Wednesday, October 26, 2005


The Best Potty Seat



I recently potty trained my 3 year old son, and during the process I must have gone through at least five different potty seats before I finally realized what worked for us. It's the Primo Freedom Trainer, and it is the only potty seat you will ever need to buy, whether you are training a boy or a girl.

We failed miserabley with those little pottys that you put on the floor. My son thought it was a toy and would start filling it up with toys and water from his sippy cup. Not to mention, my then 11 month old twins were diving head first into it when my son wasn't sitting on it. Good thing not a leak of pee or poo went into that thing, otherwise I would have had to not only give the kids a bath, but also clean the floor. I decided we would train directly on the toilet so I wouldn't need to go through the disgusting process of dumping waste into the toilet and cleaning the kiddie potty. I hate mess, and moreoever, cleaning a mess. I have too much to do as it is, why add an extra clean-up step? Plus, potty training directly on the toilet meant I would not have to risk the babies accidently touching the kiddie potty, which was right on their level.

So we tried toilet toppers. I started with the cushy ones but after a while, realized they weren't really practical. They didn't leave alot of room in the back for me to wash and wipe my son after he did no. 2 (we're Muslim, so we don't believe in just a swipe of toilet paper to clean poo, we actually rinse the area with warm water, which is far more sanitary. I use toilet paper to dry him off after I've washed him). I think even if you try to just wipe your child with toilet paper only, those little seats don't give a parent or child alot of room back there. And the front of the seat, forget it. They give a little pee pee shield to prevent little boys from peeing all over the floor but it is impractical to use. Little kids can't climb onto the potty seat with that thing on without hurting themselves and can you really trust your child to put it on by himself each time he has to pee? I know mine will be in such a rush he will forget. And when your little boy does do pee-pee while sitting on the potty seat, all the pee gets trapped in the front crevices. This is a problem because when you remove the seat from the toilet, the trapped urine drips all over the toilet seat and floor. Yuck, who wants to clean up extra mess? I haven't taught my son how to pee standing up yet, experts say it's best to keep all elimination in the sitting down position. Children get confused when too many variables are introduced to a process, so keep it simple. Standing to pee is an advanced course taught to 4 year old boys who understand things a little better.

Anyway, after much trial and error, we finally found the perfect seat. This seat wouldn't be easy to travel with, but for home use it is perfect. It comes with an attached stool so the child can climb on and off the potty all by himself. It also has a safe, built-in deflector to help pee-pee stay in the toilet (although my son needed to be taught to lean forward and push his little soldier down to prevent accidents, but at least the pee wasn't getting trapped in the seat!) The seat is long and roomy in both the front and the back so it gives a parent ample room to rinse and wipe their child after they go potty. And because it's all plastic, it's a snap to clean, (those vinyl seats crack and have a tendency to retain bacteria). My son can now climb onto the potty all by himself when he needs to go and just calls me when he's done so I can clean him up. Self-cleaning is the next thing we need to learn, but I won't really trust him to do that until he can hold his own lota (watering can).

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

My son never wanted to use a potty chair or insertable seat. He just wanted to sit his rear on the big boy pot.