Potty Training - Questions.... - Healdsburg,CA

Hi K.:
FWIW I had one of those folding seats and one day one of my girls felt a little "pinched" by one of the folds and didn't want to use it after that. I ended up bringing the padded toilet seat insert in a plastic bag in my backpack - kind of a pain, but she was comfortable using it and I figured it was worth the extra peace of mind (I know some moms are able to hold their LO's so they don't fear falling in a public toilet seat and more power to them, but it was easier for me to bring the seat insert and set her down on it!). I'd put one of those paper seat covers over the big toilet seat before putting the insert in, so she wouldn't touch the toilet seat itself
As for the pullups - what I did was put the pull-up *over* the regular underwear for naps and when we went out on errands - that way she still had the underwear on and felt the underwear instead of a pullup, but if she had an "oops", I just had to change the underwear and not the whole outfit :-). You pretty much know when you can stop putting the pullups over the underwear when you realize she's not "oopsing" any more :-)

Ditch the pull-ups. Pack an extra change of clothes, just in case.

Has she had a potty automatically flush on her before? (Like the ones at Target?) If so, put a piece of toilet paper over the toilet's "eye" so it won't flush while she's sitting there. Or, it could be that the toilet flushes louder than the one at home and she's scared of it. In this case, have her go, and then don't flush it until you're opening the stall door to leave.

Don't worry, the next phase is when she will want to go in EVERY potty EVERYWHERE! Gas stations, Starbucks, neighbor's houses... super fun. =)

How it went for us...she refused to potty in public restroom for a few months. Then she would size up the place and decide if it was to her standard. She would walk in and sniff and then look around, if it was dirty she would say no and back out. Finally, at a part restroom I grabbed ahold of her and sat her on the big silver toilet and talked her through it. Eventually she went potty and I gaver her lots of praise.

As for the pull ups, we just gradually one day said she didn't need them anymore and stopped putting her in them.

Sounds like you are on the right track and doing good.

K.,
My oldest potty trained (underwear only) in 3 days with minimal accidents since. It's been about 6 months.
My youngest (2.5) is on her fourth week of potty training with underwear and we still have a good amount of accidents but it gets a little better everyday. We use pull-ups only at nap and night. Make sure to bring a couple changes of clithes when you go out. We seem to have the most accidents when we go to playdates cuz she doesn't want to stop playing :-)
Sending you lots of patience and good luck!
J.

Gotta ditch the pullups. They are sending a mixed message. I potty trained all three of my kids in just a few days by going straight to undies all the time as soon as they showed readiness signs. I just used pullups at nighttime, because that takes longer for their bodies to be ready for. We called them night night undies. My youngest, my girl (22 months), I potty trained this week. She goes number one in any potty. She has occasional accidents, but that's my fault for forgetting to take her. We're still working on going number 2, because that's harder to catch. I caught her going yesterday and rushed her to the potty to finish. After I catch her a few more times, she'll get it. Potty training can actually be really easy if you have time and patience to be ok with the messes and just use undies. I've never heard of anyone training quickly with pullups, or taking long with undies. Sounds like you're doing great at home!But don't get discouraged, because they will have a lot of accidents at first until you get in the habit of taking them often and they learn to go anytime they sit on the potty. Soon, she'll be telling you she has to go, unless she gets too busy and then you still have to remember to take her.
Public restrooms can be scary for them at first, so limit trips out for a bit, and bring a change of clothes. See if Dad can get her to go at a public potty. Maybe having someone else take her would help, because everyone has different tactics. I agree to try to make sure a loud potty doesn't flush on her.

I kept my son in underwear and we weren't gone for long when we left the house. Maybe an hour at the most. When we got to the store/doc I would show him where the bathroom was and asked if he needed to go. Before we would leave I would get him to try to go. I made sure he always knew there was a bathroom around. He only had 3 accidents in the car on the way home. I would limit our trips to about an hour so he could primarily use our bathroom. I hate public restrooms. He has only worn a pullup for night time sleeping. He's maybe had 5-6 accidents in 9 months during his 2 - 2 1/2 hour naps. We call the pullups his "night time underwear". At about 5 months of being potty trained we drove from the bay area to WA/OR border, we stayed the night in Yreka but we only had him in underwear and not a single accident the whole trip! We were so proud. =) He seemed more comfortable to have an accident in a pullup during the day which is why I didn't have him wear them except for at night and it worked. We just used regular cartoon underwear during the day. Good luck.