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

[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

[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.

[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 !

[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!

[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.

[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.

[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!

[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

[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 :-)

[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!