Once Upon a Potty

I have to come clean up front and say that when I agreed to review Once Upon A Potty K was still pooping in his pants. He has since decided that the potty is the best place to do such things. However, we still sat down to look at the materials together so I could see what he thought of it all.

But before I showed it to him, I looked at it myself. Chances are, if you’re a parent of a potty training aged child or older child, you’ve seen or heard of these books before. I’d heard of them, but never looked at them before. Perhaps these books would have assisted in getting my kids to use the potty sooner than they did!

This year, Firefly Books has released a new board book edition that is accompanied by an audio CD. The CD includes the original story by Alona Frankel and three songs.

I love that the book is a heavy board book, especially since my children tend to be potty training for many, many, many (did I mention many?) months. The book will likely stand up to the wear and tear of such extended use. The cover is also slightly padded and has a waxy coating on it that looks like it would wipe clean easier than a strictly cardboard board book would. That’s a handy feature to have considering it’s likely to find its way into the bathroom for those attempts at using the potty.

I like that there are two versions of the story, one for a boy and one for a girl. Even my 6-year-old daughter who has been out of diapers for years wanted to check out the girl version since her brother got to read the boy version.

When we sat down together to read the book, my son was still excited to read it even though he’s been using the potty consistently for a few weeks now. M joined us as well and listened to the story. They both sat still and listened intently. I thought perhaps the wee-wee and poo-poo words would get them giggling, but they just listened without the silliness. After we finished the book I asked K what he thought of it. “It was really, really good mama!” he exclaimed.

Then we put the CD in and listened to the songs. The kids enjoyed the first song, then the story started over. We listened to part of the story, then the kids moved to the window to look outside and my daughter said, “we just read that!” So I skipped over the rest of the story. Note to self: the kids no longer want to read the same story 400 times in a row. They seemed to enjoy the songs and did some dancing while we listened to the music.

I’d say the book would be another tool in the arsenal that parents need to help their children along the road toward using the potty consistently. It explains how the child uses diapers at first, but then learns to use the potty. It also illustrates that there will be accidents which K found quite interesting. He even commented, “just like I did!”

When you’re potty training, you’ll take any help possible, right?