My Son and I Tested the Latest Toddler Potties

My son is almost 4 now and since he started potty training at age 3, he has used more than 10 different potties, including those that he’s sat on at friends’ houses, at his grandparents’ house, and at school. Of all of them, he’s actually showed the most enthusiasm for a squishy $13 potty seat my mother bought that’s covered in pictures Bluey and Bingo playing Keepy Uppy. Otherwise, the only unprompted praise he has given belongs to Lalo’s three-in-one potty, which he says is very comfortable. He told me this recently after sitting on it for an extended period of time. And while he didn’t choose to elaborate, it’s clear that he likes the wider, roomier seat compared to most other floor potties. The seat, when measured from center opening to outer edge, is 4 inches at its widest part. Most other seats barely exceed 2 inches. As my son gets older and bigger, this makes more of a difference. But it also means that the Lalo potty takes up a lot more space in our bathroom.

The promise of Lalo’s 3-in-1 potty is that it can be used as a floor potty, a training seat, and a step stool. I like the look of it, and the texture of the plastic is slightly matte, giving it a higher-end appearance and a softer feel, which also makes it less likely that a child’s skin will stick to the seat, as can happen with glossier plastic potty seats. Overall, it is solid and supportive both as a floor potty and a training seat with step stool. But when it comes to actually transforming it, things get fiddly. Removing the seat from the floor potty and turning it into a training seat isn’t intuitive, and more generally, there are way too many nooks and crannies between the seat and the bowl and inside the base. These act as a magnet for spilled or sprayed pee, making the whole thing a pain to clean. The hinged seat is cool, but closing it after dumping the bowl requires you to press firmly on an unmarked spot on the back middle part of the seat. It took me multiple attempts to figure this out and my son still can’t do it on his own, which often leads to frustration and whining. But my biggest criticism of this potty is that the wipes dispenser creates confusion about what is ok to flush down the big toilet, and loading the wipes isn’t easy enough to make it worth the extra effort. I like the idea of promoting independence with a dedicated spot for wipes, but I don’t want my kid throwing wipes (even the “flushable” kind) into the toilet and risking a plumbing emergency.

This potty training seat is Frida’s recent take on a similar design that has existed for years. It attaches to the underside of the toilet lid via a flexible strap with suction cups on one end. When you’re not using it, the seat can be flipped up and clipped onto a plastic tab on the end of the strap. It’s a good idea, but in practice it isn’t actually any more convenient than other training seats I tried, the Bluey one included. I like that it’s a very lightweight and minimal piece of equipment. But it also doesn’t work as well as I hoped it would. When flipped up and clipped in place it doesn’t lay flat against the lid, and wiggles around loosely. My son was so curious about it that he ended up pulling it off the toilet lid most of the time. It’s meant to stay attached to the lid, but the suction cups aren’t all that secure. And it doesn’t have a hook or loop for hanging, so it ended up on our bathroom floor a lot, adding to other clutter. There are lots of other brands selling 2-in-1 adult and child toilet seats similar to this one but better. In fact, Jool Baby, one of the other brands I tested below, sells an elongated toilet seat with a training seat nested inside that’s more substantial but feels like a better long term solution.

Traveling while potty training is an adventure at the best of times and even kids who are confidently diaper-free often need a toddler-sized potty seat to use away from home. So if you don’t want to pack a floor potty for every vacation or weekend away, portable seats like this one are a good option that can be used on top of most regular toilets. Frida’s version has been around for a few years, but what sets it apart from long-established similar seats from brands like Munchkin and Baby Björn is is the foldability — when tucked into its drawstring bag, I am able to pack this potty seat into a medium-sized purse or tote bag and it weighs less than a pound. Its compactness makes it ideal for traveling alone with my son to see my parents or for long days out where we will need to use public bathrooms. It has two tabs on the sides for kids to steady themselves so they don’t end up touching germy toilet seats. I still haven’t found a toilet seat it doesn’t fit onto, and it stays in place pretty well. My only complaints are that it doesn’t have a hook or a loop for hanging it up when it’s not in use and it doesn’t have a splash guard, which has been key for reducing mess in my experience. So while it’s a great on-the-go option, it’s not great as a primary potty seat to use for a week at grandma’s house or in a hotel. I’d rather pack something that’s a little bit bigger but that can be used in a wider variety of situations.

