Once Upon A Potty

A lot of my friends with kids around the same age as Evan have started potty training. Not full-on throw-out-the-diapers potty training, but buy-a-seat-and-start-watching-for-signs-of-readiness potty training. The lazy man’s approach, if you will. Hey, in my book every diaper you DON’T have to change is a good diaper, so I figured I’d get a seat and give it a try too.

Sitting! On the potty seat!

I think my first mistake was buying a seat/step stool rather than just a potty, since being just a liiiiiittle bit taller is every toddler’s dream (and brings us to a whole new level of childproofing). The lid is also sort of hard to get open so I have some trouble yanking off pants, a diaper and flipping it to the potty part fast enough to accomplish anything.

Even when it is open, I don’t think Evan’s legs are long enough to get his tush centered appropriately. Which means I would still have to be actively involved in all potty time for quite some time.

Eating on the potty: WE'RE JUST THAT CLASSY.

So far, there has been exactly zero potty action on the potty. Just sitting. Mostly fully clothed.

Hey! Squatting! Can we call that progress?

In case you think I’m a crazy person for even thinking about potty training this early, let me tell you that Baby Evan already learned the sign for “toilet” and associates it with pooping. He’s a very conspicuous pooper, so it wasn’t hard for him to get the connection when I signed it every time he’d start grunting and frowning. I also sign it when he’s in the bathroom with me, hoping he’ll understand that’s the place where the pooping is supposed to happen. I think peeing will be our bigger struggle, since he barely seems to care about wet diapers and often doesn’t even stop running around naked long enough to finish a whiz.

Again, I would like to remind you that NO POTTYING has been done in that bowl.

A lesser person would caption this with a comment including the terms "poop" and "head".

Yes, that is a sippy cup in the potty. Maybe he's just trying to cut out the middleman?

Evan’s other sign of readiness is that dirty diapers now seem to bother him. He will sign “yucky” and “diaper” if I ask him about “the stinky” and grab his crotch Michael Jackson-style if I haven’t yet noticed. I’ve heard this is a major step in potty training success so maybe I’ll keep trying, despite my failure with the seat so far.

Now he's just mocking me.

I suppose having the seat doesn’t hurt – we’ll need it EVENTUALLY – but when I get serious about the potty training we’ll need at least two more: one for the upstairs bathroom and one for the car. Anyone have any seat recommendations that aren’t quite so easy to use as hats?

Because this? Will NOT be OK when the seats are in use. No matter what the toddler says.

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19 Responses to “Once Upon A Potty”

  1. Amanda says:

    I think we ended up with 2 potty seats, 2 toilet rings and a travel seat. The potty seats were not a big hit with Maddie though. She preferred the rings instead and as the person who would be cleaning the poop and pee out of the potty seat I was perfectly okay with that. Plus you have that PERFECT {Mad’s words not mine} toilet in your house that would eliminate the need for 2 rings. Good luck!

  2. We have two of the fisher-price froggy potties that you may or may not have seen at target. My mom thought they were the cutest thing ever and I was like “whatever” so we got one for each house. BUT I would highly recommend them and so would my mom (who has had alot of experience with potty seats at work with the kids there). The front of the seat is just the right height for blocking dribbles and directing them into the bowl without parental assistance. We sit him on the potty mostly in the morning and before baths (he’s not really ready yet) and just say alot of exciting things should he happen to go while he’s sitting on it, which he often does. But the seat is only two peices so it’s really easy to use/clean. He pees, we dump it in the toilet, then I keep a bottle of spray bathroom cleaner under the sink so that I can spray it clean (wipe with a little TP if needed) and then rinse and it’s done. I would highly recommend. (even though I otherwise boycott anything that is from the precious planet line cause it annoys the crap out of me.)

  3. they don’t have that one on the website anymore, but this one would be really similar, just not shaped like a frog. http://www.target.com/Baby-Bjorn-051062US-Babybjorn-Smart/dp/B002Q0YA4O/ref=sc_qi_detailbutton

    • bebehblog says:

      Yeah, that’s the one EVERYONE recommended in real life, and yet I was convinced I needed a stool/seat combo. Which was obviously a mistake.

      • You could always put the seat stool one in your little bathroom (or near your little bathroom) or in the kitchen. That way you could use it like a stool for washing hands at the sink and then you would have one downstairs just in case he is suddenly adverse to using the big potty with the baby seat attachment (I don’t know if that happens, just a theory). ….on a side note, I’ve been looking for one of those seats like you have with the baby seat attached to it and I can’t find one that isn’t a foam, squishy seat!!! :(

    • Leah says:

      I one wrote an entire blog post about how much I loved that potty. Actually, I linked to a Slate article reviewing potties and mentioned that I had their #1 pick. Whatever, I am lazy.

