addition to this book. Paired with a magnetic potty chart and an interactive sound toilet flushing potty book that encourages “big kid” behavior and leaving behind the “baby things only babies do”, my daughter of course loved to read through the interactive potty book on her own due to the flushing feature in the book. So this book is a great piece of the puzzle in “how to achieve potty training” for parents to use with the other tools I’ve mentioned to ensure a potty trained toddler in days.

We are five days in and I’ll call it a success! My 23 month old son made it through the morning this morning going on the potty 5 times with zero accidents. I’ll call this a win. I’d like to share a few indicators of why I felt he was ready and then a few modifications we made to the book to make it work for us. First of all, I really appreciated her pointing out the indicators of when children are ready for potty training and dispelling some myths. I was told that 23 months is too early, I was told boys take longer, I was told not to try yet. I did it anyway. Why? Because I felt he was ready. And because I’m incredibly stubborn. (And so is my strong willed child!). Also because I’m expecting another in about 4 months and wanted to have a good handle on potty training before we have another in diapers. First, we’ve cloth diapered since birth. One of the benefits of cloth diapering is that they do feel wet (even with fleece and wicking materials). I factored this into my decision to cloth diaper and expected to potty train early. Second, my son has been telling us for over a month every time he poops in his diaper (asking to be changed). He also greets me in the morning and after nap times by telling me his diaper is wet. He clearly understands what this means. Third, although he developmentally can not yet dress himself, he follows complicated directions and can communicate with single words and gestures. I planned initially to follow this book to the “T.” I did all the prep, changed his diapers in the bathroom for a month, picked out motivating treats, and cleared our schedule. The first morning went well. So well actually that he successfully went on the toilet twice after several hours of accidents. We went into nap time feeling really good. The afternoon was a disaster. Despite catching every single accident and bringing him to the toilet he WOULD NOT go on the toilet again. Tantrums ensued. I persevered and got through day one. Day two we did break one of the rules… It was the last warm day of the fleeting Michigan summer so we took a car trip to the pool and took the morning off of potty training. I was concerned this was going to ruin everything and considered waiting another week to start but went through with it anyway. This turned out to be a really good decision. On the trip I read a bunch of these reviews to see what I was doing wrong or what other suggestions there were and decided to make a couple modifications: Modification #1: Switch to the little potty. This makes sense if you are potty training a little one younger than the authors preferred starting age of 2.5. My little dude is not afraid of the potty, he LOVES flushing the toilet and dumping out the pee. But learning how to release your pelvic floor on demand to pee is stressful enough without having to climb up steps and sit on that giant toilet with your feet barely touching the step stool. Modification #2: Instead of focusing on getting him to “Tell me when you have to pee” I’m instead watching his cues and catching his accidents before they happen. I noticed he gets antsy, might walk in circles (like a dog) or even start running in circles when he has to go. I get him onto the potty and then we read a book or two until he relaxes and pees. By doing this about once an hour (starting about 1.5 -2 hours after he wakes up) we are taking away the traumatizing accident followed by me rushing him to the potty just to not pee. And then having to keep doing that every 15 minutes until all is out. Again, if you are training an older child, maybe the “tell me when you have to pee” part will work. For us he is happier and tantrum free to go on a schedule. Now that he is peeing regularly and much easier on the potty we will start working on that piece as a next step. Modification #3: I was not successfully “pumping” my child full of fluids. He only drinks water (no milk) and rarely juice. By the end of day one he already connected that the extra beverages were causing this nightmare and started refusing all beverages. We switched back to just water and I did have to use the (take two sips) tell method quite frequently just to get him to drink. Today our sitter set a duck noise timer on her phone and when it goes off they go get water. He loves it and it’s working, so that’s a fun suggestion! Helpful hint: I work from home and we have a sitter that watches him throughout the day. I can’t imagine sending him this young to daycare after 3 days, I don’t think we would be seeing the progress that we are. That’s about it. I would still 100% recommend this book as a great overview and a really good plan to get you started. If you have a young child, do yourself a favor and make some modifications. We are on day 5 and he went on the potty 5 times before nap time, zero accidents and no leakage. Good luck!

