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Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Potty Choices - A Bad Review

I am currently soaking two potties in my bathtub with bleach. Usually they look like this:



Today, they look like this:


And I can't think of a better time to go over what every parent should know before setting off to buy their child's first potty.

First, do not let the bells and whistles distract you. The potties I have chosen for my twins are amazing, in theory. They come with a wipe dispenser and a toilet paper roll attachment. They have a pretty sticker chart for when the babies make it in the potty. They have pretty pink lids, like a real potty, so your child can learn to put the lid down early, I would guess. The seats are soft, and sprinkled with the same design as the stickers. Later, they can be flipped over and used as a stepstool.

These are all awful ideas.

First of all, why you would ever want to teach a child to flip over a receptacle that may or may not have excrement in it is beyond me. My carpet is getting more urine stains than I can keep up because the babies will use their potties and flip the things over to stand on them immediately afterward.

The soft seats seem like a good idea - especially since my twins have decided that the potties make excellent mini-couches for watching TV - except that when they get up from the potty, the seat will often stick to their behinds, and splatter off after they've stood and started walking. The sticker decoration on the seats seems cute to an adult. Try explaining to a two year old that even though they used to have stickers that look like the designs on the potty, the designs on the potty will not come off, no matter how much time you spend trying to peel them. Expect massive tantrums when you run out of stickers. In fact, the stickers to begin with, at least in this house, are cause for trauma and pain. Something about stickers turns my two children into raving lunatics. We didn't even run out of those stickers; mommy threw them away.

The pink lids make for awkward handling, plain and simple. I wish they were not there. We've never used the wipe dispenser or the toilet paper roll attachment. My babies would pull all the wipes out and unroll all the toilet paper, making sure to shred it into the tiniest pieces possible. I already know this. We don't need to experiment.

But the absolute worst part of these potties is the reason they're sitting in my bathtub right now. Structurally, they just don't make sense. No matter how well my babies are positioned on their potties, they always manage to get a little extra not only on the rim or the seat, but inside the crack where the chamber pot meets the step stool. If you're a first time parent, and you aren't aware of this phenomenon, about three weeks in, you're in for a less-than-pleasant surprise. Stale urine drippings collecting in the bottom of a step stool - which, by the way, was not engineered to easily come apart - can smell up an entire house. I know from experience. And trying to wrestle that stool apart without getting any of the offensive stuff on your person is near impossible.

So, my advice on buying any potties that have more than one piece for any reason: don't do it.

Your best bet, parents of singletons, is to buy a little potty seat that sits directly on top of your toilet. The baby will get a sense of where the bathroom is, will know that urinating really only need take a minute, not an hour, and will feel more like a big kid. Clean up is minimal.

I can't do that because my twins need to do everything the same at the same time, but if I were to buy another potty set for them, it would look more like this:



One piece, one use, no stickers. If I can leave you with one message from this post it's this: don't do fancy. Your kids won't appreciate all the extras, and you'll come to rue them. I'd give you even more advice, but I have bleachy potties awaiting my return.

13 comments:

  1. This is my favorite post so far because I have been there. This is exactly the kind of humor that someone who has been there before can totally appreciate. I didn't find it funny when it was happening to me, but I do now, and I promise that someday you will too!

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  2. We have that Ikea potty and K HATES it. I think it's not comfy enough or something -- she has a skinny minnie butt. :D

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  3. We're going low-tech: they must perch on the real toilet and prevent themselves from falling in. Keeps their little mitts out of the paper and they seem to find it amusing.

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  4. I can sympathize with everything in this post except at least yours didn't play music too!!!!
    With our first potty chair I made the evil mistake of getting one that played music when you sat on it, spun the toilet paper roll, and made tinkle.
    Oy.
    We have the baby bjorn potty chair in green now, and it's excellent, we all love it.

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  5. Baby Bjorn also makes a smaller version for tiny behinds, my youngest started out on this.

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  6. We were given the Elmo 3 in 1 potty for Nate's birthday in June. He is no where near being ready to be potty trained, but I plan not showing him that it is a step stool until he is done using the stupid thing (a gift from the in-laws). Oh and it talks. WTF!

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  7. We ended up succeeding with the fisher price frog potty (which now comes in pink through toys r us, for roundabout $15). It is 2 parts but seemed to work better than the 1 piece which required hauling the whole potty to empty it. We started off with the once upon a potty and it was too much of a pain to carry the whole potty every time. Also, Target carried a cushioned mini seat that fits over the regular toilet and has adjustable handles on the sides... BIG winner when we put her on the real potty considering we have a higher toilet than most (handicap accessible) Now once she potty trained and decided to use the regular toilet she wanted nothing up there but her bottom.

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  8. Ah, fuck. I JUST bought that potty.

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  9. I bought the girls musical potties figuring they liked music. The stupid thing would go off at random times in the middle of the night.. so annoying. My kids didn't really even use them. They are step stoles and emergency potties for when someone is already on the potty lol. So wasn't worth the money.

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  10. baby bjorn- it's white and black. It has one single removable cup for rinsing, with a splash guard. The rest of it is seamless and crackless. It has a non skid bottom. They make a matching (separate) step stool. It does not sing, or play flush, or congratulate the user. We made that mistake with the *shudder* pooh bear potty which is inexplicably still on the market. Our daughter treated it like a toilet instead of a toy. It is gender neutral beyond belief, and I am looking forward to using it with our son.

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  11. Choosing when and how to potty prepare your youngster can be an exhausting undertaking for guardians. Best potty chair

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  12. They are light and very portable, you can move them from one place to another. They also come in a variety of colours and styles, making them more attractive and child friendly. These helps parents encourage their toddlers to engage in potty-training.Travel Potty Seat

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