Going Potty Other than at Home....

I have two little girls...well a 7 yo and a 3 yo. With my youngest we kinda had a problem like that. I bought a "Dora" potty seat that fits on the toilet. I but it in a plastic grocery bag inside my diaper bag and put on the seat when not at home...sometimes at home too. it really helped with that. I always broght some clorox wipes to clean it up afterwards. Eventually, she got to where she would use the toilet if I cleaned it with clorox wipes first. I would have tried anything. This worked for me, now she has to have it covered with tissue paper or a liner. Maybe this will work!!! Good luck!

Hey M.! I use to keep a potty in my car. Just a small red/yellow plastic one. My child could then use the potty comfortably anytime. I did this until she was about 5yrs.old. I also had wipes and trash bags, but it worked.

Good luck! DS

I can totally relate to your issue with your three year old, I really thought I was the only mother in the whole world that had a son to do this. He was only three as well, he is now sixteen and yet I am afraid to say he never outgrew that feeling of wanting to be home on his own potty, But I can assure you I found a way to help. Now it will take a little work on your part but I did assure him by taking a little bag with us that had cleaning wipes in it. and extra's like underpants etc just in case but we used these wipes before going on anothers toilet to assure him that it was clean I also used flushable toilet seat covers and hand sanitizer this truly helped him alot and I hope it will for you. I honestly think they just feel more comfortable at home. Good Luck my thoughts and prayers are with you.
C.
www.momstakeaction.com

Realistically, she is very smart for a 3 yr old. You should be worried about germs, a tip for you is carry a travel pack of anti-bacterial wipes and wipe the seat for her and maybe this will help her and she will always make sure the seat is clean before she uses it. And try not to make a big deal about it just try and find something that makes her feel more comfortable about it.

Hey M., I am 29 and can totally relate to your 3 year old. My mother said that was the same way as a child. I would only use our potty at home, for which when I started school, my mother would tell me that the teacher would call my mother because I would not use the bathroom at school and when I was old enough to drive, I would actually sign myself out and go home to use #2. It's kinda of funny now, because before I was staying at home with my 2 children I was surgical tech and the OSHA officer in a large oral surgery practice. I am bit of germ freck. So when I a child, my mother too would pack wipes, extra panties and my mother said that I had to use my own soap. No anti-germ gels back then. I think if you reassure your daughter, "Honey, we are going to a birthday party and I have packed you this and this and this etc....","if you need to potty, we can use our supplies from home and you should be just fine." Maybe make up song about washing your hands when finished so she feels like she is cleaned when she leaves their bathroom. Trust me my worst nightmare came true when I took my son to the public bathroom at Costco (love Costco) and he needed to do #2 and put down the toilet seat cover and told him, "hands on the knees, hands on the knees, so he would not touch the toilet seat with his hands to balance himself. He did just what I asked him to do and then he jumped off the toilet and bent over and put his hands of that nasty floor for me to wipe his butt. So while I was telling him to get up and how nasty the floor was, he decided to stick his tongue out at me and lost his balance and licked the handicap railing in the bathroom stall. I thought I was going to throw up right then and there. Hope this enlightens your situation some...my son and I could be more opposite in this department.

I completely relate. Try taking her own potty seat. The kind you get just to go over your own toilet so the little ones don't fall in. They also have travel potty seats that fold up, they're not paper or disposible, it's a hard cover toilet seat for little ones that fold up to a quater of its size so it's easier to carry with you.

good luck

This sounds like a really hard one to deal with. Why not talk to her doctor and ask for some advise before any more time passes. I'm sure many people have had this problem and perhaps a bit of professional advise, sooner rather than later, can eleviate a potential ocb behavior. Who likes to go to public bathrooms? Not I. Certainly it happens to many of us, but this happening to her so early in her life sounds as it could become intertwined to maybe the beginning obsessive compulsive stuff. With her not wanting to use any b/r but one in your house, and now making a choice to leave a party because it isn't the "one" potty is potentially more than something odd. I'm sure she didn't want to leave her friends at this party, but the compulsion to go to her own potty was greater than enjoying herself, to me, raises a red flag. I'm in no way a professional, a grandmother in fact...and my 6 year old grandson entered 1st grade last year only to "hold it" until he gets home. Just a thought, maybe you could put some of her books or cherished babies etc., in the other bathrooms...there is this fine line, I've never fully understood, about the toilet training being part and their development in other area's of life. If you do get some kind of good advise from you doctor, please share it with me so I can pass it on to my grandson. Good luck M., this is just the beginning of many different approaches to problems in regards to child rearing, and from what I've heard, this is a very important one.

hi...you may want to start carrying some sanitizer wipes w/ you and wipe the toilet clean in front of her...good luck

Good luck!! My husband is 25 yrs old and still won't use public restrooms (if he has to sit)... he will leave wherever we are at and go home before using a public restroom!! Like a few other mommies said, try toilet seat cover, or using tissue papers to line the seats with. I wish you the best!!