I wanted to give ample time after starting the process before leaving a review! As of today, we are 4 weeks in, with no accidents in the last 16 days and 17 nights straight of being dry in the morning. This book gave us an easy to follow guide and we referred to it several times during the first few weeks to ensure we weren't missing anything. Our daughter turned 3 about 2 months before we started this. All though that is considered past the age you should start by a lot of other outlets we looked to for guidance before finding this book, I feel like her being that age and able to communicate better helped us in the long run. A few other methods we looked into prior to this book advised sitting your child on the potty every 30 minutes to encourage them to goto the bathroom. Which really makes no sense! We don't goto the bathroom every 30 minutes and shouldn't be training our child's bladder to do so. This book explains how you should be constantly (you will feel like a broken record) reminding them that if they have to go potty, to let mom or dad (or whoever is watching over them) know. While remembering to not ask them if they have to go, you know toddler's, they will tell you "no" any chance they get! There was a Daniel Tiger potty book we found that had songs/noises, she loved that. It had a little jingle, "If you have to go potty, stop and go right away!" That is something we said very often to remind her that even if she's playing, to stop and go right away! I will say, there isn't much about the pooping process in there. I think it took her about 5 or 6 days to fully poop only on the potty. Meaning, no half days where she would have a poop accident in her underwear once and then poop in the potty once. She was pooping fully in the potty in less than a week, which is still impressive. By day 3 she was peeing on the potty consistently with no accidents. The last accident we had was a pee dribble, 16 days ago. Overall, this book was a lifesaver for us!! She's our only child and neither of us have any experience in potty training. This was really easy to follow, it has summaries with each section so you can refresh on the main points and it made sense. Some things I read elsewhere had me questioning, why would we do that?? I'm so glad we found this method. Now, I'm not going to lie, it is no walk in the park. Those first few days are long and you are literally GLUED to your child's side but it's true what she says in the book..Once you see your child get it, when it finally clicks and they understand..Seeing her so proud of herself, momma tears were flowing!

We loved this method. Four days in, and our 33-month-old son is completely accident free! After the 3rd day, his pull-ups have even been dry after every nap and in the morning, and he tells us everytime he has to go. There are so many different opinions and methods on toilet training, but this one, hands down, has worked the best for our son. It's been amazing to see how proud using the potty and wearing underwear has made him over the past week. He's loved potty training. I took a week off work for us to focus on learning to use the toilet. He has loved the extra time together and the few days of having mommy's undivided attention. A few tips for parents just going into it (and a couple ways I varied from the author): Be patient and sensitive of your child's developmental needs. We tried this method when our son was 25-months-old, and it only created tears, stress, and frustration. The author seems to think that your child should be able to be potty trained when YOU, the parent, decide. But if your kid's not physiologically ready, then forcing it can do more harm than good. If you're unsuccessful, don't beat yourself up. Give it a break and try again in a few months. Consider having your child naked from the waist down for the first day. I know the author suggests underwear only, but if your undivided attention is on your child, it is much easier to see when he/she starts peeing when naked than if in underwear. Naked, I was able to rush our son to the toilet after the first drop of urine. With underwear, there would be a stream of pee down his leg or puddle on the floor before we got to the bathroom. Cave in and get juice. We are usually very strict about beverage choices for our kids. Water and milk are the only options. For potty training, I bought a couple bottles of apple juice and Gatorade. Our son was ecstatic that mommy was letting him drink something sweet, and it has made potty training more special and magical for him. It's ok to tell your kid to go. The author believes you should only take your child when they ask or if they have an accident, but we have set times everyday when I make my son sit on the potty if he hasn't gone in awhile. Upon waking, when his little brother goes down for his nap, before lunch, at naptime, etc. About once every 2 hours. I think having a schedule has helped him learn to go before his bladder is fit to burst, and by the 4th day, he's been asking to go when he actually needs to, and not just when mommy makes him.

When it comes to books I sometimes can't decide how to review it. So I guess I'll cover the two things a review might have. First, the physical quality of the book - it's a nice quality product. All the printing is crisp and colorful. It's paperback but the cover and binding are thick and durable. With care it should hold up well. But in theory your only need this book for a week or so... As for content,this is where I am not give star happy. My son was beyond ready, but I was seriously injured earlier this year and couldn't start until the end of August. He's the third child I've gained so this wasn't new territory, but every kid is different and he just didn't respond in ways I could figure out how to work with. There are a few good pieces of advice and ideas that make sense, but this method could not work for all children. I did not expect to pick up the holy grail of pity training. As other reviews have mentioned there's a lot of filler and fluff. I get it, you need lots of words to call it a book. It just seemed like most of the content could have been summarized in a few pages. I read the entire book though, willing to give it 100%. One thing I did not like was when I wanted to refer back to the book after we got started. I have up digging because frankly I don't have time for that either when cleaning up the 6th accident in ten minutes or after the kids finally went to bed and lucky me now had a load of dirty underwear to wash and urine to sop up out of the rugs. By the way, the picture is from a single day of trying. It took us about two weeks before I could say he was about 80% trained. Our first pee success was on day 8. First poop success was day 13. First full day of success, 24 hours with very minor accidents and being able to say when he needed to go on his own, was day 15. On day 3 the only thing we'd accomplished was a ton of laundry, lots of tears, and no less than 7 people giving him awkward, live demonstrations in desperate efforts to get him to get reasonably near the toilet. Though the book promises support there is none. I couldn't even find an outdated website to refer to. After the first week I tossed the book aside and reached out to a mom group on social media, where I could have gone on the first place. I would not buy this again. I don't think I would even recommend purchasing it, but I don't think it's easy that if the book had included a summary or quick reference, actual support of claiming to provide it, and a bit less fluff. My plan is to jot down a few of the good points then pass this book along to someone else. With the addition of a quick reference or summary this would have been great as a digital book.

