Best Potty Chair and Training Advice for Boys

Boys can take a while to potty train... first, let him accompany Daddy on potty trips as often as possible just to want to be a big boy!

I didn't want to have to retrain from potty chair to toilet, so we started on the toilet. I put my son on the toilet backwards, that is facing the tank and straddling it. He had more control and got used to seeing it go in that way. We put a step stool up because we had elongated toilets which are higher than standard. Put a few cheerios as "tinkle targets" to make it a game.

Once he shows a definate interest, take a long weekend where you have a lot of patience and leave him naked from the waist down- hey, it's warm out and you should be able to explain to the neighbors if he's playing outside! (Don't forget sunscreen!) Give him LOADS to drink to get things going and keep a good watch on him. Once he starts, help him race to the toilet. Do the Pee Pee dance at successes and don't scold when he messes the floor. He'll start to get it and hopefully will be well on his way in three days.

My older son is 11 now and was tough to potty train... some take longer than others and it doesn't show intelligence. (My son has an almost genius IQ, but wasn't fully potty-trained until several months after his third birthday!) Have patience and good luck!!!

I had a friend who potty trained her son sitting on the toilet, but to teach him how to stand and pee, his daddy took him outside and they would practice peeing on a tree in their back yard, that way if he missed, there wasn't too much of a mess to clean up. Obviously, this might not work depending on where you live! Good luck!

We also have the baby bjorn potty chair, and it was not the first potty we bought. It was the best potty chair we bought. I would try to train him sitting down first. I have two boys and this is just what we have been doing.

Hi K., it is much easier to teach a boy to sit while peeing so that you can work on pooping as well. It's kind of hard to do that standing up, although my son once tried it. My son ended up liking to have a seat on top of the toilet. Thankfully we had bought the potty chiar where the seat could go on the chair or the potty. and it had a lip on it. also the base converted to a stool when further stand up training was needed. I can't recall who made it since it was almost 2 years ago, but I know it had Winnie the pooh on it. you can always work on the sitting down aspect with him and let daddy work on the standing up thing. oh yeah, I also used the video that Duke University put out called "it's potty time" with both my kids. it is fantastic and has songs that keep them interested. I think the library even had a copy of it last time I was there. They loved it and in a clever way it showed the boys going both ways as well as made a big deal out of washing their hands after. I highly recommend it. good luck

K.,
I am a mother of a 5 yr old girl BUT also to a 19 yr old SON.
When he was potty training, I taught him to sit first.. their aim is not so good... ifyou knwo what I mean.. you will be smelling urine and cleaning the floor and the toilet more than you would like...

Rewards are so important whether it be M & M's or stickers...
They are immediate and of course you can do the Happy Dance and call everyone you know... that always helps. :)

OH one more thing, I didn't get a potty chair... I got the small seat that sits on the toilet as some child then fear the noise and how big the larger seat is... if you use a potty chair. Plus they like the reward of flusing the big boy toilet if they go. Don't let him flush it any other time or it will lose it's specialness.

There is also books to read and tapes/DVD's available too.
Remember what you think will work.. just might not...

Don't give up... I will say that now since the nice weather is here you can go with very little clothing. :)

Sometimes putting them in underwear that has characters on and telling them, Snoopy or whomever doesn't like to get wet...
and also asking them and taking them even if they say they don't have to go about every hour no matter what... and of course before you go anywhere and when you get there and when you get home all helps too.. I always told my son, if he would go and try if there was some to come out, it would and if not then at least he tried. ;)

Good Luck... it is one of the rites of passage as a mom...

My son is now 8 so it has been a little while since we did the potty training thing. I am not familiar with the "Peter Potty". For what it's worth, I wouldn't train sitting down first. We did this because it was how all the training potty's were made at the time. Then we basically had to retrain with standing. I think it would have been much easier to only do it once. We had to find a steady stool or something else safe and sturdy that our son could use to be tall enough to make it in the toilet. He did fine with it. It was just the fact that we had to go through another transition from sitting to standing. My son also learned from "going with daddy" occasionally. It helped with learning while standing but it confused him a little that we started by sitting. Best of luck with whatever you decide!

