Kids love to be read to, and they love watching videos – especially videos with favorite characters. Luckily, there are all sort of these on the market ready for you and your child to enjoy – together!

Potty Training Videos

Let’s face it: kids are just captivated by videos. So when it’s potty time in your household, it makes sense to show a video about potty training. You may find that once you introduce a video to them, they won’t be able to get enough of it – even after they’ve mastered the potty!

Potty training videos work because they show real-life children or animated characters using the potty. They may also feature catchy, sing-along tunes. This type of entertainment can improve learning and help your child make the transition from diapers to the potty more quickly.

Does your child love to watch the same videos over and over again? Little Conner does! At this point, his parents can pretty much recite dialogue word-for-word right along with Marlin and Dorie in “Finding Nemo” and have ceased to get surprised anymore when Oscar slays the sharks in “Shark Tale”.

But this actually isn’t a bad thing! The more children watch a video, the more they repeat the actions and words from it. Little Conner is constantly spouting lines from favorite movies. It naturally follows, then, that when children watch a video about potty training, they are more likely to put into practice those behaviors that will help them overcome this difficult milestone in their development.

Just make sure to step out of the way when your child runs to the bathroom and says, “I want to go potty!”

Here are a few suggestions for you to look for when finding potty videos for your child:

• Potty Power
• I Can Go Potty!
• Once Upon a Potty For Him
• Once Upon a Potty For Her
• Bear In The Big Blue House – Potty Time With Bear
• Winston’s Potty Chair
• Let’s Go Potty

Even though we are in the DVD age right now, some of these titles may only be available in VHS, so break out that old VCR and hook it up to your TV.

Potty Training Books

Most children are fascinated with the printed word – especially when those words are accompanied by colorful pictures. Most children also love to be read to. If this isn’t a regular part of your routine, you should really try to start.

The advantage to books over videos when potty training is that books can be read WHILE the child is sitting on the potty. Many, many adults like to read while “doing their business”, it only makes sense that your child would like to do the same. Even if they can’t read yet, they can look at the pictures while you read the words!

Following are some of the potty training books we’ve found to be especially helpful – and fun:

• Once Upon a Potty For Him
• Once Upon a Potty For Her
• Too Big For Diapers (featuring Sesame Street characters)
• The Potty Book for Boys
• The Potty Book for Girls
• A Potty for Me
• It’s Potty Time
• Toddler’s Potty Book
• What Do You Do With a Potty?
• My Potty Book
• Dora’s Potty Book (featuring Dora the Explorer)
• A Baby’s Got to Go (featuring The Rugrats)

Since we’re talking about tools that will help you during potty training, choosing the right potty chair can be a pretty big ordeal too!