The Best Potty Training Essentials
If you like this blog post on The Best Potty Training Essentials, Pin It!
Please note, this blog post contains affiliate links. This means I will receive commissions for any qualifying purchases made through links found on this page.
Out of all the challenges that come with parenthood, potty training is one of the hardest things that I’ve had to do. It’s a bold statement seeing as there are a lot of things about parenthood that are hard, but it’s just my honest opinion. Though we had our challenges and my patience was definitely tested, my kids were eventually able to be potty trained and I could not have been prouder! Even though potty training feels like a thing of the past now, I wanted to share all the supplies that helped us immensely during our potty training journey. It’s not a very long list of supplies, but each item played an essential role during that time!
Potty
This seems like a no-brainer, but the first thing that you’ll need to have is some sort of potty. If you try to save money by skipping this item and trying to train your child to pee in the toilet, you’ll find that you may be cleaning long trails of pee leading to the bathroom for a while. We utilized a separate little potty seat for the very beginning stages when our kids were starting to learn the feeling you get right before urinating. We had ours nearby in any room that we were in so that it was within reach when we needed it. The potty that we used was the Baby Bjorn deep potty chair. Not that it matters, but I liked the neutral color scheme and that it was easy to lift the bowl out to pour the urine in the toilet and clean afterwards.
Attached Potty Seat Adapter
After figuring out how to use the little potty, we needed to teach our kids how to use the big toilet. We tried the little potty adapters, but we felt that they were often in the way and no one knew where to keep them when they weren’t in use. Our solution was to switch out our toilet seat for one that had an attached potty adapter. We use the NextStep2 toilet seat and we absolutely love it. It saves space in our bathroom, it’s easy to clean, and it has a soft close feature to prevent accidental slamming.
Step Stool
Most toddlers are not tall enough to reach the big toilet, let alone wash their hands at the sink afterwards. For this reason, you’ll need a step stool. We just needed something simple, not too much of a safety hazard, and just gets the job done. Because we love our stool so much, we have the Baby Bjorn step stool in each of our bathrooms! I love the simple design, the non-slip grippy top, that it is the perfect height, and it is lightweight enough for our kids to move the stool from in front of the toilet to in front of the sink by themselves.
Portable Potty
I think that having a portable potty is worth the investment. You won’t believe how often the OXO portable potty has saved our butts when we were out and about. It comes with liner bags that completely absorb the urine making disposal easy and discrete. Its small and lightweight design makes it easy to store in our trunk and it can also be used as a toddler seat adapter if you happen to visit someone who doesn’t have a bathroom set up for small children.
Books
In the very beginning stages, you need something that will encourage your child to sit on the potty for more than 2 seconds. Books helped my kids sit on the potty and just stay put for a while… or at least enough time to pee in the potty. Out of all the potty related books we had, my favorite was Pottysaurous. Not only was it a cute story, it ran through the routine of how to go potty and that it’s ok to have accidents sometimes.
Cotton Underwear
We opted to get regular cotton underwear, so that our kids could feel the discomfort of being in wet underwear and they can see the full consequences of peeing in your pants. We also made sure to get underwear with some of our kids’ favorite characters. It helped to get them excited about ditching the diapers and it gave our kids’ an incentive to not get their favorite characters wet. Just make sure you buy a lot because there will be many many accidents and the last thing you want is to run out of underwear in the middle of potty training.
Pull-Ups
Even though we made the full switch to cotton underwear at home, we were not quite ready to give up the security of pull-ups when we left the house in the early stages. We would still have everyone wear cotton underwear, but as an extra precaution, we would sometimes put on a pull-up over the cotton underwear. This made sure that the kids still felt if they were wet and knew that they would need to use the potty to stay dry, but it saved us from having to change their whole outfit if there was an accident outside the house.
The Right Cleaning Supplies
I would expect the first few days of potty training to be a complete mess. And I mean literally. It’s natural for there to be accidents and multiple puddles of pee on the floor as your child starts making the connection of how it feels when you need to use the potty. The supplies that we kept at the ready were the Tineco Vaccum Mop, the Bissel Handheld Carpet Cleaner, Clorox Wipes, and a plain plastic bin. On the first day, accidents happened left and right, but we were able to clean our hardwood floor quick and easy by just going over it with our Tineco. Our handheld carpet cleaner was kept loaded with the liquid cleaner and reserved for accidents on either our couch or the carpet upstairs. Clorox wipes kept the little potty sanitary after pouring the urine out into the toilet. And last, but not least, having a little bin of some sort helped us have somewhere nearby to toss soaked underwear. Accidents just happened so often, that we thought it was just more efficient to throw the underwear in a bin nearby and wash all the underwear at the end of the day.
A Meal Plan
I actually think creating a weekly meal plan is something that is helpful and should be done forever and ever for the rest of your life. But, if you are not the type that likes to create weekly meal plans, you should at least have one for the first week of potty training. Potty training is typically something that requires close to 100% of your attention in the first few days. Having lots of potty accidents in the early potty training days is normal and expected. That means, you don’t want to be tied up cooking or doing other chores during that time. During that first week of potty training, I made sure to have already prepared freezer meals that only required being reheated in the microwave. On some days, I also planned on cooking at night, after my kids were put to bed. That way, we had food that I could just microwave from the refrigerator as well. However you plan to feed yourself and your family at this time, I just would not recommend leaving your home or spending too much time with food prep during the day when your kids are awake and actively trying to learn how to use the potty. If you are new to meal planning or looking for some extra tips, feel free to check out some of my previous blog posts, “Meal Planning Tips for Homecooks,” or “How to Meal Plan in 5 Easy Steps.”
There is no doubt that potty training is a lot of work for both the kids and parents. But, I’m pretty sure that in my own experience, these items really helped ease the workload that comes with potty training. The great thing about these must-have items is that these supplies would be helpful no matter which potty training method you choose to commit to. You don’t have to get all these supplies if you feel they wouldn’t be helpful for you and your family, but doing your research and being prepared with the items you’ll need during potty training will definitely have a positive impact during this time!
