How Do You Do Potty When Your Not at Home?

Either use the toilet seat cover or bring a little Lysol spray with you to wipe the seat if that makes you more comfortable. How long were you planning on keeping her in diapers to avoid public bathrooms? She's going to have to use one eventually.

They are not so dirty! Just let her go on one. I don't know anyone who has ever gotten sick from sitting on a public toilet. None of my three kids have ever had any problem.

Eventually, we all use a public toilet. Bring sanitzing wipes and disposable seat covers, but please, don't make her pee or poop in a diaper if she is past the diaper stage. When my daughter was 3, she used public toilets, we never used potties or baby toilet seats either at home or out. I promise, she never caught any disease from a public bathroom.

Door knobs and sinks are dirtier then toilets, Dr Oz said so lol

The people that "hover" may feel better about their cleanliness body-wise, but if they don't clean up after themselves, THEY are the ones that cause a mess and pee all over the seat. If your butt is on the seat, then the messy stuff goes in the toilet where it's supposed to go.

I notice at stores that there is a chart on the door and that the bathrooms are cleaned at least twice a day at most places. If you really feel that uncomfortable about it, bring wipes and wipe the seat first.

1) Carry antibiotic wipes in your purse
2) Cover the seat with toilet paper for her to sit on
3) Relax a bit. Most public toilets are not so foul that you really have to worry.

I"m a germophobe so I know what you mean. Even if the janitor has just been in there, I'm still squeamish.

When I was little, my mom had a way of helping me balance over the toilet so I could squat without touching anything. It's good practice for your daughter to be able to master this skill for when she goes to a public bathroom without you. My mom would stand facing the toilet and stick one knee out towards me. I would wrap my arms around her knee and "hover" over the toilet. It works great!

My son is 3 and he asks me to hold him "airplane-style" over the toilet for now. I'm not looking forward to potty training my daughter!

Also, to the person who found that drinking fountains are nastier than toilets - did you check door handles too? I remember doing that experiment and then not wanting to open doors for the longest time. Yuck!

:)

well you can simply do what i do and clorox wipe it and plop her on ... luckily I have a boy so the standing thing works for us too. But there are also portable/foldable potty chair covers for public toilets you can use and keep in your bag. Honestly we are new to the potty training world it just clicked in my son's head the past week and we have been out more since he started this b/c it is easier to find a bathroom to pee in then a place to change him. And we gave him two nights with the pull ups he kept waking dry and insisting on the regular underwear and still wakes up dry. Good Luck have faith in her becuase really it's just pee and you can clean the surfaces of public bathrooms before she sits.

In each bathroom or stall there should be paper toilet seat covers. Use one of those and toss in the trash when done.

Carry Clorox wipes (they sell them in a packet you can easily keep in your pocketbook). Teach your daughter to stand next to you in the stall with her hands up in the air (make a game out of it) Wipe the seat with the Clorox wipe and dry it. Then line the seat well with a liner or toilette paper. (Note, sometimes kids are aftraid of the potties that flush automatically. If you can, cover the sensor with a piece or two of toilette paper so it won't flush while she's on it.) Let her sit on the potty while she holds onto you for support so she won't be tempted to support herself with her hands (ewwww!). After she's done, wipe her and flush the toilette with your foot.
Wash her hands and yours well with soap and water. If you have to turn a faucet on or off, use a paper towel - those handles are dirtier than anything. Open the door by using a paper towel as well. Tell your daughter WHY you are doing all of this. After a while, it will become second nature and she'll eventually do all of these things herself.

I've been doing this wil my now 11-year old daughter and from a very young age, she was able to do most of it herself. She is an old pro now and I can trust her to do the "paper towel trick" 100% of the time now. I am a complete germ-phobe and there's no way I would ever use a public bathroom of any kind unless I used paper towels to open/close doors and faucets. The most important thing for your daughter at this point is to go WHEN SHE HAS TO. Don't make her hold it - it's bad for anyone to do that and it could lead to a urinary infection.

We just started to go out during the day with our newly daytime potty trained 2.5 year old twin girls. Here is what I do:
- always carry purell! I cover their hands with it post potty.
- use a toilet seat cover or lots of tp. If the seat looks wet, I just don't use that stall. but I suppose you could also carry sanitized wipes and do wipe it down.
- crouch down in front of my daughter and hold her hands while she goes. This way she is stabilized and also can't touch anything!
Most importantly, if you are insuring a clean seat or a barrier, and thoroughly cleansing afterwards, then its just fine. It's probably more important to get out of diapers and just get her used to doing things the way she is going to have to do them from now on!

