Dealing with fear of public toilets

[Jcee]

DD 2.4 is into week 3 of toilet training and doing well except for poos, but thats a whole other thread! When we are out she will not use a toilet and refuses to go in, goes ballistic and instead just holds it in until we get home, even when she's told me she wants to go.

We've had no trouble at home, nursery or grandma's house, it's just whilst out and about and whilst I'm impressed with her admirable bladder control which irritatingly she chooses not to demonstrate at home sometimes I want to tackle this to stop it becoming more of an issue.

The only thing i can put this down to is a few weeks ago we went in a shopping centre toilet and there was one of those dyson hand dryers and it frightened her.

Any ideas?

Hi, we have just started and had a similar issue to you. I broke it down into stages so at first I took his potty out and put it on the floor of the public loo for him, thankfully now he will use a trainer seat on the loo. He hates hand dryers too, I have to be very reassuring about that.

If she is really scared then I would get her to do a wee at home and then go out somewhere you know there are public loos and say 'I need a wee, you can come and watch' so she gets used to you going to them at first before even broaching the subject of her going for a pee there. Does your local library or whatever have a public loo?

Also try going to the Children's Centre or health visitor clinic for a few training visits? Am sure they won't mind. Again I would break it down and just get her inside before attempting the peeing in there. Then talk to her a bit about 'oooh, look, three sinks' etc without asking her to do anything.

Good luck, it's hell isn't it?

I had similar issues with DS1 who was terrified of noisy hand driers (and the Hoover but that's another story). Wouldn't go into public toilets for ages as a result. I ended up sussing out the public toilets in the area without hand driers and avoiding the offending establishments for a while. We designated 'our' toilets and that helped. Sounds barmy but it worked.

My DS (now 3.8) was exactly the same as Threerogues, and I also put this down to hand driers (he also hates hair dryers, hoovers etc and has done since he was tiny). As well as knowing where has toilets without hand dryers (not many) we cheat and used the baby changing or disabled cubicle, as there we have control of the hand dryer. I fee very about using the disabled cubicles, but it was sometimes the only way I could get him to have a wee. He grew out of his fear of white noise quite recently, about 3.5.

Some good ideas thanks! It's also reassuring that we're not the only ones with this issue.

We have Hoover and hair dryer fear too which I've been working a bit at time so I think I just need to apply the same here.

I like Threerogues idea too so am going into town this afternoon to visit all the loos to find the ones without the noisy hand driers for future visits....DP was a bit when i told him he's on duty this afternoon Whilst I trail round the shopping centre but I think I've convinced him it's definitely not a shopping trip