As the children have been off preschool and there usual activities for 7 weeks this summer, I decided that this would be a good time to get Robo Boy (my middle child) out of nappies. While he and Wonder Girl were both in nappies I was having to wash ten or more nappies per day, so you could say I had a big motivator to get this stage of parenting done.

Anyway, I decided that as I had a camping trip planned in early August after the that would be a good time to start. Robo Boy on the other hand had other ideas. Upon arriving at the campsite (literally not a moment sooner) he decided he no longer wanted to pooh in his nappies. Instead what he would do was shout very loudly that there was a pooh coming, demand we pop him on a potty, sit there for a while and no pooh would appear. My part in all this was to stay patient and encouraging about the attempts. Now my natural instinct was to say for goodness sake do or don’t do a pooh, stop making me sit in a (extremely windy) field with you on the potty every ten mins. But, I did my good mother thing and made encouraging noises.

So after around ten attempts he eventually did pooh and in this moment I discovered the pooh pooh on the potty song. Basically the pooh pooh or wee wee on the potty song is sung to the tune of ”Come on and do the conga” very enthusiastically so that Robo Boy feels all jolly and happy about doing the deed! He loves it, I am slightly worried though that one day one of my children will be at a party, that song will come on and… well, you can guess the rest.

Anyway now is probably a good time to mention the portable potty that made these field based pooh adventures possible. The one we use is called a potette and is great because it’s a portable potty and a child’s travel toilet seat in one. I’ve had mine since potty training Super Kid and it’s handy whenever we are out of the house. If you fancy one and you click on my link then I’ll make a few pennies which would be brill.

So’ when we got home it was obvious that Robo Boy was indeed ready to go the whole hog. So I stocked up on encouragement (bribery) chocolates and underpants with robots on (btw Robo Boy loves Robots) and we were ready to go.

As a funny aside, when I potty trained Super Kid, we once again got a hint of what a little negotiator he is. He was promised one chocolate button for a wee & two for a pooh. I will never forget the day he sat on the potty, did a very noisy fart and asked how many he would be getting for that !

So basically, when I potty train I keep it very simple, no sticker charts or certain times to sit on the potty. I tell them you go on the potty when you need a wee or a pooh and if you do one you get a chocolate. In this case Maltesers, or as Robo Boy called them bouncing ball chocolates. I have to say I have been very lucky, both times this method has worked for me pretty painlessly, but I imagine Ive just been lucky.

So two down, one to go. If I were asked for advice about potty training I would say go for it, if your child is ready it will make life loads easier. However if your child isn’t ready don’t give into peer pressure. I didnt care if my mum trained my sister at one or if all my mum friends children, were potty trained. If my child wasn’t ready, I didn’t do it. Super Kid was 2.9 and Robo Boy 2.8 years when we potty trained, and because they were ready it all went swimmingly.