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Potty Training with Dora the Explorer

Toddler Tips

SG Buckley
2 min readDec 12, 2022
Photo by Alyssa Stevenson on Unsplash

I never liked Dora the Explorer. (Read rant about how toddlers watching it become zombies). But I’ve since discovered the show’s other benefits. It turns out that the promise of a single episode of Dora is compelling enough to get a stubborn toddler to use the potty.

For weeks we’ve been trying to potty train our daughter. It’s been a disaster. She’s peed on me, on my husband, all over the house. Everywhere save into the bright pink potty we carefully chose.

She’s grown really clingy too and insists on sitting on my lap to eat breakfast, color, play with Legos, etc.

It’s all very sweet to be sure, but I’m a neat freak and not that into being peed on.

All the advice says you can’t get angry. You’re supposed to smile and say encouraging things like “great job” and “you’re getting to be such a big girl!” and “let’s call Grandma to tell her what good work you’re doing!” as you scoop poo off the kitchen floor. Something tells me grandma didn’t potty train this way.

We’ve tried encouraging her with treats like stickers, ice cream, and other TV shows. Nothing has worked.

On day ten in round three of training, I recorded five episodes of Dora. Setting aside my strong aversion to this loud and manipulative show —…

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SG Buckley
SG Buckley

Written by SG Buckley

Writer, editor, parent. Former staffer at Quartz, WSJ and Inc. magazine.

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