Toilet Teaching Techniques: 5 Experts' Methods

Building a Connection: Dr. Penelope Leach, the renowned child development specialist known for her authoritative but loving style, explains that parents should be explicitly clear with their child about using the potty; however, parents shouldn't constantly remind or push their child to use it.

The key to toilet-training success, according to Dr. Leach, is understanding that a child won't really be ready until he can make a connection between the feeling of "having to go" and the urine or stool that results from that feeling. "If you begin before your child is physically ready you will be asking something of the toddler which he is simply not mature enough to give," says Leach in her book Your Baby and Child, reminding parents that, "Toilet training is not a question of making the child do something for you. It is a matter of helping him do something for himself."

Parents Take the Lead: Seen by some as a controversial figure and beloved by others, Dr. John Rosemond has been publicly at odds with Brazelton's toilet-training philosophy. Instead of child-led toilet learning, he purports parent-led toilet learning and for parents to be much more forceful in potty training. His recommendations are often referred to as "the naked and $75 approach" (the money is for the carpet cleaning).

Dr. Rosemond instructs parents to tell their toddler when to toilet train, setting aside a day or short amount of time to focus intently on mastering the skill. Under his direction, parents tell their toddler that he or she is expected to use the potty, then remove their child's diapers. "While they're perfectly content to release warm, gooshy stuff into their diapers," Rosemond writes in his book, New Parent Power!, "children do not like these same substances running down their legs." Rosemond advises focusing intensely on this training over several days.

Moms Who Know: Sometimes your friends, family, and peers are the best source for information on potty training techniques that work.

No matter what technique you try, strive to make toilet learning fun. This is a great excuse to explore your silly side and teach your child something in the process. My own potty-training daughter loves to sit on her potty while we draw her nightly bath and sing our "potty song" while the tub fills with water. Although I look forward to the day when she no longer wears diapers, I'll miss these moments—these last glances at babyhood before she emerges from toilet training a little girl.