Now closed: share your potty training stories and win £100 of Random House books.

[RachelMumsnet]

It's Prince George's first birthday on 22 July and author Nicholas Allan has made ready for the occasion with his hilarious book The Prince and the Potty.

To celebrate, we're offering you the chance to win £100 worth of Random House children's books. To be in with a chance to win simply share your potty training stories with us - we want to hear everything from your trusty tactics to the wacky methods you tried and tested. Was it a gleaming success or a downright disaster? We want to know.

We'll select our favourite story and ten runner's up who will receive all of Nicholas Allan's Royal Reads books. So, if you've got some cracking tales to divulge or some valuable techniques to share, post away - we're looking forward to this one! Here's more info about the book and the competition.

This competition is sponsored by Random House books

[Alidoll]

Best advice - don't try to rush it. They'll get there eventually and will only pick up on your frustration leading to tears (on both sides!).

Relax and go with the flow (excuse the pun!) and keep a sense of humour. There WILL be accidents, it IS yucky but once they are wearing big girl / boy pants the accidents will slowly reduce...

And yes, you DO have to examine every poo they do for ages and exclaim how brilliant they are (while wondering how someone so small can produce something as smelly and as big as THAT!!)

Good luck!

[Genesgirl]

Don't get distracted during potty training! My DS1 age around 2 and 3/4 was doing well with potty training and I was quietly patting myself on the back with how well it was going (rare as I had few moments like this at the time!) as I also had a demanding, high maintenance DS2 of 6 months. I was half way up stairs to empty said potty when some workmen came to fix Sky arial (I think). Left potty to deal with them. One was in hall near potty, I was in the other room talking to other man as he worked. Came back to hall, potty empty. Thanked second man for emptying potty, thinking it was strange thing to do but kind of him - was massively sleep deprived at the time so anything made sense! He says 'Oh I didn't, saw your dog eating it, I thought it was her dog bowl'....Yuk but story always makes me smile :-)

[NataliaMumsnet]

Thank you for all these hilarious stories and for all the handy tips, we had much fun reading through them. We've now selected our runners-up who will receive all of Nicholas Allan's Royal Reads. They are:

glmcall123
grannybikerSun
HappyMum4Wed
barker99
onestepbeyond
Snowfedup
pfcpompeysarah
Fairylea
purpleskull
babyowl

Congrats to you all, we really hope you enjoy your books. Now for the winner of the £100 worth of Random House children's books...

Congratulations kateandme, you're our winner!

I will PM you all for your details soon

Many thanks to all who took part x

[Goodidea80]

I have just started potty training my 2 and half year old. I thought it would be a great idea to do it while the weather is warm, as he can run around outside without clothes on. The first few days have been quite successful and he even used the potty once without any prompting! That was until yesterday when I found him rubbing his bottom on my 8 month DD head. Needless to say I told him this was not appropriate behaviour. This was not the worst of it though, as I picked up daughter I thought she had pooped in her nappy only to realise no, but that my son had left a little pellet of poo in her hair! I hope that this will be the only time I have to wash her brother's poo out of her hair!

[KateOxford]

When I started potty training my son, aged 3, I made the mistake of always prompting him to use the toilet, about every hour I would ask him to do a wee. I then realised that he was going on demand rather than feeling the need to go for a wee. The best way we learnt was that when he got up in the morning he could usually feel the sensation of really needing a wee so that was how he learnt what it felt like and when he needed to go to the toilet. I should have been braver and worried about the floors less as I think he would have got the hang of it sooner if I had left him to it and not prompted him to go to the toilet so much. As a friend said to me on the subject of me staying home to potty train him- whats the worst that can happen, he will wet himself, so take a spare set (or 2 or 3!) of clothes out with you and do what you would normally do. Poo however was quite a different story, whilst he learnt weeing in the toilet he wouldn't poo in the toilet, so we had soiled pants to clean up at Birdland, Blenheim Palace and Cotswold Farm Park to name but a few. Then one day it just clicked and he did a poo in the toilet - hooray. My tips would be to let the child take control and learn to realise when they need to go, I feel its good to ask them every so often like before you leave the house but not be obsessive about it, go everywhere prepared; hand gel, baby wipes, nappy bags, spare pants and clothes (even top half!), travel potty and praise the child when they do well. I had to take a break from typing this as my son called from his bed with wet pants, this Summer holidays I am trying to night time train him without pull ups/nappies at bedtime as about 6 nights out of 7 he was waking up dry and was often waking to go for a wee in the night. This time it would be easy for me to say he's trained and wake him up or 'lift' him for a wee in the night however, I learnt from my last mistake that this is cheating and we might have several loads of washing a week but we will get there in the end and as is obvious this is the weather for doing lots (and lots) of washing. My son has a few coins to put in his money box if he manages a dry night which is my saving from not buying the pull ups and he is saving up to buy some Lego.

[BayeauxT]

We had introduced DD2 to a potty when she was about 2. She knew what it was for but just wasn't interested and we didn't really push it. A few months before her 3rd birthday, I was struck down by some sort of flu; I remember lying in bed feeling like death when DD2 marched in and said "I'm a big girl now, I don't need a nappy anymore", and so her potty training began! We did a reward chart for her and it took just a few days, with maybe two accidents in all.

