Potty use out and about

[42andcounting]

DD is 2.11, we're about 3 weeks into potty training and she's doing well, virtually no accidents at home, and she will go and put herself on the potty without asking me; a few accidents on her nursery afternoon which is clearly far more interesting than being at home . She won't yet use the toilet at home, but will use the kid sized ones at nursery happily.

So far, so good. Now my dilemma... having had an embarassing five minutes of having to whip the potty out on a supermarket car park today, how do you handle this? There are no loos in store at our usual supermarket. I have a bad combo of small car/big car seat, so there's not really enough room to put the potty inside the car footwell, i.e. without risk of pee spills on the seats. She doesn't yet give me much notice - 2 mins maybe, although I know this will increase with time. What's the answer? Do I just have to carry on toting the potty around and always be aware of quiet corners where we can sneak off to if she needs to go? Or do I have to bite the bullet and avoid places that are more than 2 mins away from a loo?

Ask her to go before you leave the house, and don't leave till she does. Then risk it but take a change of clothes should she have an accident. It's good for her to learn she needs to do when she can and not always have a potty near by.

I assume you've done the obvious and ensured she went to the loo before you left the house? Always worked for us and never got caught out.

She did go just before we left home, but we had to pop somewhere else first (offered her the potty before we left there but she was adamant she didn't need it), then did the supermarket, so about an hour in all. She did (fair play) tell me she needed to go before getting in the car, and it was a massive wee so I doubt she could have held it till we got home. Maybe I just need to do multiple shorter trips with her til she can hold it a bit longer?