When confronted with a problem, I turn to my tried-and-true friend: the bookstore. The bookstore solves all of my problems. It educates me, entertains me, and fills my soul while emptying my bank account. Rarely did it fail me in my pre-parent hood phase of life. Post parent phase though, the bookstore has become a hit or miss moment.
Currently, I am trying and failing to teach my daughter to use the potty. I read the potty training books, blogs, courses, etc. Somehow my brain thinks that with enough research as a teacher, I can solve any dilemma. Unfortunately, I have found that not to be the case.
I don’t know if the problem is that she is a girl, and girls supposedly struggle more, or if my child is just really active and doesn’t want to stop playing. Whatever the case is, she isn’t willing to try the potty. I just keep trying though.
I don’t claim that these books will teach your child to learn to go pee or poop in the potty. It hasn’t worked for me (YET!). However, I have discovered that some of the potty learning books hold her interest more than others, which is helpful when I want her to focus on the issue at hand. Here are some of my go to books, and the ones I avoid.
My Go To Books that Hold her Interest
Dino Potty by Sara Conway
My child has recently become more interested in this book. It follows a dino talking about how he has grown and no longer needs diapers. He is in new underwear. My daughter showed no interest in this book at the start of potty learning. Then we put her in underwear every morning and now she looks at the book regularly. I think that she connects the diapers and the underwear sections of this book, which is why it has become interesting.
In the book, the little dino starts off talking about how he couldn’t roar and had to wear a diaper. He walks through learning to pee or poop on the potty. He shows that he can flush the toilet and that his mom and dad can help him when he needs it. Finally, the dino is shown wearing the new underwear and donating the diapers.
What I like about it is that it does rhyme, and the “Roar” sounds can be really fun to make. We don’t have a lot of dinosaurs in our house (lots of other zoo animals, but she hasn’t ventured into dinos yet), so she seemed confused about the dino at first and why he roared. Apparently only lions roar in her world! I just made the sound fun for her so that she would focus for five minutes. The last page has fascinated my daughter. She seems to like the fact that the dino is wearing underwear like her. Now each time we pass this book in the hallway, she grabs it, and points out the underwear.
Elephant Goes Potty – by James Patterson (Yes, that James Patterson)
This was another desperate Walmart pickup while trying to find potty books for toddlers. I was surprised by the author, but unsurprised by the quality. I personally love this book and will probably read it long after my kid stops. I’ll be honest and say that this book works more for the parent than the kid. However, it is still one of the most read potty books in the house.
My daughter has loved elephants from a very small age. Her aunt has also bought her a lot of elephants, and her grandpa makes a great elephant noise that she tries to mimic. So it is no wonder that this book is beloved in the house.
This book tells the story of a family trying to potty train a small elephant. Each of the family members try to convince the little elephant that her little potty is great! G’ma El tries to convince Ellie with ice cream, and Junior cheers Ellie on. Even the pet dog is in on the fun. However much the family tries though, Ellie still doesn’t want to go. The book has a funny and relatable ending. It makes me believe that Mr. Patterson really does understand the struggle with potty learning.
If anything the book reminds us as parents, that no matter how much you want your child to go potty, it’s ultimately up to them. They will potty when they are ready, and we all just have to be patient. (I am really trying to be patient!). My daughter will listen to this story again and again because we make elephant sounds while reading. I encourage you to do the same to keep your little one engaged. Practice those elephant sounds people!
Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood Potty Time!
Admittedly, I am an older parent so I am not always hip to the new tv shows given the wide variety in today’s world. I was wandering around Walmart when I picked up the Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood book. I had no clue that this was a tv character. For me, it was all about trying to find any book that would interest my daughter in the potty. It didn’t matter if the main character was a giant hairy spider. If my kid would look at the potty after reading it, I would buy it. That is how desperate I have become in my potty learning journey.
Daniel Tiger didn’t fail me though. What my daughter loves about the book is the sound features. There are three buttons at the top. Two of the buttons have a little jingle, and the middle button has a flushing sound. My daughter was hooked. At first, she just wanted to hear the flushing sound over and over. As I read the book to her more often, she wanted to listen to the jingles. Now she recites the jingles with me before she puts on her underwear each morning.
While most potty training books focus on the process, this little board book also focused on the fact that toddlers want to keep playing rather than leave. They have a fear of leaving their play time and the items not being there. This little book helps remind them that potty time can be quick. As a parent and educator, I loved the fact that it came with a handle (my kid loves toting it around) and that it fit into her small hand. I put this book in my daughter’s room, and she reaches for it most mornings. Now if only she would actually remember to use the potty rather than just read about the potty!
Potty Time with Elmo: Potty Training Sound Book
Who doesn’t love Sesame Street, and its favorite kid! Grandpa got my daughter interested in Elmo because of Youtube. He would show her lots of Cookie Monster Clips and songs with Elmo and Abby. I was surprised when we walked through the Target book section and my daughter pointed out this book. She wanted to see what Elmo was doing. Turns out Youtube can be good for kids!
This book is all about Elmo teaching his doll Baby David about using the potty and getting big kid underwear. Like the Daniel Tiger version, this one comes with sound buttons that fascinated my daughter. However, I would say that Daniel Tiger wins out in the jingle department. But Elmo’s storyline is better. I love the fact that it shows Elmo teaching his doll how to go potty. I noticed a day after reading this book that stuffed animals mysteriously sit on the potty whenever I leave the room. Now my daughter drags a stuffed animal with her to the potty. The animal has to try the potty first before she will sit on it.
