Potty training videos highlighting Elmo’s Potty Time

One of our favorite potty training videos is Elmo’s Potty Time which my wife bought with another Elmo training book, Potty Time With Elmo. Though the two are related only in subject matter, they do reinforce each other with similar concepts.

Amazon.com Widgets

Elmo’s Potty Time comes from the long standing and dependable Sesame Street brand and runs 45 minutes long. It follows Elmo from his bathroom and bedroom through the Sesame Street neighborhood sharing the concepts of potty training with many of the Sesame Street gang.

Some of the things that make Elmo’s Potty Time one of our favorite potty training videos is that it allows parents and children to lighten up a bit when potty training, and that it teaches that accidents are okay and that it takes time to learn to potty train. And Elmo is just such a sweetheart of a monster. He’s so gentle and encouraging, using phrases like, “If you’re not using the potty right now, don’t worry. Some day you will. After all, everyone uses the potty sooner or later, and you will too.”

When we first got the potty training dvd, our kids requested to watch it over and over, sometimes twice per night, as part of our nightly bath time routine. Since I regularly bathe the kids, I had to kind of suffer through multiple viewings of this video each night for a couple of months. While that may be torturous to some, it really was not that bad. It got to the point where I would hum the songs at work until finally someone asked me to just sing some of the words so that they knew what I was humming. A little embarrassed, I complied, “Do do Dodoo, do, do do. boys do it, girls do it, big kids all around the world do it, you’ll do it, you’ll use the potty.”

Amazon.com Widgets

And every night our 2.5 year old would practice using the potty, sometimes sitting, and sometimes standing, and he urinated quite a few times! We applauded and celebrated his accomplishment. Then, one day while I was dressing our 14 month old girl, he sat down on the toilet with the kiddie toilet seat cover and started pooping. When he finished he said, “Daddy, made poo poo in the potty?” And he did, and we applauded and celebrated!! Even our 14 month old girl would point to the plastic sit down potty and the toilet seat cover and say, “Potty? Yes.” One day, when I saw that she was starting to poop, I sat her down on the potty and she finished her business!! And we applauded and celebrated!

Sadly, once they both pooped in the toilet, it was a wrap! It was as if they had achieved and accomplished the act of using the toilet, and they were satisfied with that. So I put the potty training videos away and will reintroduce them when I see signs that our boy, now three, will be interested in learning to use the potty.

One thing that is missing from the video is the actual instruction on how to use the potty. It uses songs, concepts and ideas to suggest and encourage the use of the potty, but does not really illustrate it or show it in any practical way. I suppose that’s the parent’s job to do, and it might even be seen as inappropriate to show young children or even young monsters using the potty, but I think what they’ve done with this video is effective and tasteful. And, I hope it works better for your children. I still have hope though, and I might even try some other potty training videos to see if they offer anything different and post it on this site.

Kids-toys-parents-love edit: It Worked!!! It finally worked!! I am happy to report that our son now uses the potty regularly on his own and has been doing it shortly after I wrote this article. AND, I got a text from my wife that our daughter, 3, sat down and pooped on the potty all by herself yesterday!!

Our son has been using the potty for some time now, but I was reminded of this when our daughter started watching Sesame Street - Elmo's Potty Time and we would read Sesame Street: Potty Time with Elmo together on recent weeks.

She enjoys reading the book more than watching the potty training video, but when she does, the song brings back challenging yet sweet memories. We highly recommend this as a set to any struggling parent.

After watching some potty training videos, click here to see more educational DVDs.

Or return to the home page for more fun with toys and activities.

like, subscribe, follow!