My daughter had been showing signs of being ready to potty train for a few months. I was hoping I'd get lucky and she would organically go from telling me she had to go to the potty as soon as she had just went in her diaper to telling me ahead of time. Unfortunately, it wasn't happening so I decided to seek some professional recommendations. I discovered this book and decided to give it a try since it had good ratings. I read it cover to cover before starting the process. For reference, my daughter is 24 months old. On day 1, she had quite a few accidents in her underwear (I did a lot of wash). I followed the author's recommendations as closely as possible and by the end of the day, it seemed like my daughter was starting to make some connections and improve her bladder control. She ended the day with 4 successful pees on the potty. I was exhausted and had some doubts that she would be doing well after 3 days. Much to my surprise, day 2 showed positive progression. I noticed that my daughter was starting to contain her accidents by holding her bladder as soon as she realized she was starting to pee. The day ended with only one accident that needed to be cleaned up off the floor and she more than doubled her successful pees on the potty. Then came day 3... my daughter ended the day without a single pee accident. She seemed to be more and more comfortable on the toilet. I couldn't believe how far she had come in such a short time. It is currently day 4 as I write this review and we had another great day that showed more progression- 1 poop on the potty and my daughter starting to tell me that she needed to go to the potty before I prompted her. I'm truly a believer in this method now and am glad that I found this book. It takes dedication but when followed as described, it works!! Good luck fellow parents!

Update of July 2023, it stuck. My granddaughter has since ( after I left florida) went to church and during Sunday school, daddy recieved no call from the nursery. ( win) upon his return to get her from nursery he was informed she went into the bathroom and used the potty all on her own. It’s so nice when places have the children’s toilets ( close to the floor) ….. I never thought I would need a book to tell me how to potty train. I’m in my 60s I potty trained mine ( when he was age 2 seems to be the twilight age) I’ve babysat and helped potty train many children. Again they were at the age of 1 1/2-2….. I honestly don’t know how my granddaughter would have become potty trained without this book popping up in my search for potty training supplies. I am so thankful, it made it happen. So if you missed the perfect window for it ( one and half to 2) or your child is just an early independent, get this book, follow it to a T. You may or may not find the 3 days easy, but it’s worth it in the end…….end of update. My daughter in law was waiting for my granddaughter to decide when she was ready for potty training, yes I laughed as well but there was no convincing her to do it at 2. Young mother. So then the child is almost 4 and the fight began. This child has now developed a mind of her own and learned the word no, and very stubborn about trying new things or anything she doesn’t want to. So I bought the mom this book. And it just laid there until I went to visit and daddy was screaming help( now mommy has left the picture full time) . I tried as I did when mine was age 2. She wasn’t having it. Sure she would humor me and hang out on the potty with me but nothing happened and she would still go hide in a corner and do her little poop dance in her training pants. I had to read this book. It works. But everyone in the household either needs to read the book and abide by the rules or stay out of the process. Consistency, staying on point, everyone on same page was a must. You must be willing to give up 3 whole days without your phone and any distractions. ( even mommy came over to observe and help). Have plenty of activities your child will enjoy. We mostly worked with alphabet letters, reading, she loves to learn to read. Play doh and little animal figures identifying the different animals and their sounds. You can never take your eyes off the child for a minute because she will use that minute to go in her pants I promise you. It’s only 3 days ( keep telling yourself) then no more spending money on diapers, keep thinking what you’re gonna do with all that extra money lol. Your child can’t go off and play or watch tv or anything without you or this won’t be a success in 3 days. At 60 years old this was not easy for me. We never left the house and I love my granddaughter endlessly but this child is quite the talker lol. But it was a win win. We not only never wore a diaper again ( she even stayed dry thru naps) and most nights. We have really bonded, ( I live 900 miles away) she now has a picture of the two of us and her every night routine (her daddy tells me) she has to check to make sure our picture is beside her unicorn night light before she says her prayers and goes to bed. So buy this read it I read it twice and did some highlighting. And plan a fun at home 3 days of undivided attention. If you have other kids if they’re old enough to help great if not maybe a weekend with the grandparents is due. This will work if you follow her directions. And it’s not a boring read, the author has jokes. Lol. Good luck

Read the book, stuck to the method, and found it did not work. The 3 day expectation was unrealistic. A lot of issues we ran into were not mentioned in the book. For example refusal to even sit on the toilet trainer.

Book in hood condition, seller resolved my problem with a delayed delivery very efficiently. The book itself provides practical tips for potty training. We managed to follow and succeed in 2 days already.

I was absolutely skeptical about how would it be possible to potty train a toddler in 3 days. But this book is a blessing. It cannot be said enough how clear and perfect the information is and to gear up before the 3 days. I followed it to the Tee and it was simply unbelievable. By day 3 my toddler was telling me when to go to the potty. Yes the 2 days were intensive to the point of throwing in the towel. However we fought the temptation of putting the diaper back and pushed through the tantrums. Incase you are sitting on the fence to order this book, then i highly recommend you buy this book .

This actually helped a lot! Obviously we didn’t train our toddler in three days, but within the three days he’s got the hang of it, the rest is practice and patience!

Incredible tips to make it in the potty trining realm. Can’t wait to try everything, it really does describe every situation and quick solves