Dont give into her and/or take things away like the party.If she leave the party,family,friends where ever she is to go home to use the toilet then that is where you stay..home.The other thing is to take with you disifecting wipes for her to wipe downt he toilet..which I will admit that some public ones need..yuck..so she can see that the toilet is clean by her.,use the toilet papers that some public bathrooms have and explain to her what they are for..good luck..
S. B

Me personally, I would put her back in pullups. If she wants to be a big girl and go on the potty she will have to learn not to be so picky. You could also carry toilet seat covers, if that will help. They sell them in stores in carry along packages. One thing I would NOT do is make a huge battle out of it - potty training and eating are two battles we will NOT win with our kids, since we cannot MAKE them do either! Try to address it logically and matter of factly.
Good luck!

Show her how to use toilet paper to cover the toilet seat. You can also show her how to use the paper toilet seat covers that some places have. Check www.onestepahead.com I seem to remember that they have a portable fold-up cover for the potty that you could carry in your purse/diaper bag. Good luck.

My son has been potty trained since 2 and he also dislikes dirty toilets. I remember my mom letting me stand (with shoes on)on the toilet seat in public, that worked with my son. However, like you were at a friends house, I did not want my son complaing to my friends about thier "dirty" toilet, so we had a conversation about "how not to hurt someone's feeling"! You may have to carry a portable potty seat with you(not 1 you put on the toilet), this is a common phase kids go thru!

http://www.pottytrainingconcepts.com/Merchant2/merchant.m...

I had one of these that unfolds to sit on a regular toilet. My daughter was the same way. This website has some with handles, some without, and disposables. My daughter is about to turn four and no longer has issues!

GOOD LUCK!!

My 18 year old son still almost never potties anywhere but home, and is fairly irritated to think he's gonna have to share a bathroom with others at college next year. My mother lives in a house with four potties, and only women closely related to her are ever invited to use her personal one--my dad has his own bathroom down the hall! And I have noticed that I use the same stall at work every time and will wait if someone is in there, because that's MY potty (isn't that weird?)

I tend to think that children and adults with this problem are somewhat obsessive/compulsive and very intelligent. You take a newly trained 2 year old into a public restroom and repeat several times in a terrified voice that she shouldn't touch ANYTHING and then wash her hands very carefully, and an intelligent child figures out that foreign potties are NASTY. Our fear of germs becomes their fear of potties. My son would not go at school until he was in high school, and still avoids it if he can help it. I think the idea of giving her wipes to clean with is a good one, because one way to conquer obsessive thoughts is with control. If she controls the germ situation, she'll feel better about it. Three is just about the age where children are figuring out that the world is separate from them and some of it is bad, so that's about when such fears develop. But the 18 year old is going off to college and will learn to deal with it, and it only caused us problems a few times, because they very quickly learn to hold it for a LONG time. Every kid I've ever known with this problem had an iron bladder by the time they were five.
Good luck!

Have you tried the take-along seat covers? thid msy mskr her feel like the potty is cleaner if she sees you put a cover on it, just until this passes...and it will ...all of their little phases do..it seems like they won't but they will. The covers are sold at wal-mart and are in a small pack to fit in your purse or diaper bag.
Hope this is some help

Hi M.-
Honestly, I would explain to her that if she won't use other toilets when you are out of the house, she has to wear a diaper when she's out of the house. Knowing she has to go "backwards" may be enough motivation.

And as for not using the other bathrooms, I would set up some kind of reward for using the other bathrooms. Put interesting books and simple toys in there that she can only read while on the toilet in one of those bathrooms. Even take her shopping for the items. And STICK TO YOUR GUNS. Put no toys and nothing fun in the bathroom she prefers, but don't say another word about it. However, when she uses one of the other bathrooms, make a HUGE deal out of it.

Good luck.

Try lining the toilet with toilet paper. Especially in public. You never know what's on the toilet anyway. Or use the "cowboy hats". You know, those paper liners that some restrooms supply. And some kind of reward system might work.

It's a phase... my 3 y.o. daughter went through it twice (so far!). The potty was scary for her and wouldn't go in any toilet but "hers." Neither phase lasted more than 2 weeks. The second time I bought her a Superman figurine and told her she has "super powers" so she didn't have to be afraid of the potty and it worked for a few days. Then I made it a shapes game... what's the shape of the potty- oval or circle??? We still play that! Hope some of this helps!

you could get her a ptty seat that sits on other toilets and carry it in your diaper bag, this is what I did for my daughter. Let her pick it out!