  4. Audrey says:

    This is why I never take our potty out of the bathroom. The one time I did, when he was about 17 months and I thought we’d just let him get used to seeing it and sitting on it, he thought it was a toy and played with it. Keeping it in the bathroom seems to have made it less of a toy and cemented its purpose – though he will occasionally pull the bucket out and try to use it in the bathtub to scoop water if I step out of the room for a second. I like to think that having it next to the big toilet helped with the association. And now we’re on to the big toilet almost exclusively, so even though we were hemming and hawing about getting a second potty for downstairs that phase went so quickly it wasn’t even an issue.

    I do have a suggestion that might help with not needing lots of potties – especially if you have multiple bathrooms. A friend of mine got a toilet lid from Home Depot that has a small child sized seat nested into it..so you just have a regular toilet and when the kid needs to use it you drop down the little seat from the lid. Genius. We were seriously contemplating that but Giant Baby has gotten really good at balancing himself and the less free arm action he has to grab and unravel toilet paper while sitting on the toilet the better, imo. :D

    • bebehblog says:

      We actually HAVE one of those seats – it was on our downstairs toilet when we moved in and E never got around to removing it before we had the baby. The problem is the bathroom is on the other side of the gate, and things on the Other Side of The Gate tend to be a challenge. Plus it’s a really really small bathroom and jamming myself in their with a squirmy child is more of a trial than I’m up for. Maybe we’ll move the potty seat to the upstairs bathroom and just push the potty time to mornings and evenings until he’s into it enough to try the full (yet child) sized seat in the downstairs bathroom.

      • Audrey says:

        Our first floor bathroom is smaller than most closets. It is maybe small pantry closet sized. Like..I can sit in it and lean against the wall and sink and have my foot touch the door at the same time. Chris can’t sit on the toilet..his legs are too long. So I hear you on the tiny bathroom issue. We usually just help him out of his pull-ups, sit him on the toilet and then stand back and watch as he balances himself and does his business. :D

  5. becca says:

    evan’s totally using the potty already! maybe not for its intended purposes, but hey, at least he’s not afraid of it, right? ha! that’ll actually be a great potty to have around. especially when he needs to start washing hands and whatnot (since it’s a step-stool). i guess we need to start thinking about this process too. i’m scared. hold me?

  6. we just potty trained about 4-5 weeks ago and it’s going amazingly well! i’ve heard the best range is 22-24 months, but i’m sure there are lots of opinions on that.
    anyway, best of luck to you!

  7. Amy says:

    The pictures are so cute and his hair is really growing now!

  8. brigidkeely says:

    You got him a way to climb higher? You fool you!

    We are totally not anywhere near potty training yet; not even a little. Niko doesn’t seem to notice or care when he’s soiled himself (although SOMETIMES if I ask if he’s “bah! caca” (my husband’s/in-law’s term) he agrees and repeats it back and punches himself in the crotch. Usually he just runs off, though.

    I’ve heard that if you notice your kid is pooping you can hustle him into the bathroom so he starts to associate pooping with the bathroom. That might work for you if E is an obvious pooer. Niko is not. He poops like a ninja.

  9. Sarah says:

    I highly recommend the $5 IKEA potty, which is small enough that his knees can bend and feet touch the floor, but not so tiny as to be unusable when he’s bigger (Nora’s recently used it in an emergency, don’t tell her I told!). You may have seen it in my car…bonus, it comes in lots of colors!

    We have that same stepstool one too, and all I can say is that if you tip the lid a fraction further than it’s supposed to go, it will break the hinge and quickly only be a potty, not a stool. Ask me how I know. (Josie, obviously.) Calvin thinks that one is the absolute best toy ever, which is why our bathroom door has to stay closed all the time now, the potty being very much used, and the other two’s bathroom needs precluding gating.

  10. dude. you know i have no kids and have no expertise when it comes to potty training. while i was reading this, hubs came in and was like “is that a baby on a toilet?”… it was one of those hilarious-had-to-be-there type convos, but i can tell you that my hubs says that if our kid isn’t potty trained by 4 wks, hes sending it back. so yeah.

  11. I just wanted to mention that I love how even though you have moved Brutus’ chair because of the new island (which looks great, by the way) he is still laying in the spot where the chair used to be.

  12. Megan says:

    I started with that potty (since Amelia wasn’t walking yet when she decided to potty train), you know that you can take the seat part of that off and use it as ring, right? Also, I know I have said this before, but I love the mini bjorn potties. Even Amelia in all her shortness can negotiate them on her own. I think Ikea also makes a similar model that is less expensive. (Caveat before anyone feels inadequate, while Amelia WAS fully potty trained at 16 months, now at 18 months she is back in diapers almost full time. Learning to walk was way too distracting. :))

  13. We started almost a month ago, tried for a few days. 2 peepee’s and that was it. I’ve not been consistent with it whatsoever! Now that excessive water poo’s have cleared up I want to start again with him. I appreciate Evan’s cutting out the middle man, that was hilarious. Smart cookie.

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