Diaper-Free Before 3: The Healthier Way to Toilet Train and Help Your Child Out of Diapers Sooner [Paperback]

Conventional wisdom tells parents that they should delay potty training to toddler age, and only after seeing signs of readiness. But is that really the best way? 

In Diaper-Free Before 3, Dr. Jill Lekovic presents the new case that early training—beginning as early as nine months olds—is natural, healthy, and beneficial for your child, based on medical evidence. By incoporating the potty into your child's routine early on, toilet training becomes far less stressful for both parent and child. Dr. Lekovic's method, which she has used successfully with her own kids and recommends to patients, helps children become better aware of their body's signals, boosts confidence, and decreases the risk of urinary health problems. 

The guide includes informative chapters on bedwetting, accidents, and adapting the method for day care, special-needs children, and older toddlers. Offering a technique that really works and turns toilet training into a positive experience, Diaper-Free Before 3 is sure to become a new parenting classic.“Using medical studies and other parenting literature, pediatrician and mother Lekovic challenges conventional potty-training wisdom and presents a plan to get you baby out of diapers as early as age two.” —From the University of Chicago Magazine, April 2006Chapter 1

What's wrong with the idea of readiness?

The parents of a healthy one-year-old boy, Jake, bring him in for his regular checkup. His growth is normal and his parents report that he started taking a few steps on his own over the last few weeks. He says "mommy" and "daddy," shakes his head no and yes, and looks around for his shoes or favorite toys when they are mentioned. He was weaned from the breast two months ago and now only takes a bottle before bed and lÅ