To ask for potty training advice

[steppedonlego]

My (nearly) two year old started potty training about a month ago. We just let her go bare bummed at home and now she is consistently going in the potty. We are however still using nappies in public.

My problem is how to take the next step. Though everything is going into the potty, she's using it every ten minutes or so for very small amounts. Is there anyway I can teach her to hold on for a while as the idea of doing a supermarket run (or pretty much any outing) with breaks every ten minutes sounds like a nightmare, or should I keep what I'm doing for a while until she's a little older. She's still quite young (two at the end of September)

However, for at least a year I insisted on trying the loo before we went anywhere.

My mum still insists on this and I'm nearly 40!

We have the potette too. We keep it in the car. It's not just good for kids!

I only took short trips -- 45 minutes max, including time spent getting into the car and out again. This went on for a month or so.

Bloody hell, that sounds a bit limiting - basically if you allow 5 minutes for getting in/out of the car on the outward journey and the same on the way back, you could go somewhere 10 minutes away for a 15 minute visit. Or 15 minutes away for a whole 5 minutes. That just doesn't work if you live in a more remote area, need to drive in peak traffic or need to rely on public transport.

We basically did potty training "the right way" at home but put a pull-up on our son when we went out and about too far from a toilet. We've been going for about a month. Today we drove to a town an hour and a half away, went to soft play, had a seafood lunch, did a bit of sightseeing, drove back and took him to the loo when he said he needed to go. His pull-up was bone dry when we got home at teatime.

I had wondered if things were taking longer because we were confuding him, but on reflection I think the cost of a pack of pull-ups was a price worth paying to avoid being stuck at home for a month!

If you wait till they're ready it can take less than a week - a month is madness!

My son is 3 and 2 months. we started potty training after his 3rd birthday and honestly I can't remember how long it took, but he's totally fine now (bar occasional lapse of wee, due to absent-mindedness - maybe one lapse per week, max.). I think leaving it later helped tremendously. Also going cold turkey with the nappies, staying in the house for a week or so, and just putting up with a lot of wet trousers. We also have a potette (you can get them in Boots) and it has been v useful - Ihaven't used it as a potty much because I find it hard to collapse/un-collapse, but it is really useful as a portable child's toilet seat.

How about waiting until she is ready? Have never clutched potties around places, as they were old enough to understand what was going on, what they needed to do, communicate etc. No training required. Just two accidents.

It was limiting, Casper. But a month or so of really short trips out of your entire life to make sure they really had the hang of things isn't too bad, and the end result was they all felt confident about keeping those shiny new knickers dry, and no bad associations with accidents when out and about.

We sometimes made several short trips a day, depending on older children's activities. So I might venture out to the small local shop for essentials in the morning, then an hour or two later a quick run to the playground, then out again a few more hours later for the school run, then out again for ice skating a few hours later again. I live in a built up area and trips could be short.

Another vote for the potette. I was sceptical at first, but it's been really useful.

Oh, yes, and definitely wait until they're ready. Makes it so much easier.

DS was 2.5 when we did away with the nappies. One accident on the first day. On the second day we went out, without a potty or even a change of clothes (I like to live dangerously), we were out for over an hour and he was fine. By the end of the week his nighttime nappies were dry too so we got rid of them as well. He still insisted on a nappy for a poo once a day for a couple of months.

He's nearly five now, and I can count the number of accidents he's had on the fingers of one hand. For two years he refused to wee anywhere other than a toilet (so a quiet spot behind a tree was no good!), but I have never carried a potty around with me - can't think of anything worse... apart from maybe staying in for a week or a month.

Having said all that, I think we were just lucky, and hit the timing right. I've got to do it all over again with DD in a year or so, and after that I may not be sounding quite so smug.