The American Academy of Pediatrics Guide to Toilet Training

January 4, 1999
Editors Dietz (director of the Division of Nutrition and Physical Activity at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta) and Stern (associate clinical professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the UCLA School of Medicine) offer a parent-friendly guide to nutrition through the childhood years. They include instructions on breast-feeding and bottle-feeding (while favoring the health benefits of the former) and walk parents through the stages of their child's nutritional development, including starting solid foods, dealing with finicky toddlers and meeting the nutritional needs of kids through their teenage years. In addition, the guide provides advice on such problems as eating disorders and overweight kids. Parents will also find helpful suggestions on fruits to feed kids who refuse to eat their vegetables, how to compensate when kids don't (or won't) eat meat and ways to meet the calcium and other vitamin and mineral needs of growing children. The text, which is enlivened by anecdotes from the authors' and other physicians' practices, presents information clearly and emphasizes that it's the parents' job to provide good, healthy foods, but it's the child's job to decide whether and how much he or she will eat.

March 15, 2003
Of all the child-rearing challenges that parents face, toilet training is among the more formidable. That this task often carries with it issues relating to the parent's sense of cleanliness and privacy, in addition to the usual obstacles of the child's contrariness, irrational fears, and/or simple communication difficulties, doesn't make it any easier, as this book points out. Wolraich (director, Child Study Ctr., Univ. of Oklahoma Health Science Ctr.) tackles those issues and answers common questions and concerns associated with helping children negotiate this important milestone toward self-sufficiency. In addition, he addresses the vital questions of parents of children with special needs. An annotated bibliography of resources completes this frank and sensible guide. With more contemporary illustrations (though fewer in number) than Alison Mack's standard Toilet Learning: The Picture Book Technique for Children and Parents (1983), this is a strong addition for child development collections.-Kay Hogan Smith, Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham Lib.

Copyright 2003 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.