The Making of Potty Time: Part Two

   Inspiration and Direction

By Colleen Brunetti, MEd

I recently had the privilege of speaking with co-creator of Signing Time, Emilie Brown, to chat about the making of Potty Time. Some of you might not know Emilie, but she is a driving force behind much of what you see in the Baby Signing Time and Signing Time videos, and sister to Rachel Coleman. You can read about their co-creation of Signing Time HERE. I wanted to learn more about what went into Potty Time, a project 10 years in the making!

Rachel Coleman and Emilie Brown

Rachel Coleman and Emilie Brown

What was the inspiration for Potty Time?

For years Signing Time fans have been saying that there should be a potty training DVD with Rachel. They even went so far as to tell her, “If you (Rachel) tell my kid to go potty, I know she’ll do it!”

The truth was, neither Emilie nor Rachel ever used a potty training DVD or materials, and they didn’t feel personally compelled to do it.  Add that to the fact that Rachel wasn’t in a big hurry to sing about “poop” and “pee”, and the idea of a potty training program from the Signing Time folks didn’t seem like it was going to happen any time soon.

However, most of the Signing Time products are a response to a request or a need that fans have expressed, and the Signing Time creators were listening!

In addition to meeting the needs of the Signing Time fans, Rachel and Emilie (and their family) had a very personal inspiration for the Potty Time approach – their mom, Linda! She has nine children and over twenty grandchildren, and each and every time she would change a messy diaper she would say something like, “Wow! What a great poop! Good Job! Your body is working!” Emilie, Rachel and their siblings found themselves saying many of the same things.

This is a bit of an unusual approach! How often are we instead tempted to hold our noses and say, “Ewwww!”? And what kind of message is that sending?

But this is the opposite approach.  How many times a day do you get to send a positive message to your child about her body’s abilities?

What did you hope to accomplish with Potty Time?

The Signing Time team set out to make a program that would be not about a certain approach to potty training, but rather a warm and supportive tool to use with any potty training method or philosophy.

Potty Time characters, Alex, Leah and Hopkins

As with all of the Signing Time products, there is a special way of doing things – anybody can teach the vocabulary for bathroom needs, but the Signing Time team set out to do that with their trademark approach: making kids feel good about themselves and teaching values, all while learning a new language.

Potty Time uses the Signing Time signature feature –singing your way through your child’s day… all of their day! Signing Time always keeps it positive, and thus, the message from Potty Time is simple but profound: “You can do it! Your body is amazing. This is part of growing up.”

In our next installment we will talk more about how Potty Time was created and how the creators hoped families everywhere would use it. Stay tuned!

 

My Potty Training Adventures: Three Children, Three Lessons

By LeeAnn Mason

LeeAnn the Marketing Assistant for Signing Time, which includes a roll as Signing Time Academy Administrator.  She has been a fan since 2002 when her oldest received Signing Time on VHS for her first Birthday.  In July of 2003, she became the first Signing Time Distributor and started volunteering for Two Little Hands Productions where ever she could. In June of 2005 she was offer a temporary position helping with a special project and her responsibilities have grown and changed based on the needs of the company.

Here LeeAnn shares her own potty training story!

While working in a childcare center before I was even married, I worked with the 2 year old class which meant potty training. At our center the policy was to assist the parents with which ever method they chose. Some preferred to use Pull-Ups® or Easy-Ups®, some preferred us to leave their children in diapers and take them to the potty every half hour, and others preferred bringing several changes of clothes letting their children tell us when they needed to use the restroom. We accommodated all of these approaches. At the time, I was confident that I knew how to potty train. I also believed I knew exactly how I would potty train my own children when the time came. Boy was I wrong! Here’s what I learned from potty training each of my three children: Continue reading

Potty Training and Autism: Tips and Techniques

By Kim Fries, MA CCC-SLP

Kim Fries

Kim Fries is a Signing Time Academy instructor as well as a speech therapist. Here she takes us through some tips and techniques for helping potty train a child with autism that she has successfully used and seen implemented over the years. Kim can be reached through her website at www.LittleHandsFL.com and via Facebook at www.facebook.com/LittleHandsFL 

There has been a lot of interest on the Potty Time website, Facebook page, and here on the blog, about potty training children with special needs, especially children who have an Autism Spectrum diagnosis.  As a mom of a child on the spectrum and as a pediatric speech therapist, I have worked with many children, families, and occupational therapists to address potty training.  Here are a few tips, tricks and suggestions I have used, heard and learned. Continue reading

Training or Teaching?

