Or they can be a complete waste of time and money.

Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of this popular potty training resource now – before you buy.

The pros of using potty training videos.

– Motivational value. For many toddlers, watching one or more toilet training videos gets them excited and eager to try the potty game. Most of these videos have silly songs, dances or rhymes to help your child and the information connect. Using these songs can be the most important part of the video. (You’ll know you’ve got a success on your hands when you find yourself singing the “potty song” with your child multiple times a day.)

– Educational value. Depending upon the video you choose, you can use it to actually teach the potty training process if the video actually models toilet training. Some videos do not use the modeling process, however, so you’ll want to decide what method will work best with your toddler.

In addition, some videos use famous characters to explain toilet training, others use live action teaching. Both can be very effective, depending upon your child’s temperament.

– Repeated training. Most children who enjoy potty training videos love to watch them over and over again. You as the parent will be bored, but not your child. This has the advantage of emphasizing both pros stated above; keeping your toddler’s head in the potty game by keeping him excited about the potty process and, at the same time, continuing to train on the fundamentals of pottying.

But the news isn’t all good. Here are the cons of using potty training videos.

– They don’t appeal to all children. You can figure this out by borrowing a handful of videos from friends or a library to try with your toddler before you buy.

– These videos must be used as an assist to potty training to work properly. While this point seems obvious, nonetheless, many parents seem to think they can plug in a toilet training video, leave the room and come back to a trained toddler.

No way. You’ll need to use these videos to reinforce your own training and instructions; thus it’s important you agree with the fundamental messages contained in the video.

– Your child may out-grow the video’s usefulness. Depending upon how long your child takes to fully potty train, your child may mature right out of the training video’s target market. You can always replace with a new video designed for preschoolers – indeed, many parents do this very thing – but you need to keep that in mind before you buy.

Bottom line? Potty training videos can be highly useful toilet training resources, but only if you take the time and energy to use them correctly. Many a parent has used a song or dance from a training video to help their toddler stay enthused throughout the potty training process.

Making an informed decision will help you get the results you’re looking for with your potty training toddler.

Author Bio: Colleen Langenfeld has potty trained four kids and helps other moms get more out of their mothering at http://www.paintedgold.com . Toilet train faster using her potty reward charts and creative ideas plus uncover more about potty training videos by visiting her website today.

Category: Parenting
Keywords: potty training videos,potty training,toilet training,potty training process