Potty Training Away from Home: How to Help When Your Toddler Won’t Use a Different Toilet

If your toddler won’t use the potty away from home — at daycare, travel, or Grandma’s — you’re not the only one. Here’s what to do.

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PSA for potty training parents….you need to get outside and explore bathrooms! 

In my client work as a potty training consultant, I’m hearing from more and more parents reporting that…

“I haven’t left the house with her.”

And that’s a problem when your toddler only uses one potty. Especially when your toddler won’t use the potty away from home — at school, daycare, or public toilets — and freezes in new bathrooms. Travel is an important part of potty training and your toddler's routine (Block Three in Oh Crap Potty Training to be exact). 

Many toddlers can look “fully potty trained” in one environment and then completely shut down in another. That doesn’t mean potty training failed (or that you failed) — it means your toddler needs help transferring skills to new bathrooms. 

You need to practice GETTING OUT with your toddler. Exploring bathrooms. Other toilets. (But be sure to bring your travel potty.) 

Do you have a potty training toddler who’s afraid of the school potty, or is your child afraid of public toilets?

If you’re seeing this at school already, I wrote a full breakdown on why toddlers refuse preschool bathrooms and what patterns to watch for.

So let’s talk through WHY this happens and what you can do…

You finally have potty training down — and then your child clams up at Grandma’s house or the preschool bathroom.

🪞 1. The “Only My Potty” Phase Is Real for Some Toddlers

• The toddler can start to attach to their small potty and see it as the only safe potty. Many parents I work with report that their toddler is amazing at using the potty — if it’s their small potty at home.

  
  

• This is a common problem. And what often happens is the phase becomes a pattern if you don’t get under it. That pattern becomes reinforced if your toddler doesn’t get exposure and experience in using a potty outside the home. Or using a flushing toilet.

• A typical scenario happens when these Only My Potty toddlers head to daycare or preschool: they will NOT use the school potty. Commonly, the child will get on the potty when directed during potty breaks, but they do not release any pee. An accident happens later, after holding it in a long time. Other toddlers will HOLD IT until they are back home to their safe, small potty.

🧠 2. Why Kids Refuse New Bathrooms and Caregivers

Sometimes the anxiety is related to the school potty or public toilet. 

Sometimes the issue is peeing or pooping in the potty without you, the parents:

• Sensory overload can cause problems for some toddlers. Public bathrooms are designed for adults, not toddlers. Think about all the new sounds, smells, big toilets, and automatic flushers you run into with public toilets. Not to mention the lack of stepstools for toddlers to reach the sink. 

  
  

Does your toddler already have issues with loud noises? Automatic flushers, hand dryers, smells, and echoing stalls can trigger a full-body “NOPE” for some toddlers in public bathrooms. 

• Some toddlers only feel safe toileting with their person. Lack of ownership or control throws off some Tiny Dictator toddlers. This is the age that can have strong feelings about what is theirs (it’s not “their potty”) or who is helping them (even preferring one parent to help). And a switch to a teacher, grandparent, or babysitter can lead to withholding.

Toddlers are in the peak “mine / not mine” phase. A home potty feels like “mine.” A school potty does not.

• Separation anxiety can show up when the child is in a new classroom or new situation apart from you. That can lead to withholding pee patterns. Some toddlers are sensitive to privacy (especially after learning at home) and struggle with the potty break lineup of kids waiting on them at preschool. Cheerleading teachers can shut some toddlers down who don’t like the spotlight on them. 

  
  

• Withholding is a problem that can be easy to miss because your child may be pooping daily, and you’re not seeing poop accidents. But commonly, withholding is the root cause when I’m working with parents reporting that their toddler is struggling all day at school — especially withholding pee at preschool or daycare.

  
  

Sometimes it looks like nerves — but it’s actually early withholding.

The child gets on the potty but does not release, then either has an accident later or waits until they get home to let it all out. That is a pattern, not a phase.

From one mom:

He refuses to wee when he is with anyone else but me, resulting in him holding onto wee all morning. 

