Tales from the Potty: Teaching them to Aim
I am completed outnumbered 3 to 1 in my household. While the boys are great about leaving the seat and lid down, as far as toilet etiquette is concerned, there's much room for improvement. I oftentimes find myself on my hands and knees cleaning up the after effects of a last minute dash to the bathroom whereby my oldest son barely has time to wiggle out of his underwear. He shoots. Some of it goes in. Most make it on the seat, while the rest dribbles down the toilet. Living with boys is certainly messy. Other than teaching them to pee sitting down (which in my humble opinion is sort of an odd request of what appears to be an utterly primal behavior), how do you teach your boys to aim and pee so that it lands within a reasonable target? At what age do they start developing better bathroom etiquette? Or is this just something I have to live with?
well, depends on the age. i have a 3 and 4yo and i had them sitting down to train them. it may seem instinctual to stand, though they were just copying their father when they started, but i changed that. i remember a friend telling me that her mom makes her father sit down to pee because no matter how careful they are, there is still toilet water splatter that happens that you can't get away from 100%. and her father obliges because, quite frankly, it's disgusting if you're the one who has to clean up, and, he respected her and did as she wished. i thought that was sweet. we women do so much for our men, do we really have to clean up their pee, too?? so i had no qualms about making them sit. however, as they got older, i let the older one stand and shoot because he's not too bad at it, and it's necessary in public. the younger one though, when he's standing and aiming, especially when he has to go bad and it comes out fast, it shoots "up" outta the hole and, uh, you know, goes EVERYWHERE. so he's a sitter.
did this help at all?? not reallY?? sorry. i've read about the cheerio-in-the-toilet target practice...good luck!
Posted by: shannon | February 01, 2008 at 09:33 PM
I could not resist a comment. The Schiphol airport in the Netherlands also had this problem. They came up with an award winning solution. For a photo see http://www.urinal.net/schiphol/ They painted a fly in the urinals. I have a first hand report that given a target men will aim. However, I don't know if there is a home version.
Posted by: Lynn | February 01, 2008 at 09:55 PM
I know when potty training toddlers to pee standing up it is recommended to toss a cheerio into the toilet bowl. He shoots, he scores!
Other than that, I say get a small sponge mop. :)
Posted by: anne | February 01, 2008 at 10:06 PM
I've found giving them a target works. They sell little "targets" that dissolve in the water and are septic tank safe. If you are attached to a main sewer line and don't have the septic worries, Fruit Loops work pretty well, too.
Another trick is to put just a small amount of dish washing soap in the water so they can "make bubbles." My son still likes to "make bubbles" like Daddy!
Posted by: Frugal Dad | February 02, 2008 at 08:12 AM
We taught them to pee sitting down from the get-go. By the time they were old enough to want to pee standing up (4-ish?), they were coordinated enough to do so. Sorry, that's not helpful.
But I hear you on being outnumbered. The three of them are rolling around on the floor chortling over the hilarious connotations of the word "stinky" and I'm sitting on the couch thinking that for the rest of my life I'll never get an honest answer to the question, "How do I look in this?"
Posted by: Zinemama | February 02, 2008 at 09:01 AM
Oh, this hits home. My son is finally getting better but I can not count the number of times I have sat down on a pee-wet toilet seat. Eeeew!
It didn't solve the problem completely, and it might not be appropriate for a really little one, but we finally made him clean the toilet a couple of times. Once he experienced for himself how un-fun it is to clean up pee on the floor, pee on the seat, pee on the toilet, he was way more careful about getting the seat up all the way before he cut loose. So I guess this is a bit of a natural consequences approach. If he's messy, he has to clean up the mess.
Posted by: Janice | February 02, 2008 at 09:31 AM
We are going through the same thing and I'm so tired of the yellow ring around the base of the toilet. My son is 3 and I'm not sure whether it's worth the fight right now. But sometimes I do worry that he will have bad aim even as a 10 yr old, which I truly hope isn't the case.
We used to do the cheerio thing, but he is so independent now that he goes before I even know he has gone.
No real ideas here other than regular clean-up.
Posted by: anon | February 02, 2008 at 03:31 PM
So, not a huge issue at our house yet, but I'm sure it's coming with two boys and a dad and then me. Reading some of these responses and the idea of something to aim at makes me wonder about putting something in the toilet, like those things you can stick to the bathtub, that will always be there and can be a target. Would that work?
Posted by: mom22 | February 02, 2008 at 04:50 PM
My sister has 3 boys and as soon as they were old enough, one of their chores became cleaning the bathroom. Once they were the ones who had to clean around the toilet, they made more of an effort to aim better.
Posted by: marsina | February 02, 2008 at 05:03 PM
That's hilarious, Lynn! I always knew the dutch were ingenious. Thanks for sharing.
Posted by: Hau | February 03, 2008 at 09:20 PM
I am outnumbered 3:1 as well. This toilet issue drives me crazy, because I just don't understand how their aim can be so bad that it drips down the outside of the toilet, around the floor, etc.---a big, stinky mess that I have no part of creating!
I have asked my husband to help with this, and when he sees some of the damage starting to show up, I asked him to grab the clorox wipes and do a quick wipe down. (these are conveniently located near the toilet) This is helping a bit, but I guess it's something that I will need to learn to live with.
On a lighter note, today is my birthday and my husband gave me six homemade gift certificates this morning that are each good for one toilet cleaning ON DEMAND. I think these were my favorite gift so far!
Posted by: kathy | February 05, 2008 at 11:29 AM
we started off with little bits of tp in the bowl (never seemed to have cheerios in the bathroom when I needed it), but since he now goes by himself (he's 4), there's no targets on hand. The majority of the time it goes in, but not always, and for the messy times I keep the Method cleaning wipes on hand and just give everything a good swipe. But to tell the truth, I'd love it if my husband always got every drop in the bowl...or at least cleaned up as often as I'd like him to! In his defense he is a mean bathroom cleaning machine, but it's the everyday maintenance that is often lost on men, right? So at least my son has good company with the errant urine!
Posted by: Laura S. | February 05, 2008 at 02:24 PM