This training seat from Baby Björn has been around for awhile, so it’s more a part of the old-guard of toddler potties; that’s why I wanted to see how it compares to newer models. It is well designed, sturdy, easy to clean, and easy to store thanks to its silicone handle/loop on the back. It is also more than twice the price of the Frida foldable potty seat and just as expensive as Lalo’s much bigger three-in-one potty. It’s not marketed as a travel potty seat, but if you are traveling by car or have a little bit more room it’s easy enough to use as a travel potty seat. The Baby Björn seat is contoured for comfort and to help encourage proper positioning. Part of that contouring also acts as a splash guard in the front. I like how supportive it is and how a dial on the underside of the seat allows parents to adjust it for a tight fit on top of any toilet. (One drawback, however, is that the dial can get grimy.)

Strategist lead editor Lauren Levy used this seat as her primary toddler potty (along with a Baby Björn step stool) with her now 6-year-old daughter and still uses it with her son who is 3 years old. “I have it on a hook that hangs off the side of the vanity so he can take it and put it on himself, or we put it on for him,” Levy says. So far, my son is much less adept at putting it on and taking it off of the toilet on his own. And therefore, when we use it at home he ends up flushing the toilet without closing the lid — eek — or asking me and my husband for help every time he uses the bathroom. He is much more independent when using the Baby Björn floor potty reviewed below.

When children are first going without diapers, it’s important to have a place for them to pee ready at a moment’s notice. This tried-and-true OXO portable potty — another member of the old-guard — is a long-time favorite among toddler parents because it folds up small and can be used on its own pretty much anywhere, from a soccer field to a to the side of the road. It can also be used as a potty seat in a restaurant or train station bathroom. The legs fold down or out to the side, transforming it into a floor potty that uses plastic bags to collect pee and poop or a training potty seat that fits on top of regular toilets. So it can be used in a variety of ways and by kids at multiple stages of potty training. Four other Strategist parents, including Levy, have also used or still use the OXO portable potty as an on-the-go option. “Our OXO potty was always with us, either in the stroller or in the car where it definitely got emergency use during road trips,” says senior editor Winnie Yang. The main drawbacks of this potty are that some kids don’t like the feeling of sitting over the plastic bag liner, and it doesn’t have a hook for hanging.

For half the price of Lalo’s three-in-one toddler potty you can get this new four-in-one potty from Jool Baby that comes with an adapter to make the bowl into an adjustable height urinal that clips onto the side of a regular toilet via the seat. It isn’t as high-end looking and it’s not as sturdy, but for the price it is a fantastic product that does what it advertises: grows with kids as they hit potty training milestones.

The seat is comfortable, with a deep bowl and splash guard that does a great job of containing everything even when my son is distracted or rushing. It also has fewer nooks and crannies than the Lalo and is easier for my son to empty without making a mess, thanks to the more elongated shape of the bowl insert. It’s very intuitive to switch from using it as a floor potty to a training seat to a urinal — just note that the urinal still needs to be removed from its perch and emptied into the toilet, which took some practice for my son to do without spilling. And the base, which also becomes a step stool, has silicone grips on both the top and bottom edges so it won’t slide when used in either position. When you turn it over to use it as a step stool, it also has grips on the top to help steady kids as they step up. What I love about it most of all is that it can be used as a urinal, which has helped my son understand the logistics of peeing while standing up without getting pee all over the place. And he still loves using it even though he is now tall enough to go without it.

Baby Björn’s Smart Potty is a well-known classic and it’s the potty that all of my mom friends recommended to me and that I see most often in other people’s houses. I found it easiest to clean of all the potties I have tested with my son. It’s also the easiest for him to empty on his own, as the base is designed with an indentation just below the splash guard so little hands know exactly where to grab and lift. This means he learned to do it himself quickly and has almost never spilled the contents — he dumps the contents into the big toilet before closing the lid and flushing, all by himself. The whole thing is very smooth, so it can be rinsed or wiped clean quickly. And it’s shorter than both the Lalo and the Jool Baby, so my son was able to sit comfortably on his own from the time he was 2 years old when we first introduced it. In fact, it’s short enough that I think he could have sat comfortably as a 1-year-old as well. The downside of this is that as he has grown the seat has become less comfortable, which is probably why he raved about the wide seat of the Lalo.

Baby Björn also makes a version of this potty with a higher back and “armrests” that Yang has at her apartment, and while she likes it, she told me that her kids never rested their arms on the sides and that she finds all floor potties annoying to clean, so she always encouraged her kids to use a potty seat trainer as soon as possible. Still, despite its lack of extra features, Baby Björn’s Smart Potty is my favorite of all the ones I tested because of its simple, relatively attractive design that makes my daily life less annoying. It doesn’t take up too much space, it’s easy for my son to use independently, and it’s easy to clean. It doesn’t transform into anything. But it’s the toddler potty I have had the longest and it’s well built enough that when my family is done using it I can hand it down to friends with younger children.