Anyone have experience with seats that fit over a regular toilet, thus skipping over the potty seat altogether?

The big Baby Bjorn potty (the one shown here) is the most comfortable potty my kids ever had. We had a few before that but they were not comfy for my oldest (who was tall for his age, even at 2.5 when he potty trained) to sit on so he didn't like to use them. The Baby Bjorn was the only one we found he found comfy. It was also very comfy for my middle son who was not as tall as my oldest.

It is also very easy to clean, and to teach the child to empty (fiddly is a no-go in my book for a potty).

They are so good that we bought one to leave at both grandparents too. It was well worth it because in about 6 months child number three will be using them too.

Baby Bjorn potties pair comfort with practicality.

@ eLLEbEE -Yes we just got done with potty training our 3yr old adn we used the seat that fits over the regular seat. we got the generic ones from babies R us with diego picture on it.
je used that only initially...now he sits on the potty without the seat.

Personally - i think while these seats are cool - totally unnecessary.

ElleBee - I think we're going to do a roundup of those as well so stay tuned!

I thought they were unnecessary too. Even free-cyled the hand me down chair we got. . And THEN my 2.5 year old couldn't go poop on the toilet because her feet didn't touch the ground. Seriously, she needed to push it out. So back to the potty chair we went. The big Baby Bjorn chair is a winner for us. I'd love to be potty chair free. But I think some kids really do benefit from the smaller squat.

The smaller bjorn potty is very popular too: http://www.amazon.com/BabyBj%C3%B6rn-050021US-BABYBJ%C3%96RN-Little-Potty/dp/B0009OLSYO

http://www.amazon.com/Growing-Green-Bamboo-Potty-Natural/dp/B002ACOY3K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=baby-products&qid=1268161280&sr=8-1

we have that, and our 26 month old uses it regularly. We have an ikea potty for the car, for emergencies, and we use the bjorns, too. Don't bother with the soft-seated ones, especially that ridunkulous $40 prince lionheart one. What you want is solid plastic, to wipe down, over and over, and store for the next one.

skipping these & going straight to the toilet sounds great, but 19 month old pipsqueak is obsessed with using the potty on her own, which she couldn't do without these little seats. We got her the Ikea version & though we're certainly not pushing to train her this young, we're thrilled she's so excited to show us her new trick - and on such a cheap seat :)

Potty chairs gross me out b/c of the cleanup factor so I didn't buy one for my son initially--just went with the seat that goes on top of the toilet (here).

Then after a few weeks he still wasn't getting it, so, desperate, I went back to Target and bought a 3-in-1 guy that in its different configurations can be a potty chair, a seat on top of the toilet, and a stepstool. I figured I would line the bowl with Saran Wrap to aid in cleanup. Fortunately, Theo decided that day that he would use the toilet so I returned the chair and never had to clean poop out of one of those things.

I have a stepstool (basic plastic Ikea one) next to the toilet so he can have some leverage when pushing is necessary.

It helps that he was already 3 and somewhat tall when he started this process. I think if I train a 2-year-old in the future (especially my daughter, who is small for her age) I might rethink my position on potty chairs.

Despite my prejudice I do think potty chairs are really cute.

@ElleBee - we used & loved this, along with a stepstool:
http://www.inventiveparent.com/cgi-bin/shopper.cgi?preadd=action&key=BATLPPST

We did start w/ the Baby Bjorn potty seat though - depending on the age that you start at, you might need it.

Our favorite potty chair was $3.99 at Ikea.

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/70141228

I bought 3 of these. One to keep upstairs, one to keep downstairs, and one to keep in the car. They're cheap and easy to clean. Worked perfectly.

My son's favorite is the Ikea one. My daughter uses the one that looks like the squarer one in the second row (ours is a kandoo or something like that) it works for her because she can sit with her legs together my son couldn't.

Our oldest we tried the seat topper for the reg sized toilet and it was harder because he had a hard time getting up there on his own with out feeling like her was going to fall in or tip the seat so he also went to the potty chair until he was big enough to get up onto the reg toilet himself.

The Bjorn potty chair is great. I was upset when my wife purchased the Bjorn "toilet trainer" immediately afterwards. I felt that it would be counter-productive. It wasn't immediately, but at some point our daughter decided that the potty chair was too small and wanted to use the other. That led to requests for help.

We went from a self-sufficient kid to one that asks for help half the time. My advice is to not mix them.

pinksparklies: I definitely know that many kids are just fine on the inexpensive seats, but they are all different. If your kid isn't comfortable it makes learning to use the potty pretty impossible.

We actually tried the IKEA one and a couple other of the cheap smallish ones and my son was just sooo uncomfortable. He was also uncomfortable on one of the seats you stick right on the toilet. The only one he was ever comfy on was the big Baby Bjorn one. It was worth the $25 I paid for it at the time because he could actually use it.

And it definitely IS a comfy potty chair because my younger son and various other kids we know have loved it too.

But I definitely glad the IKEA potty worked for you. I would have been over the moon if it had been good for us.

We got to try out the Prince Lionheart and, while expensive, it had a super soft seat, an easy to clean bowl, could adjust to two different heights and an anti-microbial seat.

With that said, we keep an Ikea one in the car!

we keep the big bjorn in the living room, the little bjorn in the car, and a little toilet seat in the upstairs bathroom. we are prepared for all potty emergencies!

Okay... My little guy is a bit away from having to do the potty training thing... (He's just over a year.) So I am new to all this... But what do you do with a potty in the CAR? (I mean, I get the part that you are out in the middle of nowhere and you gotta go... But then what? (Oh boy... Can't he just stay in diapers and just magically know how to use the potty? I know, I know.)

There are solutions like these for travelling: http://www.onestepahead.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=534860&parentCategoryId=85184&categoryId=85218
Or you can just bring your regular potty and dispose of contents at a rest stop or road side (do I hear a collective "Eeeeewwwww" from the childfree? Hey, dog owners do it. XD).

But I have to say I love the BabyBjorn Little Potty. My daughter is small and not comfortable on big pottys yet, but Little Potty lets her feet stand comfortably on the floor and forces her to squat which helps with business. So if you are looking for potty for babies of around 1 year that is the choice I think. All others are simply too big yet. And "potty training" at this age is really just putting them on a potty after a nap. It's pretty predictable that they will pee then and that gets them used to the idea of peeing not in a diaper.

The big Bjorn is the most comfortable one we have found, and it's so easy to clean (just dump and rinse well each time, and then disinfect once daily). No bags, etc. And it has the perfect amount/shape of back support. We use this one from One Step Ahead in the car - we use biodegradable bags (or used plastic shopping bags in a pinch) http://www.onestepahead.com/catalog/product.jsp?productId=361755. Can't recommend the bag model highly enough for travel.

Thanks verasue! NOW... I get it. (And I hate to admit that the dogie reference helped. I am still a little mush brained...) And thanks for the link!

Gotta say, I'm lucky (in some respects-- he wasn't trained til 4) that my son started using the regular toilet right away and had no anxiety issues about the water, hole, flushing, etc. I asctually took the little (tiny!) bjorn potty we had away since I saw no point in scooping poop and dumping pee (or finding out that he had decided to dump the pee himself-- oh joy) out of one vessel into another if he was capable of cutting out that step. We'll see how it goes with my two year old though, every kid is different and I'll keep these recommendations in mind.

We have the boon bench and love it. In order to train my kids, having a potty where they are most of the time helped so we put it in the livingroom. We also had one in the bathroom but the bench worked great in the livingroom because while closed it doesn't look like a potty. My 2 year old trained quickly and now uses the bench to climbed on to the toilet.