For many years of my life, I was a slave to potty training with the little kiddy chairs. We’d tote them around the house, dutifully emptying out the little chamber underneath the plastic seat multiple times a day, even for the tiniest drops of pee (for which we’d clapped and cheered, like the good potty-training parents we were). Then we’d stash them away in the garage where they’d fade and gather spiderwebs until the next go-round.
But no more!
No. Now, my young potty-training son is using the adult potty, just like the rest of us. We don’t have a little bucket to empty out, and we won’t have to offer M&M-induced bribery to get him to transition to the bigger toilet. It’s all because of this miraculous toilet seat.
I am such a fan of this mom-friendly toilet seat that I want to tell you guys 7 reasons I love it.
- It’s a slow-close seat. Which means… no banging that wakes babies up from their naps or mommies up from sweet sleep in the middle of the night. It doesn’t bang, y’all. It slowly lowers down. (And all the mothers rejoiced.)
- It has a built-in potty-training seat. So, yay! I get to potty train without any other equipment required. No more digging out the old potty seat, or trudging to the store for another colorful little plastic pee-and-poo-catcher. AND? Any friends with kids who are potty-training can come to our house and use it, anytime, without me having to dig out a piece of equipment. It’s a hidden little gift you can offer to your friends to make their hearts sing.
- The smaller potty-training seat is magnetically connected to the lid. So you don’t have to mess with it, ever, unless you’re in that potty-training phase. In our house, that comes around about every 2 years. (You can also easily detach it, with just a click, to store it away, if you want to.)
- There is no fall-through of tiny bottoms. This is the bane of potty-training parents everywhere– their tiny little bottoms fall through the large hole of the toilet seat. But not with this seat! They can sit with confidence and focus on the main event: pottying.
- It’s really sturdy, and the connectors/bolts are super-strong. This is a big selling point for ANY toilet seat for me… maybe it’s because we have so many bottoms using them all day long, or maybe because we had a lot of weak/breaking toilet seats in our time overseas, but easily-broken toilet seats drive me bananas. This seat not only has strong connectors, but after a year’s use (we now have this awesome seat installed on two different toilets in our home) neither of them has budged or started wiggling to one side or weakening the way other toilet seats do.
- He has had ZERO fear about sitting up on different potties in other places. If you’ve used other seats and then had to make the transition you know what I’m talking about. Many of our other 6 kids have had tears, fits, and terrified expressions on their faces as we made them start transitioning to using normal toilets.
- It’s comparably priced to other non-potty-training-friendly toilet seats. Seriously, if you need to replace your toilet seat anyway, why not get this one and save yourself the purchase cost later, for an additional piece of potty-training equipment? (That was my logic when I purchased two of these about a year ago, and now that I’m potty training, I couldn’t be more pleased with that decision!)
IN THE COMMENTS, PLEASE SHARE: Have you ever seen a seat like this in person? Would you buy one?
Note: this is NOT a paid post. I am just in the throes of potty training and REALLY like this seat and decided to tell you about it. Have a nice weekend!
I’ve been thinking about getting one of these for a while. My husband is less convinced. My son started out on the big potty but with one if those removable seats and it’s just plain annoying! I’m glad to have a specific recommendation, thanks!
We bought one about 6 months ago and love it too! No more potty chairs cluttering our floors!
Thanks for this, I’ve been curious about these seats. Do you have your boys use these for pee & poop, or do you have them start by standing for pee & just have them sit for poop? If you have them sit for pee, do you have problems with it spraying out? We use a removable potty seat with a splash guard right now, but the idea of this seat is very appealing since it would be less to mess with.
We start boys out by sitting for everything. I think it helps them focus on the event itself, rather than us also getting stressed about not dribbling down legs, etc. It lets all their mental energy go toward teaching those muscles to release.
I used to have them turn around (legs straddled, facing the back) to give them a larger “target” area. With this seat, we’ve had almost no spraying up above, but there is not a huge splash guard like on some little seats. I just teach them to lean downward and he figured it out by about the third/fourth time, and it hasn’t been an issue since.