There are other various Elmo potty training books that also interest my daughter, but not as much as this one. The sound buttons are important to her and may help your kid.
Lovevery Learn to Pee and Learn to Poop
I struggle with Lovevery. If you are interested in why, please read my longer review of Lovevery books here.
As for these two books, they are the most read books about potty in the house. They’re absolute winners for getting my kid to read on the potty, and they are not interactive in the slightest which shocked me. There is no lift-the-flap, no music, no textures. My child is fascinated by the photos. Unlike most children’s books that are illustrated, Lovevery uses photographs. My child is fascinated that a child is sitting on the potty. She loves the picture of the pee in the potty and the poop in the potty. I don’t get it, but she stares at these pictures like they hold the secrets to the world. It is utterly strange to me.
Each book explains a little of the process of going pee or poop, and then it talks about accidents, and has a helpful father discuss the need to pee or poop in kid friendly terms. The story is almost gender neutral, so it will work for a girl or boy. It covers common problems like not wanting to leave your puzzle to go potty. The kid friendly descriptions of how your body feels when it wants to pee or poop are really well crafted. I don’t think I could come up with the correct words to describe the sensations, but Lovevery really has created a well written book on the topic.
My daughter’s favorite section of the pee book is when the little girl sits and waits, and waits. She cracks up every time. I have since learned to play up those couple of pages, and make her laugh even more. Oddly enough, her favorite page on the poop book is the photograph of the poop in the toilet. She turns right to that page and stares at it. Then she lets me read the book. She likes the ending where the child goes back to their puzzle.
While I may not love reading the books as an adult, there’s no denying that my daughter wants these books. They rank as my top two potty learning books for toddlers. I would say give these books a try if you are struggling. If I hold these books next to the potty, my daughter sits on the potty to read them with me. She gets up and pees on the floor five minutes later, but at least she tries sitting on the potty.
Books I Avoid
Let me be clear; there is nothing wrong with these books. The books are well-written and have helped some children go potty. My child is uninterested in them. If your child is as active as mine, then maybe these books won’t work for you either. Each child is completely different. But hey, if you want to try them out, be my guest. Maybe your child will love them.
A Potty for Me by Karen Katz
Many people swear by this book online, but my daughter was bored with it. I don’t think I have ever made it through a full reading with her sitting next to me. Normally, my kid loves a lift-the-flap book. She is entertained by interactive books, and can generally stay more focused with them. I think the main struggle I had with this book is that the lift-the-flap feature was too large. We weren’t discovering one new item by lifting the flap, we were instead reading a whole new page.
If the author had put a door and then asked the kid to find the potty, the flap would have made more sense. For this book, I don’t think that my kid understood that if we lifted the whole page we discovered something new. As it stands, I don’t think my daughter saw this book as a discovery, so much as an odd way to make the pages work.
As a parent, it also made the book harder for me to hold and read from. I am trying to keep my arm around my daughter, lift a whole page up, and then turn it back down before going to the next page. It just didn’t work for me.
I will say though that if your kid isn’t as rambunctious as mine, they might like the story. The writing was well done. It has a beautiful rhyme to it, and the pictures and words are large and focused (meaning they didn’t put so many details in the background for the child to be distracted by). I also love the illustration with the mom and daughter sitting next to one another on the potty. I imagine that it is what it looks like in our bathroom. Just watch out. The colors and patterns are really bold.
We Poop on the Potty!
I really wanted to like this given how many awards it has, and how much others love it online, but I just don’t. It isn’t about the concept. Of course we should teach children that everyone and everything poops, but there is nothing in this book that appeals to my toddler. I feel like this is a book that belongs to a 3 or 4 year old. Since I started trying to potty train at 2 years and my daughter is 2 and a half, maybe she is just too young to like this book.
My first complaint is that there is zero interaction from the book, and my second is that it feels repetitive and not in a good way. Some books are repetitive, but the repetition works. In this case, it just makes the book drag on. Each page shows several animals and then it talks about their type of poop, and at the bottom corner shows a child on the potty saying that they poop in the potty. Near most of the animals on the page there is a cool fact about that animal’s poop. For example, it might talk about how an animal’s poop is pink or smelly. These are cool facts, but my kid isn’t getting it. She focuses on the animal and tries to name them. Then she looks at the kid on the toilet and doesn’t draw the connection between the two items. Even when I point out the animal poop to her, she still doesn’t understand why there are animals on the same page with a kid on the potty. It doesn’t make sense to her as a kid, and as a parent, it seems odd.
What I do like about the book is all the interesting facts. If I read this to my daughter in the future, she might find it interesting, but hopefully she would put her poop in the potty by then which makes using it to potty learn irrelevant. As a potty learning book it fails. As an interesting book about poop, it might be a success.
Final Thoughts
I hope you have success with potty learning your own child. I can honestly say that I am still in the midst of my own journey, and still struggling with trying to do better. I will be keeping an eye out for other books on the topic and updating as I find them. Maybe the perfect book will come along to help me get to the other side of this journey! I still have faith in the bookstore.
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