Toddler will not go in strange toilets

[Wrigglebum]

DS is 2.11 and has been dry for 3 months (and night dry nearly that). At home he uses the potty sometimes but mostly a toddler seat on the toilet that he climbs up to by himself.

When out he will usually use different potties but he would rather wet himself than use a strange toilet. He screams if I try and hold him over one, even if it has a trainer seat on that is not like his. He won't use our downstairs toilet that has an integrated toddler seat as he says the hole is too big and he'll fall in. He won't use the mini toilets at playgroup either, just screams and gets upset (he is prone to being a bit of a drama queen). Have tried to encourage him to wee standing up into them but no luck.

Anyone got any ideas? I carry round a potette but it takes up so much room in the bag and I'm getting fed up of it. He really gets upset if things are 'different' and outside his comfort zone.

TBH, this is quite common, but you will get nowhere if you force DS to use strange toilets and he will regress to wetting all the time.

With your downstairs toilet, could you try sitting him on the childs seat when he doesn't need to go, still with clothes on, and you crouch in front of him so that he can hold on to you if he thinks he will fall in. He will probably be surprised when he doesn't! Then you can ask him to only hold on with one hand, and then let go of you altogether. Trying when he isn't in need of the toilet has less urgency and can take as long as it needs until he feels comfortable. Then you can progress to trying bare bottomed. Otherwise you might need to abandon that seat for a while and use a replica of the one he is happy using upstairs on the adult part of the seat.

Is he happy with the potette, if so I would keep taking it with you for a while longer while out. I think it's a small price to pay for a dry child, otherwise you'd have to carry stacks of clean clothes instead. Have you thought of trying the potette in loo seat position on the mini playgroup toilets, do you think it will fit?

Can you rope in daddy,or little male friends or cousins to demonstrate how to wee standing up? The other option is to hold a potty he likes up to his willy while he wees to get him used to the idea.

Thank you for the quick response! He does love his potette (making the frogs wet) so I'm lucky there, even that took a lot of persuading. I guess I'm just worried as he starts preschool in three weeks and I'm worried he won't go there.

He's three in two weeks so I'm telling him that the other toilet seat is only for three year olds but he can practice now. We'll give it a try with a reward after . Trying to avoid getting another toilet seat like the one upstairs- it's a Baby Bjorn I got for £2.50 and they cost nearly £30 new!

I keep asking DH to take him to the loo to show him standing up but he forgets! DS knows boys wee standing up but says he's not big enough yet. I have managed to get him to water the flowers in the garden but no other standing up wees. I think preschool will make or break him on the toilet front, I'll pack him plenty of clothes just in case!

My DS was very similar. He will be 4 in September and has pretty much grown out of it, although he also won't use the downstairs loo. I think it is because it is a but small and dark - it is in the space under the stairs. A lot of the problem with strange toilets was to do with handryers/fear there might be a hand dryer I think.

I don't know whether it's still on Iplayer, but have you seen Wooly and tig on cbeebies?

There's a episode on there about going to the toilet in a shopping mall.
It's really fun to watch as my DS didn't like the dryers etc.

I think it's called the painting day

Ha, my DS is petrafied of hand dryers too! Keeps saying "don't use the noisy machine" when we're in a public toilet.
I'll look up that tv show on iplayer.

Toddlers are fantastically odd but they can drive you mad!