Potty Training and Travel

Two months ago I shared part 3 of our Potty Training Blues and a month later we went on two road trips, traveling whilst potty training. If we traveled successfully does that mean we’re fully potty trained? I don’t know the answer to that. A week after sharing part 3 I ALMOST wrote a part 4 to say “we’re done” but that day we had an accident. So I didn’t. We’ve done a road trip to Niagara Falls and more recently our longer road trip to Chicago…with NO accidents during the actual road trip.

To be safe I’ve always put on disposable training pants and on our most recent trip to Chicago I even took our Cars potty seat. I tried using it at one bathroom during the road trip and soon realized that they do not work on some public toilet seats. Much like at restaurants I’ve decided to carry her and hover over the toilet seat so that her precious butt doesn’t touch the germ infested seat. Is it ridiculous? I would guess so based on the look on my friend’s face when she saw me maneuver her toddler in a similar stance. It does give me peace of mind though…and yes I could carry those paper toilet seat covers but I tend to forget the wipes as I run into the bathroom so needless to say, those covers sit in my purse more often than not.

The potty seat did however work in our hotel room which was perfect because we noticed something odd during our Chicago travels-road trip was fine but actual city travels were not. Our road trip had no accidents, if anything it was quite the opposite. She kept saying “potty!!” because she realized we’d stop and take a break. At which point she’d run around but not actually pee. We caught on quickly and decided to just stop every 3 to 4 hours as per plan. Hah. Who’s this toddler thinking she can boss us around? HMPF!

Once we were in Chicago and hanging out with a fully potty trained toddler, Little Monkey started showing some odd signs. She refused to go to the potty outside and not only did she pee at Millennium Park (luckily it was all grass) but she did something she’s never done in the past six months…she pooped in her regular underwear….at the Children’s Museum. Needless to say I was not impressed and threw her Dora underwear out. Was it excitement? Was it the pressure of travel? It’s hard to say. Two accidents made me pull out the disposable training pants but we’ve had no more accidents since then.

Yes we may not have a perfect trip as far as potty training went but we still have some tips to share. Especially since we’ve had no issues since returning from our travels.

• Bring your toilet seat if you can. There’s something to be said about comfort
• Be prepared for accidents. Bring extra clothes during your travels
• Bring out the training pants just this once. You may not need it, but it helps to have them around
• Keep asking if they need to use the potty. Try a simple bribe to get them to sit on the public toilets every couple hours
• Carry plenty of wipes and hand sanitizers, public restrooms can be quite disgusting at times
• If the automatic flush freaks the kid…stick a post it note or a wet piece of tissue before they “sit down”

Let’s see if we encounter any issues during our upcoming Nova Scotia trip this week! Fingers crossed! Here’s more tips for travelling while potty training!