Shopping List to Start Potty Training

We are not new to parenting but new to potty training. How does this make sense? Well, my husband and I have fostered about a dozen kids, but they have either been in diapers and left us before this stage, or came to us pretty much potty trained already. Knowing this phase was coming up, I was a little nervous and I’d rather be over prepared than under, so I developed a plan to potty train our son. In this post I will mainly focus on the tools I bought to get started.

About a week or two before I knew I was going to start potty training, I started looking up information on Pinterest, other blog sites, and looking into different books about the subject. In the end I decided to buy Becky Mansfield’s book, “Potty Train in a Weekend.” I purchased her book on audible, but it’s also available on Amazon, or directly from her website, www.YourModernFamily.com

In her book, Becky talks about making sure you have all of your supplies before you get started. This is so extremely important, the first few days of potty training you will not be able to leave the house, so having everything you need at your fingertips is a must. I am a huge Amazon shopper, and even though I love the occasional walk around Target, it just fits the bill on most days to buy or plan what I need to buy on my phone. I have lists on Amazon for different projects, birthday ideas, Christmas and so on. I will explain more about my Amazon addiction in a future post.

Shopping is one of my hobbies, so even shopping for potty training was reasonably interesting and exciting for me. Here is a list of my musts for potty training.

Two Potty Seats

I bought this potty seat, and even though it is on the smaller side for my guy (he is not 2 yet but is the size of a 3 year old) it is easy to clean and doesn’t take up much space. Whatever potty seat you fall in love with, buy two. For one, it will be helpful to have a potty in more than one restroom at home, and secondly you can take it with you on the go. We have taken the potty with us each time we go out since we started potty training last month, and he has used it with no issues in the car.

This is the “seat” I originally wanted, but the reviews said it was even smaller, so I passed. If you have a child that isn’t bursting off the growth charts, maybe this adorable My Size Potty will work for you. Probably wouldn’t purchase this as your second seat to travel with though since it is a little larger having the back. It is just so darn cute, weird thinking a potty seat is cute and all, but it looks just like a big toilet and even makes a flushing sound. Bonus, it even has a wipe dispenser!

Small Diapers

Now this sounds weird, we are potty training so why do you need diapers? Well, if you put a small diaper in the area of the portable potty where they pee and poop, yippie you just toss the diaper away instead of having to pour out or clean up the poop.

Portable Folding Toilet Seat

This seat folds down and will easily fit in your diaper bag, or backpack. We have used it several times already, and even though it didn’t fit perfectly every time, we find it did the trick of him not falling into the potty.

Flushable Wipes

Make the switch from buying baby wipes, to flushable wipes. Using wipes instead of toilet paper makes clean up easier in the start of potty training. Especially because they will just want to play with the toilet paper at this stage. Learning to wipe will be tackled once they have going on the potty achieved.

Car Seat Liners

I bought three of these liners, one for each car seat (my car and family van) and one for the stroller. Accidents will of course happen, so we might as well do our best to make clean up easy. If your child has an accident, these liners are easy to machine wash, versus taking the entire car seat/stroller apart. Also, some strollers make it nearly impossible to machine wash, so this could be a game changer for you.

Grocery Bag Holders

I bought two of these and have one in each of our cars. It’s great to throw in the yucky diapers from the potty, or to use for soiled clothing from an accident. Plus, sometimes you just need an extra bag and you will not always have them in your car.

Wet/Dry Bags

For cloth diapering families, bonus, you probably already have these. Basically, it’s a bag with two compartments, one for dry stuff and one for wet. These are even great to take to the splash pad/swimming pool and so on. In the dry compartment I put portable flushing wipes, sanitizing wipes, extra underwear and shorts. Might I suggest maybe even throwing in an extra pair of socks. I really like the ones I purchased because they can snap on to the stroller to be easily retrieved. You might even be able to fit in your portable potty seat, and then when you are out and about this bag will be the only thing you need to take with you into the restroom.

Underwear

Obviously, you need underwear right? With all the research I did everyone has a different opinion about to wear training underwear or to not. I bought several different kinds, no padding, slight, and extreme. It’s only been a few weeks and he has had accidents in them all, but I do think the extreme padded underwear feel like a diaper the most, and he doesn’t get it that he’s even wearing underwear, so we have retired those for now and maybe we can use them later.

Potty Training Books and Movies

I found a few potty training videos on YouTube and we started watching them 2X a day the week before we started potty training. We don’t do a whole lot of screen time, so he was excited at snack time to watch these new videos with silly songs. Watching them all took about 8 minutes or so. When you start potty training, they will be helpful to show your little one while they are trying to go.

Sort of gross when you think about it, but this is his favorite, he really gets into the song.

My favorite potty training video I found is, Potty Time, from Two Little Hands. It uses sign language to help them communicate they have to go potty. My little man loves it and was signing potty after the first day using it. The main jingle is on YouTube, but she also has a longer video you can purchase here.

For books, we opted to go check some out in the library versus buying any. Using the potty isn’t something I hope to read about forever, and we aren’t having any more kids so it wasn’t worth the investment for me. If you are potty training your first little one and know you will have more to follow, buying some potty books might be a good choice for you.

Here are some of our favorites

Now that you have your shopping list, you are ready to take the plunge into potty training.

What are some must items that you bought when you started potty training?