Portable potty

[mummysmagicmedicine]

Saw a mum with a very young DC in a children’s department of a shop today whip out this giant green potty that looked like a lunch box and sat child on there for a wee.

Never seen this before and was a bit taken aback if I’m honest as when my DC were little we taught them to hold it until we could got them to the toilet. Is this just teaching them they can go whenever the second they just need to go rather than to wait for a toilet?

Im not anti portable potty but I am curious to what the etiquette with this is, when is it and isn’t it acceptable?

Well I suppose it's better than the piss themselves on the floor..

We had one, we kept it in the car though for emergencies

We saw soneone with one of these at the circus last year. It got kicked over and there was wee all down the steps. That was a fun exit when wearing sandals!

i agree with you. Kid isnt ready to be out of nappies.

I don’t think using it in the middle of the shop is appropriate.

I have now twice seen children on them in pub beer gardens which is… gross.

But - if you’re potty training and it’s taking time, and you want to leave the house, I see no harm in having a ‘travel potty’ that allows you to do so.

I do have some empathy with parents feeling they need to use it wherever, given the lack of public toilet facilities. Very small children aren’t necessarily going to be able to hold their bladders very long.

Totally agree it’s better than piss on the floor and can be good when there’s a lack of public toilets.

Pub beer garden and circus is uncalled for. Surely must’ve been toilets?

This shop had public toilets very close by which I think made me a bit hesitant as to why she didn’t take DC there.

DC was very young and still wearing those roamer style first walker shoes, which my DC were in at about 1 ish so I guess they were still quite little to know how to hold it.

People are disgusting.

They're the reason the soft play near us has massive signs saying "don't change your baby on the café tables. There's changing facilities in the toilets"

🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢

We have one for the car. I wish it was big enough for me to use sometimes!! I’ve never taken it out to somewhere I know there will be toilets nearby, but then I’ve always had to plan going places with accessible toilets anyway.

I agree part of potty training is teaching them to hold it for a minute to get to the toilets. I've potty trained two kids in tge last decade both before the age of 2.5 and owned a folding travel potty but only used it outside and out of sight where there were no toilets (not in a beer garden where the pub's toilets are metres away). I once witnessed someone's toddler on the potty under a table in a café only ten metres from the toilets! It put me right off my lunch, I complained but the staff were scared to tell her to go to the toilets so I complained to head office and got vouchers for a return visit to the café.

I had one when the children were little but like others have said I kept it in the car. From memory the only times it was used was next to the car which shielded DD from anyone’s view.

We have one as DS is afraid of the “big toilets” but we always find the nearest toilets and use it in a cubicle - we never use it in a shop / cafe etc.
Hopefully soon we can work through the fear of toilets and not have to carry it around everywhere!

I think its unacceptable to whip out a potty except in toilets and in discrete locations eg in bushes

This had just reminded me of when we went camping when my son was about 2, there was a horrendous storm in the night which lasted for hours. Ashamed to say I did pee in his travel potty 🤣

I’ve seen nappy changes on picnic tables and it’s distrusting.
you may not find your child’s germs gross but the rest of us do!

Car is clever! Especially for standstill traffic

That’s the other thing.

Unfortunately today’s world has all sorts of sick and twisted people and you don’t know who’s watching

this sounds like a great compromise to help with his fear!

We used one with both kids. I would use it in the toilets if one was available. I wouldn't use it in a shop unless the child was literally going to piss on the floor and no toilet was available. We mostly used ours on long walks or car journeys.

Unless you are going somewhere with no loos for miles, they wait till you get to the toilet or wear nappies. If they aren't in nappies they wait till you find a toilet. Anything else is disgusting.

I had one (a fold up thing, but I know the ones you mean with the lid) and can recall using it once with my first. It was within the first few weeks of training and getting used to being out and about. We'd used the toilets in the place we'd visited, walked 10 minutes to the car and upon strapping into the car seat said they needed to go, so I whipped it out between the car doors as I didn't think we'd make it back 10 minutes, it was residential streets otherwise so nowhere to go. Someone did walk past and give me a look, but honestly, DC was doing so well having no accidents, it was worth it to not ruin their confidence having an accident. For DC2, I didn't personally use it but the childminder did, albeit in a toilet, within the first 2-3 weeks of training (first week and a bit was home with me as I took time off to do it) and it was because DC2 didn't like toilets at first so would only use a potty so it had to be taken everywhere for a short time (though used inside a toilet as there were no problems with holding it in). It didn't last though, and they were using the toilet pretty quickly after that.

Would I judge someone using it in a shop? Yes if there's a toilet very nearby, but if its more than a couple of minutes away then I'd assume it's one of their first outings since potty training and they're still learning to hold it and the parent felt they had the choice between this or an accident.

We had a non fold up potty (so just a potty lol) that we kept in the car. We did 1.5 - 2 hour journeys twice a week and it rarely got used. Less likely for the long journeys to be fair, but more likely to be used for the pop to the retail park shops (with no toilets) when potty training!

I've never seen a child using one in the circumstances you've described. If it's the only time then I wouldn't think much of it.

But I think part of learning, is having accidents (with no repercussions) in public, or luckily in my children's case almost having accidents but making it to the loo in time (or just somewhere more appropriate for a potty to be whipped out).

With DC1 we used one for about a year after potty training - it was 2020 and lots of time was spent in parks, doing long walks, with no public toilets open nearby. No car so we hung it on the buggy and took it everywhere, and used it behind bushes etc. With DC2 everything was back to normal, and she only used the travel potty a handful of times before switching to using toilets. Both times we would use it inside a toilet cubicle, before they were confident enough to use a big toilet. Never saw the need to use it out in the open in any indoor place that had public toilets.