another potty question

I thought there used to be a PT forum, but I think it got absorbed into either this one or the 2-4...mods, please feel free to move this if you need to!

I'm not actively potty training, but since they are interested I'm trying to get my routine down. How many potty chairs do you have and where do you keep them if you have multiple floors or multiple bathrooms? We have a small bathroom downstairs near the main part of the house where we almost always are. Unfortunately it's way too small to fit two potty chairs. The upstairs bathroom has the space so maybe I should just start by having two up there so they can both sit right before nap and bed and maybe when they wake up? Then I could have one down here for during the day requests? But 3 potty chairs...is that crazy? Anyone keep them anywhere else? I'd rather have two downstairs since we don't spend much time upstairs anyway, but where? In the hallway? The kitchen? Any thoughts?

 

We have two bathrooms in our house (neither of them on the main floor) and both are small and don't fit two potties easily. What I do is keep the two potties on the main floor where we spend most of our day. I also have two potty seats for the upstairs bathroom. What I did was bring them downstairs and put them on the potty when they get up in the AM, before they go up for nap, after nap, and before bedtime. I think as to how many potties and where you keep them, it really depends on what works best for you and the kids. I did not want to keep running up and down the steps, so I elected to keep the potties on the main floor for now. Good luck!

 

Our house is only one level but with two bathrooms. We had two potty chairs in the guest/kids' bathroom, plus a potty ring in the master bathroom.

I don't think you really need two potty chairs -- sometimes they might want to go potty at the same time and fight over the chair, but if you don't have room, you just don't. They'll get used to taking turns, just like with anything else you don't have room for two of!

You might try the potty ring, though -- the Baby Bjorn one is really easy to use (both in terms of sitting on it and in terms of taking it off and putting it back on) and easy to clean. You do have to lift young toddlers on & off, but you will probably want to be in the bathroom with them for quite some time anyway.

I never wanted to have potties anywhere but in the bathroom. I know some people put them in the living room or playroom or something, but it just seems gross to me -- and spills/misses are not infrequent. :bad:

 

We have the cheap IKEA potty chairs... they are about $4, so I got 4 of them. Just in case I need to take them in the car or to grandparents etc. I also lucked into to getting a good deal on the Baby Bjorn potty ring, it is really nice, with a big hump/deflector in the front. My daughter is hysterical... she knows to pull the seat down, but not the lid. She knows which way the seat goes on the toilet and how to get up there herself! I have one of the small step stools in front. Its again, an IKEA and was a good deal if I remember.

My ds actually knows to lift up the lid and the seat and stand on the step stool and pee into the toilet standing up!

We bought everything around 18 months I think, but didn't really start doing any type of introduction until a couple of months ago. This last month I've seen some good increase. I also just started a very simple sticker chart... Just made a calendar type grid with dates on it. I cut up the cute emblem off the free address labels that the charities send me... and use them as the stickers for their chart. They get a sticker every time they actually pee in the potty! Whats fun is to see that some days my ds has 5 or 6 stickers!

good luck getting started! I am really pleased with my meager efforts.

As for placement of potties. I have a great hallway outside the bathroom that I'm able to baby gate in... so I leave the potties in there and there's one or so in the bathroom too. I like being able to have 2 similar ones that the kids can sit on together if they need... but mostly they aren't sitting together.

the IKEA potties stack which is great if you don't have room to store them.
IKEA potty

good luck figuring out what to do!

p.s. the thing about the potty chairs I like is that you can SEE what they did... but today I could HEAR my dd peeing on the potty ring into the toilet and it was nice not to have to rinse out the potty chair!

p.s.s. oh and YES there is spillage when they carry the potty to the toilet to dump... I'm glad we have hardwood and tile floors!

 

We have them in two places. We have three bathrooms though. The one upstairs that they primarily use we have a potty chair and a toilet adapter so there's technically two there. The potty seat also converts to be a toilet adapter which they prefer so I mostly use that one. Down stairs, it's a half bath, but they are outside more often these days so they need a toilet to use so I got them the same potty downstairs so they use the toilet if they prefer, but with guests, they can use the potty and guests can use the toilet (I can easily move it back and forth between the two if I need to. Cameron does not like using his potty, he prefers the toilet).

 

We only have two. One is in their bathroom and its the kind that fits on the regular toilet and we have one that we keep in the car for when we are out and about. We have never had the issue of both needing to go at the exact same time. They can wait a couple seconds for their turn.