Potette – Product Review

When Trevor from www.hellobabydirect.co.uk first sent me the Potette to review I was a bit unsure as I thought we’d cracked potty training.  However, after our holiday to Bude and all the upheaval with elderly in-laws at the moment, we’ve gone a few steps backwards with potty training and have had quite a few accidents.

When Madame first spotted the colourful Potette she wanted to use it straight away and couldn’t wait for me to get it open.  It was fairly straight forward to put together.  Funnily though, after the first time she used it there was big puddle on the floor.  I thought there must’ve been a hole in the absorbent bag but I checked it and there wasn’t.  It only happened the once, so it wasn’t a problem and it wouldn’t be the first time she missed the toilet.

It has proved to be incredibly useful.  My husband often takes her cycling on the weekends and they end up in places without loos.  It fits nicely into his back pack and she’s not averse to weeing alfresco!

As a family, we’ve been known to frequent the odd pub or two! I know this comes as a great surprise to you ;-) In the past when it was hubby’s turn to take her, he often found the men’s loos were disgusting, to say the least, so it has come in very handy.

I wish I would’ve bought a Potette from ‘the get go’ instead of lugging the silly one around from Ikea.  I haven’t tried it on the big loo as we already had installed one, but it would have saved us a bit of money if we had just used the Potette.  A few of my friends have shown interest in it and even though they have boys and it’s pink and purple, they want to borrow it.

The only negatives I found about it are I’m a bit heavy handed and when I go to erect the legs I always end up pulling them right off and it would also be nice if it came with more than 3 absorbent liners.  But, all in all I would recommend it.

Penny has Dropped (in the pot)

This week we have been having another go at potty training, but it didn’t start off well.  I armed myself with loads of knickers, 1001 spray, mop, sticker chart, chocolate buttons and had a quick read of Gina Ford’s ‘Potty Training in One Week’.  To start, we gave her a chocolate button for sitting on the potty.  She’d sit on it for ages but……..nothing.  I tried rubbing her back, singing her songs, tickling, pulling funny faces, reading her stories.  I was just about to give up when…

I was upstairs getting ready on Friday (bear in mind we started on Mon) and she was playing in her room, with the potty nearby and without any prompting she plunked herself down on it and swish, which was followed by loads of praise and chocolate of course.  We had a couple of similar successes after that and then last night, this is probably too much information, but we were watching TV and she took herself off to the loo.  We didn’t realise what was going on until we heard her shouting ‘bye bye poo’.  Blimey she’d climbed onto the big loo and used it all on her own.

Then the penny dropped, what she needed was PRIVACY!  I think I’d turn into the Hoover Dam if someone was rubbing my back, singing stories to me, tickling etc while I was sitting on the pan!  Doh!

Toilet Training Take Two

As I have this week off I thought I’d have another go at potty training.  We tried a couple of months ago but didn’t have any luck.  I did loads of reading, completed online readiness tests and Madame showed most of the signs of being ready:

  • She’s 2 and a half
  • She can undress herself, which she has a habit of doing in public
  • She goes into the bathroom and closes the door or hides behind the curtains when she has a ‘poo’
  • She was familiar with the potty as we had it kicking around for awhile
  • She can go for a couple of hours with a dry nappy.

So, armed with loads of knickers, a mop and 1001 Spot Stain Remover we had a go.  My basic approach was to put her in knickers, wait for the first accident and go from there.  In hindsight that was a bit naïve.

Unfortunately, I didn’t anticipate she could be a camel when it comes to peeing.  She went 5 days without peeing during the day.  I started to worry about urinary tract infections, etc so I resorted to using chocolate buttons.  It did seem to help a bit and we carried on for two weeks but when there was no visible sign of any improvement, it was sheer luck when she went on the potty, we gave up.

I’m not a fan of Gina Ford as I don’t believe babies/children are little machines but I’d heard good things about her book ‘Potty Training in One Week’ so I borrowed it from a friend (@annieqpr) and had a quick read last night. I was quite surprised that what she suggested was similar to what I had tried the first time.

On the first day, straight after breakfast, put them in Big Girl Knickers, and then encourage them to sit on the potty for 5-10 minutes every 15 minutes……

This was all very well, but what if they won’t sit on the potty?  Forcing her would only exacerbate the problem.  So, I quickly flipped to the Problem Solving Section for ‘The Stubborn Child’.  Surprisingly, Gina is all up for a bit of bribery.  So I’ve printed off a Dora Star Chart and loaded up on chocolate buttons.  I didn’t want to go down that road, but for an easy life I’ll try anything.  For every wee she does on the toilet she gets a star and a chocolate button.  Once she starts having success I’ll stretch out the amount of time between treats until there are no more treats left.

We’re still not having any luck.  She’ll sit on the potty, but come hell or high water she’s not going to wee on it.  I’ve tried everything from reading stories, TV, singing, rubbing her back, tickling her, pulling silly faces and giving her copious amounts of liquid in an effort to break the dam.

I know it’s only early days and I’m in it for the long haul but would be grateful for any advice.