Short List (Must Haves):
Potty Chair
Potty Seat [Why seat AND chair]
Underwear and/or Pull-Ups
Child's Potty Book
Child's Step Stool
Wipes
Waterproof Mattress Cover (for night training)
Long List (Might Want to Haves):
Parent Guide to Potty Training
Travel Potty [More on Travel Potty]
Extra Potty Seats or Chairs
Potty Training Doll
Training DVD [Free Pull-Ups DVD]
Reward Chart
Timer or Potty Training Watch
Armed with some good information and the items on our short list above, you should be in good shape to start potty training when your little one is ready! (How to tell if your child is ready) With input from family, friends, and the abundance of information on the internet, a parenting guide to potty training (i.e. book) may not be necessary. Some families get along fine without one, while others run into difficulties, get frustrated, and then eventually look for advice in the pages of a potty training guide.
Consider starting out with a potty training guide for the following reasons:
1.) If you would rather be prepared ahead of time with all the information needed to choose a potty training approach, train your child, and deal with any challenges or obstacles that pop up. Sometimes it's nice to have a book on hand that you can refer to. If you think you might end up purchasing one anyway, then you might as well buy it in the beginning and be that much more prepared when you start.
2.) If you intend to use a more intensive approach to potty training where your child is trained in a very short period of time (e.g. a day). These approaches typically involve specific steps that should be followed closely for effective training. In order to make sure you know just what to do, it's probably a good idea to have book that walks you through step by step.
Just for Parents offers potty training packages for girls and boys that contain top-notch products from various manufacturers. These products have been tested, reviewed, and well-rated by our expert panel of parents and child development experts. Perfect if you want the essential potty training gear but you're not sure exactly what to buy. Packages include a potty seat, potty chair, step stool, child's book, and parent guide to potty training. Also included are expert tips on potty training exclusively from Just for Parents. $75.00 (over 20% savings) + FREE SHIPPING!
Of course we had to take this opportunity to mention our potty training package... but what do YOU think are the essential items that are needed to potty train successfully? Is there anything that you couldn't have done it without? Let us know about it!
after having just gone through this my big piece of advice is don't use pull-ups! Kids can't tell they're wet and it slows the process way down-- I used them with my daughter and took her more than a year to train,she was almost four before she was mostly accident-free. With my son we used the "no pants" method (aka just being bottomless in the house) and it took an amazing total of two weeks (though of course the casualty was a wet couch, and neighbors who dropped by thought we were weirdos).
ReplyDeleteThat makes me laugh so much b/c we had a very similar experience, and it's true that people w/out kids don't understand AT ALL if you let your little one run around pantless!! No pull-ups or underwear did work for us too though, and made me a believer in nudy potty training! The only thing I have to say for pull-ups is that I liked using them when we went somewhere because I got sick of either cleaning or throwing out underwear when my son had an accident!
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