Our First Toilet Training Part 3 – Using the Potty

In my previous sharing, we managed to train our son to be off his diaper at 19 months of age. I will be honest. Life after that, can be quite difficult. Especially when we have to travel and the size of the toilet seat outside is only for adults. Sometimes he would pass motion on the floor and I need to pick his poo up / use a lot of water to drain the poo into the hole.

We’ve had situations whereby my son was passing motion and someone really rude keeps on knocking on the door, impatiently, until I told her “My son is using the toilet”. Then only she stopped. Well, there are many other toilet cubicles and she just had to attack mine, despite only being in there for a couple of minutes (when she started knocking).

Another situation is when there are many other cubicles available, but one selfish lady walked into the family sized one – the one with a toilet bowl for kids) and took her own sweet time inside. So please, refrain yourself from using those toilets labelled “family” unless you are taking your little children along with you.

Anyway, initially my son refused to use the potty seat (see picture) that I bought for him. I read that children needs their feet to touch the ground when passing motion, so I bought him a cheap, small potty with very basic feature.

Still, he refused to sit on it. He only passes urine/motion while standing over it, so I could just dump the whole thing inside the usual toilet bowl to be flushed. The challenge is that his poo would be stuck on his thigh and buttock, and it was such a hassle to clean. I wanted to teach him to clean himself so that I could teach him that his private parts are only for him to touch. No one else can touch him there, not even me. So with so much poo to be cleaned, I can’t make him do it himself without risking him touching everywhere with his ‘poopy’ hands. LOL.

So, to solve this, in July this year, I purchased a comfortable and cute seating potty bowl for him. (see picture). It was on sale at GIANT for RM34.99. I just had to grab it because the cheapest I have seen in LAZADA or elsewhere, is more than rm50! So now we are in the process of teaching him to use the potty, clean himself, and clean the potty bowl as well. So far so good.

I hope I can totally teach him to be independent so that I could start to teach him about no-one-should-touch-his-private-parts-but-himself soon.

Any tips from other mommies are greatly appreciated :)

All the best to other mommies out there!