Potty Training
Buy and sell potties and potty seats in Panama.
Leaving diapers behind needs less kit than the shelves suggest. Most homes start with a floor potty a small child can sit on alone, then move to a reducer seat on the family toilet, with a step stool in front once the child wants to copy the grown-ups. A folding seat that lives in the car makes the long weekend drive to Chiriquí or Azuero easier. All of it turns up new and pre-owned, often in one bundle, from a family whose youngest has just finished. Before you pick a reducer, look down at your toilet and note whether the bowl is round or elongated.
From the floor potty to the reducer on the family toilet:
most children start low, because they can sit down alone without being lifted. The simplest potty is one piece of plastic with a splash guard at the front; others have a removable inner pot, a lid, or the shape and seat of a miniature toilet, sometimes with a button that plays a flush sound. Three-in-one models come apart into a potty, a reducer seat and a step, which is why they are what families pass on most. A reducer seat skips the potty stage and puts the child straight onto the family toilet. It needs a step stool in front, which later earns its place at the sink. Training pants and a waterproof mattress protector cover the accidents; bath and changing gear sit in baby care.
Fitting a reducer seat and a step stool to your bathroom:
reducers are made for either round or elongated bowls, and one that rocks on the rim can put a child off for weeks. Look for rubber grips underneath and a lip that locks inside the bowl; handles at the sides steady a nervous child, and a hook lets the seat hang by the cistern when the adults need the toilet. A step stool should have rubber feet and a textured top, since a bathroom floor is often wet tile. Folding reducers are the ones worth owning for the long drive to Chiriquí or Azuero, when the stop is a gas station restroom at Divisa: one folds flat into a side pocket of the diaper bag, and a travel potty with disposable liners covers the stretches where there is nowhere to stop.
Paying for the flush button and the music:
a plain plastic potty costs around $10 to $20 new, and a three-in-one or a miniature toilet with a lid, a step and sound effects runs about $30 to $45. A good reducer seat with handles sits between the two. Second-hand, the plain potty is worth little on its own, because it is cheap new and many parents would rather not reuse one, so it moves as part of a bundle. The three-in-one holds more of its price, but only with every piece present and the sound button still working: the inner pot and the splash guard are what go missing, and nobody sells them separately.
Where a second-hand potty seat shows its age:
hold the plastic up to the light. Hairline cracks around the rim and at the base of the splash guard trap urine and cannot be scrubbed out. The rubber grips on reducers harden with age and cleaning products until the seat slides. On a model with a sound button, unscrew the battery cover: corroded contacts mean liquid got in, and the electronics rarely recover. Padded and foam seats split along their seams and soak up whatever gets underneath, so skip those used. A mattress protector that crackles and flakes no longer protects anything. Cloth training pants are worth taking only unworn with the tags on, and disposable ones only in a sealed pack.
A potty kit washed, dried and photographed in pieces:
most come up when a child has been dry for a while, or when a younger sibling went straight to the reducer and the potty never left the cupboard. Wash every part, let it dry completely and photograph it taken apart. Say whether the reducer is for a round or an elongated bowl, list every piece of a three-in-one and name the one that is missing, and test the sound button with fresh batteries. Unopened packs of training pants are worth listing on their own with the size showing, since they are exactly what is left over when a child sizes up before the pack runs out. A parent coming from Juan Díaz for the bundle will want to see the three-in-one click together, so bring it assembled with the batteries in.