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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Using a potty in a restaurant

165 replies

BonnieBo · 04/01/2022 14:31

Went to a gastro pub over the Christmas break, quite a large open area where say 20 tables all in one room.

In the middle of this room, a couple having lunch had their toddler sitting on a potty, no trousers on. Clearly in early stages of potty training as the girl was sat their for ages (20+ mins), then the dad picked up the potty and carted it off to the toilets.

Is this not a bit much for a restaurant?

OP posts:
pilates · 04/01/2022 18:01

That is awful.

inmyslippers · 04/01/2022 18:02

This reply has been deleted

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funinthesun19 · 04/01/2022 18:11

I feel so sorry for that poor child in all of this Sad What an awful position her parents put her in.

Normski67 · 04/01/2022 18:24

So if the child isn’t reasonably reliable yet, as a parent you need to inconvenience yourself a bit, and keep asking / reminding them to use to loo and take them. Or use a pull up for accidents when access to a loo may be difficult.
Theses seems to be a general lack of people not wanting to put the work in with potty training, no doubt resulting in lazy and disgusting scenarios like this.

SailingNotSurfing · 04/01/2022 18:27

@Rekorderlig88

We took my elderly parent scouts for lunch. All fine until the table next to us arrived. 6 of them one a toddler in a buggy who looked awful and was clutching a bowl which turned out to be a sick bowl. Listening in it was a sick bug. They ordered their food and intermittently offered him some. He threw up half in the bowl half down himself. I have emmetophobia and had to leave. Said to restaurant manager who seemed disinterested. Poor boy being dragged for a meal whilst ill.
I don't have emetophobia but bloody hell, that poor child.

I have been the passenger sitting next to a puking kid on a plane once, whose parents were plugged into headsets and movies, therefore totally oblivious to their child's distress. Arseholes.

sst1234 · 04/01/2022 18:36

That is so weird, it sounds like one of those social experiments where they set up bizarre stuff to see how people react. It’s real, then that’s gross and should not be allowed.

ancientgran · 04/01/2022 18:52

I'm very tolerant about the things kids get up to but that is taking things too far. They need telling.

GrendelsGrandma · 04/01/2022 19:09

@Normski67

So if the child isn’t reasonably reliable yet, as a parent you need to inconvenience yourself a bit, and keep asking / reminding them to use to loo and take them. Or use a pull up for accidents when access to a loo may be difficult. Theses seems to be a general lack of people not wanting to put the work in with potty training, no doubt resulting in lazy and disgusting scenarios like this.
Wouldn't work with mine. Asking them if they need to go just makes them dig in saying they don't and results in more accidents.

Pull ups are nappies which means you're not potty training at all. Pretty sure my kids would just wee in their nappy if they had one on.

Onesnowynight · 04/01/2022 19:11

Inappropriate

linerforlife · 04/01/2022 19:12

@LampLighter414 it was one of yous!!!

GrendelsGrandma · 04/01/2022 19:18

@Sportsnight

Potty training takes about a week. We just stayed home for it. It’s not that long in the grand scheme. I really don’t understand people saying it could be months and months.
Within a week DS was fairly reliable within a week. Stayed good for a month or so, with lots of praise. But then he got bored of it and started wetting himself again because he couldn't be bothered. He's dropping his nap so often overtired and he's been excited and a bit ill over Christmas. He's not used to being out in busy places because pandemic. So yes, he wets himself sometimes though on other days he's totally fine.

That's not hard to imagine? He'll get through it and I think an end of the potty training honeymoon period is totally normal.

We went to a pub a few weeks ago (pre-planned family celebration so we couldn't just not go) and were put in a private cubby where no one could see us. He needed to wee a few times. It crossed me mind stick him on the potty there because no one would see him and a very possible alternative was him weeing on the carpet. Which might have been more disruptive. Trying to clean a floor while comforting an upset wee-soaked child is not my idea of fun and I don't imagine anyone else at the pub would have liked it either.

Obviously I didn't whip the potty out there and then, we went to the toilet but I can see how you'd be tempted in some circumstances.

Emerald5hamrock · 04/01/2022 19:20

I'm surprised a member of staff or another customer didn't speak up.

CandidaAlbicans2 · 04/01/2022 19:20

Nothing spoils the ambience of a lovely meal out quite like the waft of urine from a potty full of toddler piss 😬🤢

HazelBite · 04/01/2022 19:21

Friends SIL told staff (in a similar situation) that she was not paying for her meal as she was under the impression she would be eating in a restaurant not a public toilet!

Squidthing · 04/01/2022 19:23

I'm pretty easy going but that is minging. And not nice for the tot either.

Babyvenusplant · 04/01/2022 19:30

What about the risk of paedophiles being there and watching? Or worse, snapping photos on their mobiles 😲 What's wrong with some people

Prettyhorrified · 04/01/2022 19:34

A friend of mine did this once with her child when we were eating lunch together. It was fucking humiliating and disgusting and I didn’t know what to say! We aren’t friends now because her parenting continued along that vein (also not teaching her child please and thank you because “it’s so boring” and “she couldn’t be bothered”) and letting her child hit my baby etc. But yeh. Traumatic and awful. Glad everyone else also thinks this isn’t ok.

But then I think travel potties are pretty horrible!

Prettyhorrified · 04/01/2022 19:36

@Normski67

Strongly agree

Hospedia · 04/01/2022 19:37

What about the risk of paedophiles being there and watching?

Not to detract from the very serious issue of child sex abuse but I find this sort of comment akin to victim-blaming. A child on a potty is no more at risk than a child walking down the street, if a paedophile is going to watch a child they will do so regardless of what your child is doing or wearing. You can't control what is going on in someone's head and I can guarantee you will encounter people on a daily basis who have awful thoughts about you/your DC, even just fleetingly. A paedophile would also need opportunity and proximity to abuse a child, even one sitting on a potty in a restaurant, which is why - statistically - children are most likely to be abused by someone they already know.

RedRobin100 · 04/01/2022 19:46

Jesus wept

WowIlikereallyhateyou · 04/01/2022 19:46

Grim! YANBU

Idontknowlondon · 04/01/2022 20:27

Yeah that's horrible.

DC2 doesn't like to balance on a big toilet, she can't relax and ends up with urine retention, so we have to take the potette out with us or end up with at best an accident, at worst a very poorly DC but we always take it in to the loos!

Sparklingbrook · 04/01/2022 20:44

DC2 doesn't like to balance on a big toilet

If you get one of those child's toilet seats they don't have to and they're not massive to put in a bag.

Sparklingbrook · 04/01/2022 20:47

It was many years ago now but i had one of these for the DC, we took it out with us..

Using a potty in a restaurant
LizzieW1969 · 04/01/2022 20:48

That really is gross. I admittedly did carry a potty around for DD1, but I always took her to the toilets to use it. (I avoided having to do this with DD2 by delaying potty training until she was 3 years old.)

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