Well we are going to start potty training our 2 year old. This is our only child so I am looking at rows and rows of child's pottys and have no idea where to start.

Do we get a stand alone or one that snaps onto the real toilet, and any recommendations for brands/models from any other moms/dads with some experience?

Thanks for any help!

I had all my children sit backwards on the regular potty. By sitting backwards they could hold onto the tank and they didn't feel like they were going to fall in. Also if its a boy things are pointed downward so you don't get a mess everywhere. LOL Plus there is no potty chair to clean up.

Thats an interesting idea

That's a great idea. about the reverse sitting thing. Why didn't I know that 6 months ago! :O)

We have a insert that fits over the toilet that is tonka trucks from Kmart. And a little stool for him to step up to the toilet w/.

If he didn't have the insert he'd probably make a bigger mess.

My only advice is to NOT get a potty w/ a "urine guard" because they have a hard time getting on the potty over the urine guard and off of it. My son and friends daughter always scratched their legs on the urine guards.

Good luck! My son is potty trained 90% of the time and last night he didn't make it to the toilet and he tried to clean himself up and I found a turd in the bathroom garbage. My son was trying to take care of his mess. Made me want to cry cause I'd heard him hollar and didn't go to him on the first hollar.
"Mommmmmmmm Mooommmmmmmmmm wipe!"

Hope that helps!

Jaimie

This is exactly what my MIL did nearly 40 years ago. DH says it made "potty time" happier for everybody and he pretended to be a race car driver. Still wants to be one now, so apparently it was was quality time for his imagination!

We did the seat on the potty for all four.

Couple of reasons...one, none of them were comfortable with that reverse sitting thing...I don't know if there legs were too short or what, but it just didn't work.

Two, I had a girl friend whose child had trained on a small potty and that is the only place he would go...she had to drag it every where they went for like a year! The seat is easy to throw into a plastic bag if you need to take it with you.

Cleaning those little potties is NO fun after a while! Little seat is easy to keep clean!

Thanks for all the help. I ended up going to walmart today with my son and he picked out a little potty with winnie the pooh on it. But before we open that and start to use it, im going to try the sitting backwards thing and see if that works out. If not, then ill open the box and try the little toilet. Still got the receipt, so if the backwards thing works for us I can return the potty i bought to walmart.

Wish me luck! (geez i really dont wanna say time to go poo in your pooh potty... )

We had (well, we still have it, but no one uses it) a small seat that goes on the regular toilet. Neither of my boys ever had any interest in a little potty -- they wanted to use the big potty just like mom & dad. Honestly, I was thrilled with that because I didn't have to clean the little potty. We made a rule when the kids were about 18 months old -- you can't flush the toilet unless you use it. The incentive to flush was a good one for my kids.

Sarah......mom to Jason & Devin

I had both potty and seat for big potty. They both worked good. MY 2 1/2 year old still uses the one for the big potty. She is very tiny and would fall in if I did not have that. But the best thing that worked for me is stop using diaper or pull ups and go to old fashion training pants with plastic. It was the only thing that would work. And worked great. Messy but great. Plus a reward like stickers to put on the potty.

I also wanted to add that you should find something small that motivates your child -- M&Ms, stickers, matchbox cards, Dollar Store toys, crayons, whatever motivates your child. For my oldest it was 'points' towards getting Thomas the Tank Engine trains, for my youngest it was Matchbox cars.

In the beginning, I gave DS#2 a matchbox car every time he used the potty. I did this for a few days. Then he got a car at the end of the day if he stayed dry all day. I did that for about three weeks until he no longer needed the motivation. It worked great for us. Some would say that Matchbox cars and Thomas trains are expensive, but we tried stickers and M&Ms and they just didn't motivate my kids. Honstely it was less expensive than buying diapers.

Sarah.......mom to Jason & Devin