Baby Bjorn potty chair. They come in 2 sizes but get the bigger one. You can find them at babiesrus or target or im sure other places. they run about $25 but they are worth every penny. It has a higher guard on it that is great for boys. Check out babiesrus.com and they have plenty of good reviews that sold me on mine.

My advice: keep it as simple as possible. Don't get a special potty if your kid is not afraid of the regular toilet--just something else for you to clean! I followed a tip from a friend and started my oldest son out sitting down on the toilet--but backward. Somehow he just seemed more stable that way. It worked great for peeing, but he didn't start pooping in the toilet until he had peeing down the regular way, so I don't know how sitting backward would work for that. Pretty early on though my son wanted to pee standing like his dad, so we had to get a small stool so he would have clearance. :) Oh, we did get the small toilet seats that you stick on top of your own toilet, but my son wasn't interested in using those for very long. He liked doing things the way everyone else in his world did.

Timing: The best advice I ever got from a friend with boys was WAIT!! We tried doing formal potty "training" when my son was 2 1/2, and after a day and a half, he was over it--I didn't enjoy going to the bathroom every hour to sit and wait 20-30 minutes for something to happen either! But two months before his 3rd birthday he would tell me when he had to pee whenever he was naked--so I let him run around the house naked for a couple of hours in the morning, and he never had accidents, so we pulled the underwear back out, and that was that! He still wanted to poop in diapers, and we didn't make a big deal out of that. Just asked if he wanted to try the potty. But a month after he was peeing in the toilet he just one day started pooping in the toilet too. He was the smoothest potty "training" I could have ever hoped for, and I know it was all because we waited until my son was really ready. My second son just turned two, and while he shows interest in the potty and asks to sit on it, he still pees all over the place when he's naked (thankfully our home is all hardwood!). We'll be waiting it out with him too.

The other thing about boys and peeing is that they generally love to do it outside! I can't count the number of times I've turned around in the yard to see my kid peeing in the middle of the lawn as cars pass by. He now knows to go find a discreet place by a bush or tree, but public peeing is a discussion for another day. :) Good luck!

The way I potty trained my son when he was little (he's almost 28 now) but while I was shopping, I picked up a pack of little boy's underwear, not training pants or anything like that, just plain and simple boy's underwear. and oh brother was he excited about wearing underwear. he went straight to the bathroom, pulled his diaper off and put those underwear on, and never had an accident. I am sure this probably wouldn't work for everyone, and lucky it worked for me i suppose. I was a single parent and concerned about how I was going to potty train him. I really lucked out on how it turned out!!!

FisherPrice Fun to Learn potty seems to be doing the trick so far. But we first started on just a simple potty. My son is 21 mths old-he used the potty all by himself about a wk in a half or so ago. He just came to me and said he needed to pee-pee. I was so excited!! :) I have been working w/ him a litlle on and off the past few mths-u know, just explaining the potty, what its for, sitting him on it w/ his diaper, etc. I wasn't expecting him to do it so soon. Although we're not fully potty trained it's in progress. He went to the potty once at daycare later on that week. So I decided to go buy a "more exciting" potty haha mainly b/c my son loves for ppl to clap for him when he does something good-throwingthings inthe trash, cleaning up a little mess,putting toys away, etc-so i figured he'd love this potty b/c it sings and things. Hope this helped you some! Good Luck!

the peter potty is awesome my 2 year old loves it and use it all the time and i have always had him stand to pee unless he doesnt want to and i am making him go then i have him sit

I took my oldest 2 straight to the real potty. Makes it easier when you are away from home. All you have to carry is a potty seat that sits on the toilet. I trained my son sitting down also. Now that he has the hang of it, my husband will teach him at age 4 how to potty standing up.

Hi K.
Well as a mother to three adult men,I can tell you that you train them by sitting on the potty first.
I do not know what a "Peter Potty" is but all I can tell you is that by the time they understand the whole potty training bit they are ready to do the big boy stand up!
And that boils down to Dad,because your little one will want to watch him and try to copy,so,you are going to need a little step for him to stand up on and thats about it!
Children learn by copying and thats the trick!
Best of luck
A.