By Colleen Brunetti, MEd

Colleen Brunetti, Potty Time Specialist

I love my job here at Potty Time! I get to interact with a couple thousand people a day on a topic I love. Not so much the topic of potty training, although that is of course pretty interesting stuff. More so though, we are really talking about child development and positive parenting approaches, two topics near and dear to me as both an educator and a mom.

Sometimes people will post something on our Facebook page that really challenges me (in a good way) or gets me thinking about these topics from a new perspective. I decided to do a little writing on the topic of how we as a society tend to approach potty training and published it on Examiner.com.

I hope you enjoy: Examiner Article: Training or Teaching

Potty Training Multiples: Part Two

Potty training twins with Potty Time!By Colleen Brunetti, MEd

This is the second installment in a two-part series about potty training multiples. To see our first installment, click HERE. In our first article we talked about readiness and supplies. Now we move into working with the twins together… although not necessarily potty training together!

To compete or not to compete? Some parents of multiples have had great luck with using a little healthy peer pressure so that one twin is motivated to train by watching the other. However, this isn’t always the case. As with everything else in their lives, twins are very separate little human beings. It’s okay if one is ready and not the other and it’s okay to just let that slide. Continue reading

10 Tips for Night Training

Potty Time

By Sue Rouillard, MEd

So the daytime potty training is going well. You’ve worked your way from diapers, maybe to pull-ups, and now to undies, and those puddles on the floor are becoming a distant memory. Congratulations!! It’s been a month or more without any daytime accidents and you wish potty training was done and you could forget about it. You’re almost there.

Like daytime training, there’s no set timeline on how soon you’ll get through nighttime training, but let’s see if I can make it just a bit easier for you.

Ten Tips for Night Time Toilet Training

1) Continue with your consistent daytime expectations. Good daytime routines pave the way for successful nighttime routines! Continue reading

Potty Training Twins (from Twinversity)

Potty training one is an adventure. But two? Or three? Or more?

Here are two blogs from a great multiples site, Twinversity, to help you get started.

PART ONE

PART TWO

New Potty Time Board Book!

Potty Time Board BookSamples pages from the Potty Time Board Book

In this charming story, Hopkins the Frog goes from wearing a diaper to “Fly of the Loom” big frog undies! He isn’t sure about potty training at first, but he learns to listen to his body, stop what he’s doing, and use the potty – all by himself! This book, Hopkins Uses the Potty, addresses common potty training concerns, like having an accident, in a positive and playful way.

Potty Time You Can Do It PackSAVE when you purchase this book in the Potty Time – You Can Do It Pack with four great resources for potty training success:

  • Potty Time DVD
  • Potty Time Music CD
  • Hopkins Uses the Potty Board Book
  • Potty Watch (in green, pink or blue)

Buy the Potty Time You Can Do It Pack

My Son Doesn’t Care That He’s Wet

By Colleen Brunetti, MEd

Here’s another question from our Facebook Community. You can find a list of these under our FAQs.

My son doesn’t care when he’s wet. Anything I can do to help with that?

There are a few ways you can go about helping the child who does not mind the wet sensation. Continue reading

Is it Too Early to Start?

By Colleen Brunetti, MEd

From time to time we pick a question from our Facebook community to answer. You can access the collection by visiting our FAQ’s page.

My 15 mo old son is acting very interested, is it too early to start?

That depends on who you ask! Continue reading