how do you do potty training when the toilet is upstairs?

[vannah]

sorry if this has been done before!

We only have one bathroom/toilet and its upstairs.

Downstairs we have a small carpetted hallway, a small tiled kitchen, and a large carpeted living room.
DD is certainly ready for potty training, but I wonder where to place the potty - other than upstairs. Because at the moment the only place for the potty is the loo upstairs - but when the urge to go is sudden?

Feel a bit sick about placing it in the kitchen, and if she needs to poo Im often in tthere. At the moment she goes to the hallway and hides from us. But I wonder about he carpet...

how have you resolved this?
thankyou

have a potty downstairs, get a waterproof mat if you're concerned about spillages and put the potty on that.

Our house is the same, kitchen, hall, big living room.
We've just started training today and have got a potty in a corner of the living room, down the side of the sofa, easy access but out of the way.
Got one in the bathroom too.

great, thankyou both. will get a waterproof sheet and put in the hallway I think...

Put it where your dc is playing so that she can see it - it will encourage her to use it and remind her what she's supposed to do when she needs to go. You might find that she sometimes has a little sit on it just to try it out and that is easier if it's put where she playing rather than being out of the way

My house is the same layout too. I had a potty in the middle of the sitting room (but against the wall!), so it was easily reached from anywhere downstairs.

I second a large waterproof mat.

Have fun!

I'd do what displayuntil... said but also really try to encourage going upstairs as much as possible. We have a similar set-up. It really wasn't more than a few months at most before ds was making a bee-line for the stairs and ignoring the potty. Luckily, he never had any accidents en route.

To begin with, as soon as ds looked as if he needed to go, i'd scoop him up and plop him on the potty or if i was feeling more energetic, run upstairs with him and plonk him on the loo. He definitely prefered the privacy from early on.

Yes - we had a potty in the lounge.

It's one with a lid from mothercare which is harder to knock over / spill and doesn't look obviously like a potty.

Also you just take out the inner bit to empty it, so you don't have to take the whole thing upstairs every time.

It's this one here:

[http://www.mothercare.com/Night-Garden-All-Potty-Stool/dp/B001O1BN2S/sr=1-26/qid=126324913 8/ref=sr126/275-4195769-5770716?_encoding=UTF8&m=A2LBKNDJ2KZUGQ&n=42764041&mcb=core here]]

Potty in the lounge

damn

DS has been playing in the living room all afternoon, with a bright blue thomas potty in view and has had 3 wees... on the floor...
Still, he's refused to try 'big boy pants' on for 2 weeks so it was a good start when he put them on!

I feel like I should carry the potty around the house behind him, nevermind placing it somewhere convenient!

If someone invented a pair of braces that fixed onto the sides of a potty, then we'd be onto a good thing with potty training!

Oh can you imagine it!?

Toddlers wandering down the street with their potty strapped to their bum!

I don't think I've ever felt as clueless about something as do at the moment, potty training was the 'little hurdle' I've been dreading for the last 2 and a half years!

The trick is to be calm about it and treat using the potty as if it's the most natural thing in the world....and then when dc does something in it, adopt the ecstatic shriek of an OTT parent who has just experienced the most marvellous thing in the world so your dc realises how clever they are for using the potty! You will feel odd doing it but it will be well worth the temporary anguish of hearing yourself practically whooping whenever dc sits on the little throne!

TBH I did the shriek this morning when he put pants on! And it wasn't forced

Anyone want a lovely 2yr old for however long it takes a few months weeks til its all over and he's proficient!

no thanks. Got ds3 to train at some point and will be glad to have got it all out of the way and be a nappy-free zone!
hope it goes well

we put potty at bottom of stairs so dc going to right place ready to go upstairs when ready.