"Fast track" toilet training techniques: An evidence-based review

© 2022 Gwen Dewar, all rights reserved

"Fast track" toilet training techniques can exist constructive, but they aren't right for everyone. Children shouldn't begin unless they are healthy, motivated, and developmentally ready. And caregivers must be prepared to omnibus their children through hours of intensive, focused training.

To decide if fast-track training is right for your family, yous need know what'due south required. Here I present a detailed overview of the best-studied "fast" potty training program. At the finish of the commodity, I also discuss a less-regimented alternative, i known as the "blank bottom method."

If you lot decide yous're interested in a more than gradual approach to toilet grooming, cheque out this Parenting Science guide.

Toilet training in less than a mean solar day

In that location are a number of different programs being promoted equally "fast."

But almost I've seen borrow heavily from the work of Nathan Azrin and Richard Foxx, ii child psychologists and co-authors of the volume, opens in a new window"Toilet Training in Less Than a Twenty-four hours".

So information technology's helpful to empathize the general method they pioneered, a method that depends on these training tactics:

• Encouraging your kid to beverage lots of fluids before and during training
• Demonstrating proper toileting routines through pretend play
• Providing positive reinforcement (e.g., rewards for correct potty use)
• Prompting frequent practice drills (called "potty sits")
• Over-correcting for accidents (i.east., guiding your kid through a "potty sit down" immediately after your kid wets his or her pants)

What makes a child a good candidate for these toilet preparation techniques?

Azrin and Foxx emphasize that a kid should be healthy. In particular, y'all shouldn't attempt potty training if your child child suffers from diarrhea, constipation, or symptoms of a urinary tract infection.

And the programme designed just for children who testify certain signs of readiness.

Co-ordinate to Azrin and Foxx, children should be at least 20 months quondam, and able to

• sit up by themselves;
• walk;
• stay dry for a couple of hours at a time;
• pull a pair of loose-fitting underpants up and down past themselves;
• imitate;
• recognize a total bladder;
• bespeak to body parts that you lot name;
• recollect objects for y'all; and
• follow simple instructions like "put the doll on the potty."

(For tips on boosting a kid'due south readiness, run across opens in a new windowthis Parenting Science guide.)

It's likewise important to accept realistic expectations.

The championship of the volume ("Toilet training in less than a day") is a bit misleading. Your child might brand a breakthrough in a single session. But you will exist working earlier that session begins. For parents, in that location is a substantial amount preparation. This overview isn't intended equally a substitute for reading the book and making those preparations.

In addition, this method doesn't accost bed-wetting. Nor does it eliminate the occasional daytime accident.

As I note in opens in a new windowthis article, most young children  — fifty-fifty those who accept accomplished daytime dryness — feel bed-wetting until they are at least four years old.

And "daytime dryness" doesn't hateful perfection. Regardless of what potty training method you use, you should expect that your child will occasionally wet his or her pants. This is developmentally normal.

What do Azrin and Foxx'southward toilet training techniques wait like?

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Let'due south review it in iii parts, beginning with the preparations you must make, and catastrophe with two phases of grooming.

1. Brand plans and ready upward your space.

• Schedule a time (4-6 continuous hours) when yous and your child tin focus. Be prepared to banish all distractions, including siblings and other family members.

• Choose an appropriate training area. Information technology should exist a room that is large enough to play in, and relatively piece of cake to clean upwards. Azrin and Foxx suggest the kitchen.

• Gather your supplies. You'll demand a potty chair, food and drinks for your child, and a doll with a removable diaper. The authors as well specify that yous apply a doll that tin drink and "urinate" (pass water that has been poured in its mouth). However, you can probably use an ordinary doll if you are prepared to handle the special effects with sleight-of-hand.

• Dress your child in loose-fitting training pants (with nothing else over the top). Extra clothing can hinder children from pulling their pants down quickly.

