Potty Training
Buy and sell potty training items in Costa Rica.
Most families end up with more potty gear than they planned: a bacinilla on the floor, a reducer ring for the toilet, a step stool for the sink and a stack of cloth training pants that fit for a few months. All of it turns up here new and pre-owned, along with folding ladder seats and travel potties for the car. The detail that catches people out in Costa Rica is the toilet itself, since homes here have both round and elongated bowls and a reducer made for one rocks on the other. Once a child is out of diapers, the whole set is usually ready for the next family.
From the floor potty to the family toilet:
each is a different way into the same habit. A floor potty, the bacinilla, sits low enough for a toddler to manage alone, and the ones with a lift-out bowl are far easier to empty and rinse than one-piece models. Some convert into a step stool afterwards, and musical ones play a tune when used. A reducer ring sits on top of the family toilet seat and shrinks the opening; a ladder seat adds steps and handles so the child climbs up without help, then folds flat against the wall. Folding travel potties with disposable liners ride in the car or in one of the diaper bags, and the diapers, wipes and changing mats of the months before all this sit with baby care.
The toilet bowl decides which reducer fits:
Costa Rican bathrooms have both round and elongated bowls, sometimes both in one house, and a reducer or ladder seat made for a round bowl slides about on an elongated one. Check that the listing says which it is, or that the seat adjusts to both. Rigid plastic rings wipe clean in seconds; padded vinyl ones feel softer but split along the seams and soak up whatever gets into the foam. A ladder seat also needs room to open beside the toilet. A child wary of the height usually starts on a floor potty and moves to a reducer later. And since most Costa Rican homes drain to a septic tank, travel-potty liners and wipes labelled flushable belong in the bin rather than down the toilet.
Why the ladder seat holds its price and the plastic ring does not:
a basic plastic reducer ring costs around ₡3,000 to ₡5,000 new, while a folding ladder seat that doubles as a potty runs about ₡35,000 to ₡40,000. Nobody drives across town for a cheap ring, so it goes in a lot with the potty and the stool. A ladder seat is a rigid frame with little to wear apart from the hinge and the height pins, so a clean, complete one keeps a good part of its price and is the piece most worth buying second-hand.
Checking a second-hand bacinilla against the light:
plastic lasts for years, but the faults hide where cleaning is hardest. Hold the potty and the ring up to a window and look for fine cracks around the rim and the splash guard, where urine sits and staining starts. On padded seats, press along the seams: a split means the foam underneath has been getting wet. The rubber feet and grips should all be there, because a potty that slides on a tiled floor tips a child over. On a ladder seat, open and close it a few times, try every height and push down hard on the bottom step: the pins should lock and the frame should not twist. A musical potty needs its sensor contacts free of green corrosion. On cloth training pants, check the elastic and that the absorbent layer has not gone stiff.
Photos, lots and the toilet shape in a potty listing:
scrub every part, let it dry in the sun and photograph it in daylight with the bowl lifted out. Show the reducer or ladder seat fitted on your own toilet and say whether the bowl is round or elongated. Group what you have: a potty, ring, stool and training pants sorted by size go more easily together than one by one, and an unopened pack of disposable training pants is easy to pass on in its own right. Mention anything missing, from a splash guard to a rubber foot. A parent coming from Barva or Paraíso to collect a ladder seat nearly always wants to unfold it, set the height and lean on the steps before paying, so have it clean and folded by the door.