Baby and Toddler Toileting Gadgets – crazy or genius?

Every now and then someone comes up with a new piece of gear for baby and toddler care that is pure genius.  When they first invented the baby monitor I’m sure parents everywhere were relieved to be able to move their ear away from the nursery door. When non spill valves were added to sippy cups toddlers rejoiced at the freedom to upturn their drinks with wanton abandon. But when some bright spark started selling the Peepee Teepee, basically a little hat for your baby boy’s penis, not everyone was convinced.

In fact, there are hundreds of innovations aimed squarely at your baby or toddler’s toileting habits. But since we’ve got some of the basics to a fairly fine art (think disposable nappies, baby wipes, portable potties…) there are still entrepreneurs out there pushing at the glass ceiling of baby ablutions and eliminations. 

Here are three baby and toddler toileting gadgets that just might be crazy enough to be genius. Unless they are just crazy.

Baby Bathroom Harness

The Babykeeper is a harness for a baby aged 6-18 months that is designed, not to be worn by an adult, but to hang over the door of a public toilet.

This one’s more about your toileting habits, but if you’ve ever had to go to a public toilet with a baby you know the choices you’re faced with are all crap (pun intended!). You can leave your baby in their pram just outside the locked door where they will no doubt be abducted and raised by a cult. You can leave the stall door open with the pram just outside so the cult members coming to use the public bathroom can watch you wee. You can try and cradle your baby in your lap while using the toilet, and probably drop them, Baby 59 style, straight into the bowl. Or you can set them on the floor and pray the germs are no worse than anywhere else your baby sits (side-note: apparently they probably are actually no worse than anywhere else).

This over-the-door-harness may make you feel slightly as if you’re treating you baby like a handbag, but provided you don’t forget to collect them as you leave, may just be the answer to the question: “What happens if I can’t hold it until I get home?”

iPad Potty

The iPotty is a plastic potty with an activity stand for an iPad attached.

Though there is what seems to be incessant talk about whether or not toddlers and young children should use technology like iPads (note to self, write post about whether or not toddlers and children should use technology like iPads) the fact is, millions do. Much advice about potty training centers on the dual issues of keeping the child actually sitting on the potty long enough to see some action, and finding the experience rewarding, or at least not finding the experience upsetting. Having a TV show to watch or an app to play with while learning to use the potty addresses both issues smoothly and simply.

You may cringe at the idea of introducing your child to iPads in general, let alone encouraging them to hunker down on the loo staring at a screen for long periods of time, but when your toddler starts asking to use the potty instead of weeing on your lap or smearing poo on the walls above their cot I suspect it won’t seem such a problem.

Toddler Urinal

The Peter Potty website announces that it is the world’s only flushable toddler urinal. It is exactly what it sounds like, a urinal small enough for the smallest of urinaters, and adjustable as they grow.

Children of both sexes are usually taught to wee sitting down. But many little boys want to stand, like they see their Daddy doing. An adult toilet is too high for a toddler to wee into standing but a regular potty on the floor is too small to aim at. You either have to resign yourself to urine all over the bathroom floor or insist your boy sits to wee until he is much taller.

It’s important to note if you’re using wet wipes to clean up after your toddler, that you do not flush those into the sewer system. Our toilets may take it, but plumbers say that can come back to haunt you when it clogs up the sewers. 

Adding a urinal to your bathroom at home may seem like overkill, but despite the instinct to link them with the smell of stale urine and the general distaste of some public men’s bathrooms, the toddler urinal could be be best way to keep your bathroom floor wee-free while keeping your little man happy.

Join the discussion below, are these gadgets crazy or genius?

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