Baby Potties Review

Analyzing reviews of potty chairs and potty seats

Children's potties come in two styles. Potty seats (sometimes called toilet rings) are designed to sit on top of a regular toilet seat and are sized for a toddler, while standalone potty chairs, which resemble mini toilets, sit on the floor. Of the two, potty chairs are more elaborate, often with storage for toilet paper or wipes, and some even play music after a toddler successfully eliminates.

Potty seats have a couple advantages over potty chairs. They don't require much cleanup after a little one has done his business, and once a child has been trained using a potty seat, there is no need to retrain her to use the adult toilet, because she's already used to sitting on it. Potty seats snap onto an adult toilet seat and must be removed for an adult to use the toilet, although some models flip up like a toilet lid when not in use. They also take up less space than a potty chair, which is useful for parents who have limited bathroom space.

Potty chairs have a few advantages of their own. Their small size makes them well suited for toddlers who have a fear of standard toilets or flat-out refuse to use them. Such children may respond best to potty chairs that make potty training fun by playing music or sound effects, or that offer rewards like stickers, parents and experts note. Models with built-in storage offer a convenient place to stash wipes or cleaning products.

Parents who are unsure about which potty-training device to use (or how their child will respond) may want to consider multi-functional potties, which can be used as both a potty chair and a potty seat. With these, the seat can be removed from the potty chair and placed on the toilet like a potty seat; in many cases, these models can also be used as a stepstool to help a child reach the sink. Multifunctional potties also work well for parents who want to start their child off on a potty chair and then transition to a potty seat before eliminating the potty seat altogether when he can comfortably sit on the adult toilet.

The most recent edition of the popular baby gear book "Baby Bargains" by consumer advocates Denise and Alan Fields includes a brief write-up of potties, including recommendations for several potty chairs and potty seats. ConsumerReports.org offers a buying guide for potty chairs, which includes an alphabetical list of major manufacturers but doesn't include testing or ratings. We also found several reviews of potty seats and chairs on the design-oriented parenting website Ohdeedoh.com, including two overall category roundups with product recommendations and two individual product reviews. The two roundups are particularly useful because they include comments from parents who discuss performance and features.

Another useful article can be found on the Family Travel & Vacations Blog, where reviewers discuss four potty chairs designed for traveling, listing the pros and cons of each product (one of the four models mentioned in this article has since been discontinued). We also found roundups of potty chairs on Babble.com, BabyGizmo.com and About.com. Each of these reviews consists of a list of recommended potty chairs along with a brief description of each, although it doesn't appear that any formal testing has been conducted.

There are hundreds of owner-written reviews for several models on Amazon.com. Additional parent opinions can be found at Walmart.com, Epinions.com, Target.com and Diapers.com. Owner-written reviews on sites like these are an excellent source of information on potty chairs and potty seats because parents and caregivers can attest to the practicality of a potty's design and long-term durability. For example, we found several comments on various review sites advising parents to look for potty chairs that have splash guards (designed to prevent a boy's urine from splashing over the front potty edge) made of soft plastic, because those made with hard plastic can bump into a little boy's penis when he is trying to sit down, potentially causing potty anxiety.

Two potty chairs get consistently negative feedback from owners. Experts and parents are particularly divided over the Safety 1st 3-in-1 Comfy Cushy Potty (*Est. $20). It's recognized as a best potty in a review on Ohdeedoh.com, although the author provides no further detail or substantiation beyond listing the products she recommends. In a review on Bestcovery.com, Jenny Wagner also recommends the Safety 1^st Comfy Cushy Potty because it can be used as a potty chair, as a potty seat and as a stepstool. About three dozen owners reviewing the Comfy Cushy Potty on Amazon.com disagree, however, giving this product a low average rating of 2.5 stars out of five. While there are a few parents who praise this potty for its comfortable seat and say it's easy to take apart and clean, the majority complains that the soft seat on this potty is like a sponge, absorbing moisture from urine and feces, which is both unsanitary and smelly.

The Fisher-Price Royal Stepstool Potty (*Est. $20) earns an average rating of 3.5 stars out of five, based on over 20 owner-written reviews on Amazon.com. The Royal Stepstool Potty is designed to look like a throne and comes in a blue version for boys and a pink version for girls. The hinged lid allows it to function as a stepstool when it's in the down position, and the boys' version has a removable deflector. The inner potty bowl can be removed for cleaning, and the seat can be attached to a toilet as a potty seat as well. This chair plays music to reward children after they've used the potty, which most parents seem to like, although we did find a few complaints that it goes off too easily (even in the middle of the night). There are many complaints about the various parts of this potty being too easily removed by a toddler, and several parents say the urine deflector can pinch a little boy's penis. Likewise, the lid can be easily removed when in stepstool mode, and many parents say the inner bowl is too small and it leaks.