Use a paper cover for the toilet or invest in a portable potty. They make ones that you put a pad in and just toss the pad after she goes.

I totally feel your pain and am so thankful that boys stand to pee! Public toilets are my biggest phobia of all phobia's. I have a 3 yr old boy and before he would stand to pee, I dreaded him going pee in a public place. However, I bought the item below and it is the best. Its a little potty seat that is cushy like a regular seat, folds up to be more compact and comes with a little travel bag so you aren't walking around holding a toilet seat in your bag! I would keep a pack of antibacterial wipes in the little bag. Then when he needed to go potty, I would wipe the public toilet with the wipes and then place the travel potty seat on it. Its smaller for their little butts too. And I knew only his butt was sitting on the seat. Seriously a life saver.

http://www.amazon.com/Mommys-Helper-15301-Cushie-Traveler...

Hi
You can do a few things. They sell seat covers (paper) with Dora on them at babies r us or buy buy baby, I am sure target too. The also sell portable potty seats one has a bag to catch the pee and poop don't even need to go in a bathroom. It can also be used on a toliet. There is also a thin one that can fold in your bags.

They have disposable potty covers you can buy at babies r us and target I believe.

just wash her hands after using the public toilet and hope for the best. It's all you can do. My son (3.5) hasn't had any issues with the public restrooms. Just lift her up so she doesn't have to put her hands all over the seat when peeing/pooping. Not a big deal.

I kept a potty in my van. I use plastic bags in the potty so I just tie them up and throw away. Don't make her wear a diaper when you go out. Figure out a way to use public bathrooms...she will eventually need to go in public.

They really aren't as bad as you think. At first I carried one of the potty seats with me (the kind that you sit on the regular toilet) - I just put it in a plastic grocery store bag - and then as soon as we came home I bleached it.

I have a friend who is a big germ-a-phobe and she keeps a training potty in her car along with plastic bags, papertowels (to line the "bowl"), lysol wipes and lysol spray. To me, that seems extreme, but that's what works for her.

we have a little tiny potty, baby bjorn, the most simple one, in the back of our car. if she needs to go while we are out she uses that and i dump it in a bush lol. its so easy, clean and she does it in the car so no one sees. just make sure you have it in a bag, and you have baby wipes or something to clean up with.

Really, unless someone is soiling directly on the toilet seat, it is actually cleaner than a drinking fountain, and the shopping cart. True. When I was in college, we had to swab a handful of publicly used things and examine the bacteria present. Do you know there was absolutely NO harmful bacteria on the toilet seat, however the shopping cart, drinking fountain SPOUT (where the water actually comes out) and the vending machine buttons all carried astronomical amounts of E. Coli, along with a host of other disease-causing bacteria. Gross. Anyway, my point is that toilet seats really are not as gross as people think they are. The inside of the bowl and the floor around the bowl may be a different story, but not the seat.

You are sending a mix mesage about putting the diaper on her when you go out. You are showing her you do not trust her. When you are out just take her to the bathroom more often, so there are no accidents. Wash her hands for 30 seconds afterwards and it should be fine. You are over thinking and worrying too much.

I'm with ya girlfriend....do not want my daughter sitting on those seats either. I carry a portable potty seat and clorox wipes to clean her seat before storing it back in the bag. As she gets bigger and the "fear of falling in" diminishes I will just carry the wipes to clean the seat prior to use.

You can keep a little portable kiddie pottie in the back of your car/truck. If you have a van or SUV your kid can go pee in that in the back of the truck and then all you have to do is clean it out. It makes not going into a public bathroom SO MUCH better and easier. Also carry wipes with you to clean up afterwards. I know a few people who do this and what a great idea.

So I am an anal germahpobe myself, but know that my daughter is 5 I have finally gotten over it and just cringe when she uses the toilet... I just make sure she washes her hands thoroughly when she is done- if the toilet is in a not see clean place, I line it with TP. When she was first potty trained, and I was still carrying a diaper bag, I got one of these fold up plastic travel potty seats that fits in a gallon ziplock bag. It was great for a while, then I just couldn't bring it everywhere as she got older! (I got it from the "One Step Ahead Catalog" or website). My son is almost 3 and potty trained... he is to short to pee standing up so I hold him up so he can just aim in the toilet (for pee) For poop, again I line the seat with TP if necessary! .