My #1 Tip for Potty Training Boys

Well it’s no secret that I am a boymom to 3, but what you may not know is I was an early childhood educator for many years as well. My favourite age group to teach was the Toddlers for their curiousity, emerging personalities and eagerness to please, but working with toddlers also meant always, always, always being in the throws of potty training. It’s safe to say that I’ve trained my fair share of little boys in my life time. 

This is a little trick I picked up on my very first college work placement and it has been quite useful over the years, including at home with my own boys. At first, I couldn’t figure out why on earth the day care staff had the boys sitting on the toilets backwards! It looked pretty bizarre, but it didn’t take me long to realize that it was actually pure genius!

 My #1 Tip for Potty Training Boys – Put your boys on the potty backwards.

Pros – 

This works well for a few reasons

~ The front part of the toilet is smaller, so boys can set their little tushies here without using their hands to hold themselves up. 

~ Now they have more independence and no fear of falling in.

~ The back of the toilet is larger and their legs are naturally apart giving little boys lots of room to aim and shoot.

~ No more trying to tuck their little ‘noodle’ in to point down making for far less mess.

~ There’s no need for special plastic potties you have to clean or seats you have to attach to the toilet. The standard toilet is all you need which means kids can do this anytime, anywhere. You won’t need to cart potty seats to friends and relatives houses.

~ Less touching of the germy potties in public. See below for cons on public places, but this method does have it’s plus for your child not holding the seat or you breaking your back holding the child on the seat. If you lift the child and set him on the toilet he can go pee with his hands up or resting on this own legs and you can lift him right back off. 

Cons-

The downside to this procedure is that the pants have to come off. And for the pants to come off, the shoes have to come off too, so this is more difficult when you are popping into a public restroom. You can make do with just one leg out of the pants, but it’s still a little more time consuming especially in a tight space. Not undoable, I’ve done it many times with my own boys, but not as easy as at home where boys can quickly throw themselves up on the potty, do their business and hop off. 

If you are in the midst of training your son or about to start, I encourage you to give this way a try. I’ve been using it with success for years. Obviously, little boys can’t go poop in the same fashion, this is strictly for peeing but it works great and it really does prevent many messes. I think we can all agree that boys are full of those. 

My boys loved their independence in the bathroom, they rarely needed my help once they learned this way, and were able to get on and off and flush all on their own. Boys will use this way for only a short season, once they are tall enough to stand like a big boy, they usually stick with that.