• Be prepared to get your child to drink fluids. If your child isn't thirsty, try offering him or her a salty snack. And continue to encourage your kid to drink throughout the training session. You lot want your child to feel frequent urges to urinate, and then there will be plenty of opportunities to exercise using the potty.
  

2. Start phase 1 of training: Utilize the doll to demonstrate correct potty use.

The idea here is to engage in pretend play with your child.

Begin by offering the doll something to drink. Then tell your child needs to use the potty.

Guide your kid through the process of

• removing the doll's diaper,
• sitting the doll on the potty,
• waiting for the doll to "urinate," and
• praising and rewarding the doll for doing so.

Continue with other aspects of the routine, like emptying the doll's "urine" from the potty chair, and washing hands.

In improver, administer frequent "dryness checks" to the doll. Enquire your child: Is the doll's diaper dry or moisture?

If yous make up one's mind that the diaper is dry, the doll gets another advantage.

If the diaper is wet, explain that large kids don't wet their pants. And and so "over-correct" for the doll's fault by immediately repeating the entire potty routine — removing the diaper, sitting, waiting for urination, and providing a reward.

Azrin and Foxx advise that you lot repeat the doll sit-in trials until your child understands the steps.

This usually takes no more than than one hour (Azrin and Foxx 1974, p. 68).

iii. In one case your child shows proficiency with the doll, switch to the direct practice phase of training.

Information technology's time to put your child through the paces. Follow the aforementioned, familiar steps you took with the doll.

• Encourage your child to drinkable fluids.
• When your child is prepare to urinate, assistance him or her sit down on the potty.
• Praise and advantage each successful act of urination in the potty.
• Every xv minutes or so, ask your child if his or her pants are dry.
• If your child wets his or her pants, follow through with over-correction.

In improver, initiate practice sits. Ask your kid to effort toileting every thirty minutes or so, even if he or she isn't feeling the urge.

What are the success rates? Practice Azrin and Foxx'due south toilet grooming techniques work?

For some reason, there has been very little inquiry on the subject area. To date, only a handful of peer-reviewed studies on "fast rail toilet training techniques" accept been published (Warzak et al 2016; Klassen et al 2006).

But hither'due south what we know.

When Azrin and Foxx tested their own method on 34 children, the average kid finished training in 3.ix hours and experienced a 97% subtract in accidents the calendar week after training. (Foxx and Azrin 1973).

Other researchers accept reported less impressive outcomes, just the results are still promising.

For example, in an unpublished, dissertation study, 71 children between the age of eighteen and 35 months were randomly assigned to experience either

1. the Azrin and Foxx method, or
2. an alternative, gradual approach to toilet grooming (the Spock method).

The kids trained with the Azrin and Foxx method showed earlier improvements (Candelora 1977).

Some other, not-randomized study tracked outcomes for 49 children whose parents had been coached in Azrin and Foxx'south methods.

The parents had attended three weekly classes. They likewise received phone support. On the mean solar day of children'south training, the boilerplate session lasted 4.5 hours. And the results?

Overall, about 77% of the children were sucessfully potty trained, only it depended a lot on age.

Children nether 25 months were more probable to struggle; ix of the 10 kids who quit the program were in this age grouping.  Among children over 25 months, the success rate was 93%. Viii weeks later on training, kids averaged less than i accident per 24-hour interval (Butler 1976).

A third, much smaller study assigned children to be trained either by their own mothers or by an experienced trainer. Children experienced grooming in two, iv-hr sessions, and outcomes varied past condition.

4 of the v children trained by the adept trainer were successful. Only two of the 5 kids trained by their own moms were successful. Considering of the small sample size, the results were non statistically meaning (Matson and Ollendick 1977).

Overall, these results suggest that Azrin and Foxx's toilet training techniques can be quite effective. But the limited enquiry tells us almost nothing near how fast-track methods stack up against alternative training programs.

As researchers at the University of Alberta notation, more studies are needed to determine if whatsoever one potty training method is better than the balance. We also need more research to investigate

• how the individual characteristics of parents and children might affect potty training success, and
• whether or not there are any long-term, agin side effects associated with particular toilet training techniques.

