The methods for teaching toddlers the skill using the toilet have changed over time. When parents forced training on children during the first half of the twentieth century, failures of that approach led experts to develop alternatives.

Pediatrician Dr. T. Berry Brazelton developed his own child-centered, slower-paced potty training method over years working with children and their parents. In 1962, the medical journal Pediatrics published the successful results of a study he did using this technique with his patients. In 2004, he published “Toilet Training the Brazelton Way.”

The book covers Brazelton’s toilet training in great detail and encourages a child to set the pace, encouraging her to want to use the toilet. This way, she will not get angry and oppositional because her parents are trying to force her.

“Toilet Training in Less Than a Day,” by Nathan H. Azrin, PhD and Richard M. Foxx, PhD, hit bookstands in 1974. Forty plus years later, it is still in print, and the method has worked for millions of children.

Azrin and Foxx, like others, noted that forcing children to sit on the potty (toilet) until they finally used it was an ineffective training method.

The method they developed involves teaching the child to toilet (urinate in the potty) through repetition. There is more to it, including lots of praise, as well as verbal disapproval and corrective action when needed.