[grannybiker]

Youngest really isn't keen to get this potty-training underway. We leave her nappy off, but she's hidden a stash around so just puts one on when she wants a wee!

[Snowfedup]

The book we had for my ds showed a drawing of a little boy bent over showing where poo came from. I used to have to rush ds past every full length mirror we came across for months as he was slightly obsessed with pulling his sorts down and turning round to examine exactly where his poo came from and also not averse to shouting excitedly to strangers to come and see too

Think I will be looking for a new book for ds2 !

[Tonkatol]

Like every other stage of development, your child can't/won't do it until they are ready! I have been through it with 4 children of my own and with several other children when I was a childminder and those that have been the quickest and easiest to train have been the ones who have led the training. When beginning, it is definitely worth setting aside a few days to stay at home so that the potty/toilet is at hand whenever needed. After that, if the child isn't ready, rather than everyone getting stressed and upset, leave it for a couple of weeks and try again.

[clairewilko29]

my first son Connor (now 9) was potty trained for me!!! he was in hospital for 6 months as he had a trachostomy so nurses helped me train him a lot!! he couldnt talk or cry and had to sign to me that he needed to go, a lot of hard work but he did it!! my second son kian (now 6) was a different story we struggled a lot and he started nursery still in nappies, in the end i threw all of his nappies away and dealt with the wet bedding, he was trained within about 3 weeks

[WarmHugs]

I potty trained both of mine at 2.3, despite them not showing any of the "signs". I cancelled our plans for the week, and had lots of activities to keep us busy at home. When they woke, I told them that they were a big boy/girl, and they could wear special undies/knickers.

Day 1 - all wees/poos on the carpet
Day 2 - some on the carpet/some in the potty. Lots of excitement and praise.
Day 3 - Nearly all in the potty
Day 4 - no accidents, and they have both been the same since.

No fuss, no messing, no dramas.

I did invest in a great carpet cleaner though!

[snare]

I did potty training with mine in the summer so that we could start it in the garden without them wearing pants and they then got the idea :)

[Lydia30]

I've never used an actual potty. All 3 of my children and 2 of my Grandchildren whom I've brought up, all used a children's toilet seat. I found it so much more convenient

[Madamecastafiore]

Do day and night together. Have never understood why people train kids to be dry during the day but not the night at the same time. Did this with 2 of 3 DCs and worked fine.

[AnotherStitchInTime]

With dd1 we used to tell a story about the poos going to poo-land and the wees going to wee-wee land. Now she tells it to dd2 who is 2.5 and just showing an interest in the toilet, she likes to flush the toilet for me and say bye, bye wee wee.

[ikkle87]

We are trying to go at my sons pace, he doesn't talk and isn't able to tell us when he needs a wee or poop. Instead he does a wee in his nappy and then will strip off take his own nappy off and go sit on the potty and clap his hands as if to say well done. It's not quite right but small steps :)

[Mink35]

My son was virtually potty trained then we decided to spend a day at banger-racing (my husband and friends used to compete at the time and we went up in a big group of people). Whilst up there he naturally wanted the loo but the portaloos were disgusting and he wouldn't use them so hubby showed him how to pee up something... in this case the car tyre (banger!).

Unfortunately for days afterwards he refused to use the potty/toilet and only wanted to pee up the car!

[JWalker23]

Not yet at the stage of potty training but most of these comments have been so useful, guess you just have to have patients like everything else and go at the speed your child is working at :)

[sarah3875]

I found doing it in the summer months with my youngest much easier. They can run around the house/garden with pants and no trousers whilst they get the hang of it. x

[purpleskull]

My daughter decided to start potty training herself by peeing in her bucket of lego. I was impressed with her but wished she'd emptied out the lego first, haha :D

[glmcall123]

My son was quick to learn how to use the potty but the new found freedom from nappies gave him the idea of marking his territory, i.e weeing on anything that was his. It was a month of hell before we managed to stop him.

[IncaAztec]

My only success with potty training was setting an alarm every 30 mins to start with as a toilet alarm. I would then ask if she needed the toilet and take if necessary. I then stretched this out to 45 mins then an hour until she remembered by herself. She is now dry and seldom has accidents. Won't work for all, but worth a try!

[MadMonkeys]

DD1 refused to wear pants when we tried the first time at 2years 6 months. I didn't push it. Then a month before DD2 was due she announced she wanted to wear her pants (at 2 years 8 months) - she was dry in the daytime after just one week. She's a determined little girl, she will do it in her time or not at all!

[UWLMW]

My eldest was 2 years and 1 month old when my second baby was born and I thought I had him potty trained.
My new health visitor came round to visit new baby for the first time and I proudly told her about our success and how it had been 2 days since the eldest had an accident...in the twenty minutes she was there he had 3 accidents and not a single drop in the potty. I was left a bit red faced and I'm sure she thought I was either deranged or deluded!!

[onestepbeyond]

I potty trained dd1 at 2yrs old, she wasn't interested in starcharts and i didn'y want to use food as a bribe so I invented the happy dance! (you basically stick your bum out and wriggle around!). Everytime she successfully used the potty or toilet we did the happy dance, I have happy danced in carparks, shopping centres, laybys and even a grave yard!!