Some parents have reported that their children became upset during the training. If this happens, it'due south best to back off. Pushing an upset, uncooperative child may crusade behavior problems, and it certainly won't lead to a successful toilet preparation outcome.

What about alternatives? Is in that location a mode to "fast track" your child without such intensive coaching?

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If the weather is dainty, and you have access to a yard or patio, you might consider the "blank-bottom method."

Pediatrician Dr. Barton Schmidt recommends this approach for children over 30 months who have already used the potty with parental help (Schmidt 2004). If they are familiar with the potty, but haven't however achieved total toileting independence, the bare-bottom method might help them make that final breakthrough.

How does it work?

According to Schmidt, you should reserve at to the lowest degree one six-hour block of fourth dimension (or a weekend) for training. Some children might require several sessions, held on consecutive days.

For each session, strip your kid beneath the waist and allow him or her play. Offer lots of fluids to create many opportunities to urinate. Keep your child inside like shooting fish in a barrel admission of a potty chair at all times.

And stay with your child, but do not ask your child to sit on the potty.

Be cheerful, and let him or her work things out for herself. Clean upwardly accidents without giving any lectures or lessons. Exist upbeat and affectionate.

It's possible to attempt this method indoors, just of course it'due south easier to cope with accidents if your child is outside. And wherever you hold your sessions, makes sure your kid isn't cold or uncomfortable. You want this experience to be pleasant — not stressful.

Although there are no scientific studies evaluating this approach, Dr. Schmidt reports a loftier success rate in his own practise (Schmidt 2004a). And similar claims have been made by psychologist John Rosemond, Ph.D..

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Note: I have included a link to Amazon.com in this commodity. If yous make a purchase using this link, a portion of your purchase will benefit this site.

References: Toilet training in less than a day

Azrin NH and Foxx RM. 1974. Toilet training in less than a twenty-four hour period. New York: Pocket Books.

Butler JF. 1976. The toilet grooming success of parents after reading toilet grooming in less than a day. Behav Ther 7(two):185-91.

Candelora K. 1977. An evaluation of ii approaches to toilet training normal children. Diss Abstr Int. 38(5-B).

Foxx RM and Azrin NH. 1973. Dry out pants: a rapid method of toilet preparation children. Behav Res Ther 11(4):435-42.

Klassen TP, Kiddoo D, Lang ME, Friesen C, Russell K, Spooner C, Vandermeer B. 2006. The effectiveness of different methods of toilet training for bowel and bladder control. Evid Rep Technol Assess (Total Rep). (147):1-57.

Matson JL and Ollendick Thursday. 1977. Issues in toilet training normal children. Behav Ther 8(iv):549-53.

Schmidt BA. 2004. Toilet preparation: Getting information technology right the start time. Contemporary Pediatrics, 21: 105-119.

Taubman B, Blum NJ, Nemeth N. 2003. opens in a new windowStool toileting refusal: a prospective intervention targeting parental behavior. Curvation Pediatr Adolesc Med 157(12):1193-6.

Warzak WJ, Forcino SS, Sanberg SA, Gross Air-conditioning. 2016. Advancing Continence in Typically Developing Children: Adapting the Procedures of Foxx and Azrin for Master Care. J Dev Behav Pediatr. 37(1):83-7

Image credits for "Toilet preparation in less than a 24-hour interval? An testify-based review of fast track toilet preparation techniques"

Championship epitome of father and kid past yaoinlove / istock

Image of child and toy comport on potties by EvgeniiAnd / istock

Paradigm of kid using potty in garden past Tallisalles / istock

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Brief portions of this text appeared in a previous article about fast track toilet training techniques.

Content of "Toilet preparation in less than a twenty-four hour period? An show-based review of "fast-track" toilet training techniques" last modified 5/2020

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Source: https://parentingscience.com/toilet-training-techniques/

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