Potty training while traveling

Now that Tobey's potty trained, it's a whole new ball game packing and planning our vacation.

First, we obsessed over whether to bring a potty seat. Tobey can pee just fine into a regular toilet but had never pooped into one. We would probably be in the hotel for his morning poop but what if he won't go in the hotel toilet? We can't bring our standalone Baby Bjorn potty so Tom insisted we buy the BB toilet seat to train him to poop in something other than the potty. Or should we buy the folding toilet seat or a travel potty? And then that glorious moment came when Tobey pooped into a regular toilet while we were out! Great! Now we know he can do it and we don't have to worry about a week of constipation!

But then came the issue of what if we get stuck without any toilet? In the ferry or border crossing line? Do we reconsider the travel potty? I even shopped at Target and called Toys R Us and Babies R Us to research the different (all of 2) travel potties. But thankfully I recalled advice that Richard gave us. It's cheap, it's simple: a jar. We sacrificed one of our screw top Ziploc tupperware containers and dubbed it "the receptacle".

Tobey did GREAT while we were on vacation. False alarms are still common and he did kind of have an accident at Butchart Gardens. But considering every toilet all week was unfamiliar, he adapted great. He peed, he pooed, he stood, he sat. And the "receptacle"? Thank goodness we had it. It came in handy more than once.

And now we embark on preschool, our "deadline" and motivation for getting him potty trained. I realized that as I looked forward to him starting preschool, we almost forgot this big milestone he has now passed. A month ago, I was tearing my hair out over his accidents. And now I send him off to preschool confident that he meets their potty trained requirement.