Dr Sears Potty Training Tips

Dr. Jim Sears is a board-certified pediatrician who is part of a family practice that he shares with his father, William, and younger brother, Robert, located in Capistrano Beach, Calif. He is also a feartured doctor on The Doctor's Show.

The first thing you need to do as a parent is to watch for signs of readiness.

One of the signs Dr Sears mentions, is that your child is physiological ready for potty training when you observe the behavior of squatting and grunting when having a bowel movement and tugging at the diaper when urinating.

We provide you with a complete list of signals of potty training readiness.

Then Dr Sears tells you to get a few "potty props" you will need to get the job done!

1. Potty Chairs - his likes potty chairs is one that has a removable cup.
2. Potty Training Pants - because cloth training pants will allow your child to feel the wetness
3. Potty Training Dolls - use potty dolls to lead by example.

He mentions that most of the potty training problems that he sees are related to the fact that parent put too much pressure on the child. Too much pressure on child cause Bowel Movement withholding and resistance - which then leads to constipation in toddlers and children - which then lead to painful bowel movements.

The last thing he mention is NEVER punish your child for a potty accidents. Since potty training is a developmental milestone like walking, and you would never punish a child for falling when learning to walk, you should never punish a child for having potty accidents.

He does however mention that there is a DIFFERENCE between punishment and consequences for behavior.

In potty training in one day method and the potty boot camp method (which is based on Azrin & Foxx's toilet training in less than a day) consequences are used for undesired behaviors - AND this is NOT punishment - it is simply a consequence for a behavior.