How Do You Doo?: Everybody Pees & Poops!

By Nancy Cetel and Joseph Weiss

How Do You Doo? Everybody Pees & Poops! A delightfully informative entertaining, and colorfully illustrated volume with valuable practical insights on toilet training. Tasteful color photographs of animals answering the call of nature allows the child to understand that every body does it! Additional informative rel

• Language: English
• Publisher: SmartAsk Books
• Release date: Jun 16, 2016
• ISBN: 9781943760268

Nancy Cetel

Nancy Cetel, MD is an engaging and passionate physician, educator, author, professional speaker, and humorist. She has given hundreds of presentations, with the audiences ranging from medical professors and professionals to sophisticated lay audiences. Live appearances and interviews before local, regional, national and International television and radio audiences have brought her acclaim as an accomplished communicator and advocate for an informed public.As a Future Farmer of America (FFA) her career path was leading to veterinary medicine, but human medicine intervened. Following her graduation from the New York University School of Medicine, she traveled to the West Coast where she obtained her postgraduate training in Obstetrics and Gynecology at The University of California, and University of Southern California. She also served on the faculty of the University of California where she completed an additional three years of postgraduate training in Reproductive Endocrinology. Her pioneering research led to numerous publications and awards including the lead article in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Cetel has been in medical practice in California for over twenty-five years, and maintains a keen interest in preventive health care, hormonal balance, and age management medicine. She has had numerous publications in prestigious medical and lay journals and magazines. As a distinguished former academic researcher and clinician, she undertook the writing of the groundbreaking book, Double Menopause: What to do When You and Your Mate go Through Hormonal Changes Together, dealing with midlife hormonal issues for men and women. Dr. Cetel is often referenced in books and journals, and is a frequently invited lecturer nationally and internationally. Her passions include her family, vegetarian cooking, tap dancing, and the joys of being a grandparent.Dr. Cetel is a frequently invited professional speaker and humorist, at universities, international conventions, conferences, corporations, resorts, and special events with programs that exemplify edutainment. She is the author of several dozen books and articles on health available at: www.smartaskbooks.com and www.doublemenopause.comThe Funny Side Collection, The Fart Side series, and other items are available at: www.thefunnysidecollection.com

Book preview

Chapter One

Training Parents for Potty Time

Toilet or potty training is the process of training a young child to use the toilet for peeing (urination) and pooping (defecation). The process requires cooperation and understanding between child and caregiver, and the best techniques use positive reinforcement, not punishment.

Cultural and societal factors play a surprisingly large role in determining the age when bowel and bladder control should be achieved. Being toilet trained at twelve months is expected for some tribes in Africa, while in the United States twenty-four to thirty-six months is more of the norm, with some efforts beginning at about eighteen months. Most children control their bowel before their bladder, and girls are usually more advanced than boys. Bed wetting at night (enuresis) may be the last challenge of toilet training to master, and nighttime dryness is usually achieved by the age of five or six in the US.

This is a much later age than seen in many other cultures. A parent or caregiver can have an advantage in the toilet training process if they are aware of and recognize the nonverbal clues and signs that many children exhibit as they have an internal urge to pee or poop. The most common finding if they have a need to pee is that they squirm, move or dance around, rocking from one foot to the other. Facial expressions of distraction and frustration may also be recognized.

The prompt offering of the potty seat and toilet time allows the need for peeing to be successfully achieved, with the bonus of giving an opportunity for positive reinforcement. The signs of the need to poop can be similar to peeing, but with the facial appearance of imminent straining. Once the straining and holding of breath begins, the time get to, and on the potty, is usually too late. If you can get there to catch some of the poop, and even right after the poop, it is still a good opportunity to offer positive reinforcement that the child is getting closer to the goal of depositing the poop in its proper place.

Toilet training practices and age of achievement vary around the world. The U.S. lags behind, and this generates enormous profits for the disposable diaper companies and extra burdens on waste management. Other countries start toilet training much earlier than in the US. In some cultures and societies infants and young children do not use diapers. Without the diapers to hide the evidence, the parent or caregiver is more observant of the child peeing and pooping. They quickly learn to recognize the child’s nonverbal signs and communication of the need to pee and poop, and use that to initiate a visit to the potty or toilet. This natural and positive reinforcement leads to rapid toilet training.

In Vietnam potty training starts at birth, and infants are usually trained for urination by nine months of age! The technique is based on nonverbal communication, with the baby learning to associate its urination with a whistling sound the mother makes each time that it pees. With experience, the special whistling sound reminds the baby to urinate. They can generally take care of all their toileting needs by the age of two.

The age of toilet training has been delayed over the last several generations in the US. In the 1900’s the majority of children in the US were toilet trained by age two, with training beginning before twelve months. It is not unusual for toilet training to now be delayed to an age of three years. The main instigator has been an unproven concern that toilet training initiated too early may lead to psychological issues with the start of toilet training now commonly delayed to eighteen months. With the enormous profits generated by increasing the time children spend in diapers, it would not be surprising if the disposable diaper companies funded or promoted distribution of the psychological studies supporting delayed toilet training. Perhaps new research showing the psychological issues related to delayed toilet training would allow the US to catch up with the potty progress of the rest of the world.

Shutterstock Rusana Mishchenko

The ability to have two way communicate with the child is very important in the toilet training process. Although the ability to fully understand the child’s verbal communication is optimal, nonverbal communication can also be very effective. It is recognized that preschool potty training envy will often encourage children to try to catch up with their preschool classmates who are potty trained and more independent. Parents may find this motivation useful in encouraging their children to progress if they are ready. Besides, if they can be toilet trained at an earlier age like elsewhere in the world, the thousands of dollars saved on disposable diapers could be contributed to a sizable college education trust fund for their future financial benefit. Of course there is also an environmental benefit by reducing the impact on landfills and pollution.

The potty selected should be at comfortable child height, and kept close to where the child spends most of its time. It should be readily portable, easy to clean, and attractive to the child so that he or she associates it with a positive activity. Perhaps the child has an interest in seeing it decorated with playful and fun stickers, or has their name on it. The ability to respond promptly by having the child sit