What Works in Toilet Training? Beginning at 27-months is the magic number   Parents who avoid expressing the yuck factor about the products of children's toileting behavior may be doing themselves and their toddlers a favor.

A pair of studies by pediatricians at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia suggests that parents who reinforce negative connotations about feces may lengthen the amount of time that their toddlers take to complete toilet training.

On the other hand, parents who avoided using phrases such as stinky diaper within earshot of their children, and who praised the toddlers for defecating in their diapers before they began active toilet training, were more likely to have a shorter period during which the child refused to use a toilet or potty.

The researchers hypothesized that negative signals may cause young children to feel shame and embarrassment about defecating, leading them to hide while defecating in their diapers. The researchers found that children who hid while soiling their diapers were more likely to have constipation and more likely to refuse to defecate in a toilet or potty, compared to children of the same age who did not hide while defecating. The children who hid completed toilet training at a later age than the nonhiding children.

Nathan J. Blum, M.D., the chief of Behavioral Pediatrics at The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and Bruce Taubman, M.D., a physician in the Children's Hospital division of Gastroenterology and Nutrition, co-authored the toilet training studies, which appeared in the December issue of the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

The current studies build on previous research by Drs. Taubman and Blum. They found in an earlier study that there was no clear benefit to starting toilet training in children younger than 27 months of age. In fact, earlier training was likely to take longer than training that began after 27 months. TOP