When we’ve needed to wipe it off, it snaps off very easily, washes off, and then snaps right back in place.
Like you indicated, the ease of cleaning this up has been my favorite thing. I hated the little sloshy plastic bucket of pee and hated cleaning poop out even more.
Can I ask a different question? What do you do when you have a child who ought to be potty trained, but has absolutely zero interest (and in fact, is disinterested) in using the potty?? For reference, this is a boy who just turned four.
No worries if you haven’t the time to answer this question – I know it’s off-topic. I do love that potty seat – it’s going on my want list! So much nicer than the ones you have to carry around and clean out.
Diana
The same thing I do when I want to interest a child in reading. I entice them by telling them good things about it, talking positively about it, etc. Then, a few days before we’re going to start learning, I give them a heads up- “in 3 days we’re going to start going potty every single day. You’re going to use the potty and not a diaper any more. You’ll wear undies like a big boy and mom will help you.” Later I might remind him of it and say, “you’re going to keep your pants dry like mom & dad and do an awesome job!”
Etc. for 2 days before, and then especially play it up he might before- like wow tomorrow’s the day 🙂 then on the day of, we make that the main thing of the day. Major focus. Major cheering when it goes well. Lots of purposeful was from me. Etc.
Basically I watch and wait for readiness and a good amount of self-control + a submissive attitude to mom. Then I watch our calendar for a good open week or so where I know I can focus on helping them consistently, and I build up to it so they anticipate it and know it’s coming.
Thank you so much! Going to try this, and I’ll come back and post to let you know how it goes.
Your blog is a huge blessing! Thanks for writing!!
Diana
Oops, one more question if you have time. Do you go cold turkey? i.e. Today is the day, no more diapers ever? Or do you work on it while home but still do diapers overnight and/or on outings? Our eldest potty-trained himself (and our second will probably never be potty trained, due to severe special needs), so I’m still a bit clueless.
Thanks again!!!
We have trained anywhere between 21 months and 38 months old.
Our daughter went almost immediately from diapers to fully trained, day and night. None of our boys have done that. They have all potty trained in two stages:
1- early (that’s the 21-38 mos. figure)- day-trained (diaper on for naps and at night)
2- later (anywhere from 4-6 or so)- fully-trained in both day and night.
So for my boys now, I don’t even expect them to be trained/dry while sleeping… but if one did it on his own, I wouldn’t spurn it. 😉
OH- and I do pretty much clear out a week or so to really work on potty training and then I expect self-control. It’s why I wait not only for readiness, but also for willing obedience. Once I know they take me at my word, I can hold them to “stay dry” and they will do it because their will is trained to go along with what mom says.
So we do pretty much go from wearing diapers, to no diapers, but I don’t expect that on day 1. We pretty much stay home for 4-8 days (as long as we can) and get as consistent and much control in pottying as we can, before we head out to the wide world and expect them to continue it.
Diana, thanks for asking your question, and Jess, thanks for answering! I have a 2.5 year old that is very, very strong-willed (and also scared of lots of things), and I was beginning to be afraid she would never potty train. We are working hard on the self-control and the submissiveness (starting to see progress!). Today she was diaperless, and actually asked to use the potty (in a rather urgent way); she did not go, but after she got off the toilet, asked for a diaper and peed within two minutes. So that tells me there’s awareness of the need to go, and we just need to work on being comfortable and relaxed on the potty. Thanks for the encouragement and direction!
This is what we started with and it’s fabulous! I have two little boys and they can both use it well. The younger one has to use a stool to climb up, but his 3.5yo brother can do it on his own.
I was just looking for one of these today! Thank you for your blog Jess! I am really enjoying it. I have been reading through a lot of your blog, listening to your podcasts, and watching your videos. Thank you for taking time to write down your insights!
Yay! That makes me happy. 🙂 It’s why I do it.