Observe your child over a few days to see when they do a wee or a poo. Identifying a regular pattern can help you take your child to the toilet with an increased likelihood of them doing a wee or poo. This then leads to positive reinforcement. Flush toilets can be designed for sitting or squatting. Top: A flush toilet, with cistern, designed for sitting; Bottom: A squat toilet, with water tank for flushing ( Wuhan, China) [1] [2] Before you say goodbye to diapers forever, equip your little one with a solid potty chair or seat for the journey ahead. Some kids may begin potty training as early as 18 months, but readiness is critical for a successful journey. Whether you prefer a stand-alone potty, a toilet insert, or a combination of both, we put 22 of them through multiple tests to find the best potty chairs and seats for your child.

This portable campervan toilet from Dometic is a larger version of the 972, coming with a waste tank capacity of 18.9 litres, as opposed to 8.7 litres in the more compact option. This means it’s a bit bigger than its smaller counterpart and weighs a bit more too. Despite this, it’s still fairly small, and at less than 5kg, it’s a manageable weight too, so should be fairly easy to transport. An accessible toilet is designed to accommodate people with physical disabilities, such as age related limited mobility or inability to walk due to impairments. Additional measures to add toilet accessibility are providing more space and grab bars to ease transfer to and from the toilet seat, including enough room for a caregiver if necessary.

"I think I might have..."

A typical flush toilet is a ceramic bowl (pan) connected on the "up" side to a cistern (tank) that enables rapid filling with water, and on the "down" side to a drain pipe that removes the effluent. When a toilet is flushed, the sewage should flow into a septic tank or into a system connected to a sewage treatment plant. However, in many developing countries, this treatment step does not take place.

We took time setting up the potty chairs following the manufacturer’s directions. While testing each potty training chair, we paid attention to the potty chair/seat size, describing whether it took up too much space or was small enough to fit in a corner. While some potty chairs and seats didn’t take up much space, others had to be placed against a wall when not in use, like the Skyroku Potty Training Seat. Music festival toilets are infamously grim. Revellers often take matters into their own hands and urinate against trees. The health risks are low, but urine burns leaves and contains smelly ammonia. To encourage a more sanitary practice, organisers of the Roskilde music festival in Denmark strapped these brightly coloured urinals to trees. Known as P-trees, they are made of recycled plastic and have a hose that funnels urine into an underground tank. PBO reader Stefan Leschner says ‘Air Head’ is the way to go. The Air Head compost toilet is a durable, waterless toilet suitable for canalboats, campervans, caravans, yachts and motorhomes. While the BabyBjörn Smart Potty earned our top spot, the Munchkin Arm & Hammer 3-in-1 Potty was close behind with its high performance in all testing categories. It not only functions as a potty chair, but also features a removable trainer seat to place on a full-size toilet. Plus, it doubles as a sturdy step stool to reach the big toilet seat or make washing hands easier. Despite not having anti-slip material on the bottom of the potty, we had zero issues with stability thanks to the potty chair’s wide base and easy-to-grip handle. When changing your child's nappy, do this where the toilet is so they can start relating toileting activities to the bathroom.

Andreas N. Angelakis, ed. (2014). Evolution of Sanitation and Wastewater Technologies Through the Centuries. International Water Association Publishing. p.32. ISBN 9781780404844. Follow the same steps each time: sleeves up, tap on, wet hands, squirt soap, rub hands together, rinse hands, turn off tap, shake hands, dry hands.