Books by author: Nathan H. Azrin

We've been haphazardly trying to get our son out of diapers for several months now. He's a very bright and very stubborn kid. He's capable of using the toilet, and knows when he needs to go, but he finds it more convenient to use a diaper. About a week ago, I threw my hands up and decided that we needed a better plan. So I looked around on Amazon and settled on buying Toilet Training in Less Than a Day, 'cause hey, if it can be done in a day, sign me up!

This book has been in print for about 30 years, and the cover claims that more than 2 million copies have been sold, so I guess you could call it a classic of the potty-training genre. At any rate, it's short — I read it in under two hours — and it's to-the-point.

The approach outlined in the book is based on techniques that were developed to teach mentally retarded adults to toilet themselves. It makes use of several techniques from learning/teaching theory, including reinforcement learning and learning-by-teaching. As part of the regimen, the child "teaches" a doll to go through the process of urinating while sitting on a toilet. At first, the child is praised for using the toilet, and gradually the praise shifts from the toileting process itself to the goal of keeping the underpants dry and clean. It all fits together with what little I know about child psychology.

One caveat that must be mentioned is that the "Toilet Training" in the title isn't what I thought it was. It doesn't refer to the ability to go without diapers — it refers to the ability to use the toilet without help from an adult. Getting to the point of not needing diapers can take more than a day, depending on the development of the child.

In our case, I worked with my son intensely for about 90 minutes on Sunday morning (the book suggests it can take four or more hours, but Kevin already knew the mechanics), and then kept him in underwear for the rest of the day, asking him periodically if his underwear was dry (and praising him effusively if it was). He had only one accident all day (including a 2.5 hour nap and an hour or so outside with the neighbor kids). This obviously made all of us very happy. However, on Monday, when I went back to work, things didn't go so well: he had — count 'em — six accidents. And in the process he nearly drove my wife to tears (and did drive her to the laundromat, where she had to wash our king-size comforter). On Tuesday, he had four accidents, including one really nasty one that I won't describe. The good news is that on Wednesday, he made it a full 24 hours with no accidents, including going to school for three hours, and sleeping for nearly 10 hours. And so far today, he's also accident-free.

I don't think we're out of the woods yet, but I'm definitely glad we got this book.

Update: After those two rough days, we've had eight straight days of dry underwear — no accidents, except for one minor one during a nap.