👉If you’re starting to see real withholding, that’s exactly the point when parents typically book my Withholding Plan — because you don’t want to let that pattern set in.

✏️ 3.Why Daycare and Preschool Bathrooms Are Especially Hard

Even a confident at-home potty training toddler can shut down at school for reasons like:

Public performance pressure

The herding mentality works well for some toddlers. For others? Line-ups, kids waiting, “go now” deadlines, and lack of privacy create pressure that makes releasing nearly impossible for some nervous systems.

Waiting too long for the one potty

Some toddlers struggle at daycare or preschool because the line is long to use the one or two potties or toilets available in class. This can happen a lot in the transition from recess to naptime, when your child may have a hard time getting to the potty in time.

New attachment environment

Separation from you + a new teacher + new rules = emotional load that shows up in the bathroom first.

They sit — but don’t release

Many teachers say, “She sits!” — but sitting isn’t the same as using the potty. The child then holds their pee until home, or has an accident later. That’s a classic early-holding pattern when a toddler won't use the potty away from home. Check in to be sure your child is doing more than just sitting on the school potty — you want to know your child is actually releasing pee in the school potty or daycare potty.

🍎 Get the Complete Blueprint For Potty Training Success at Daycare or Preschool Right Here! 👉 Oh Crap Daycare Blueprint

🪜 4. What to Try First: When Your Toddler Won’t Use Any Potty Away from Home

Start with getting your potty training toddler out of the house to try and score some quick wins at a friend’s house, Grandma's house, or at school. If your toddler only uses one potty, you want to stretch them to experience potty wins in other settings.

• Bring something familiar to the new bathroom (foldable seat, wipes, travel potty). Sometimes something as simple as having wet wipes (rather than using the rougher toilet paper in public bathrooms) can help smooth the transition for your newly potty trained toddler. You can also put your toddler in charge of WHERE the travel potty gets set up in the new bathroom.

  
  

  🚙 Headed on a roadtrip? Here’s how to prep the car for potty training.

  
  

• Practice bathroom “field trips”. Don’t wait until a high-stakes moment with the first day of preschool. Start early, exploring new bathrooms wherever you go in your everyday routines. Build practice into normal life — rather than the idea of “holding it” until you get home. 

Here we are at the library. Our first stop is to check out the library bathroom. You can use your green potty or the library potty. Then you’ll pick your books. 

• Narrate the differences in the public bathroom, without any drama. So you’re modeling confidence in using a potty away from home. Call out something funny or interesting to reduce tension.

This bathroom is loud, ours is quiet — but both work.

 This bathroom is yellow, ours is blue. You can still pee here.

• Avoid pressure — keep your tone calm and curious. You’re not setting an ultimatum that your child needs to use the supermarket’s potty or else. You want to stay regulated and clear on the expectation. Watch that you’re avoiding a cajoling tone of voice. Curiosity and repetition work better than pushing.

• Build up to bigger public restrooms. So you don’t head straight to the stall public bathrooms with the loud flushers and hand dryers. Start with an easier bathroom.

Home → someone else’s home → single-stall bathroom → bigger public restrooms with loud flushers.

• Ideally, you normalize another home bathroom first — like at a friend's or cousin’s house. 

• Next, try out a private bathroom in a public place, like a restaurant bathroom. You are training the context, not just the act of peeing in a potty outside the home. 

• Then move on to the stall bathrooms. Always remember your travel potty to offer options. Create a ritual around something like handwashing, so you can have something consistent in all these new situations. 

🧳 4. Potty Training Travel, Roadtrips, and Holiday Transitions

• After you normalize everyday transitions of using other bathrooms, you’ll often experience situations with travel, like around the holidays. You’ll want to prepare your toddler for these new potty adventures on the go. Prep chats help make car rides, airports, and hotels easier on your toddler. Talk about it as “potty breaks on the go.”

  
  

• You’ll want a travel potty kit with all the gear for outings and for the car. See the Potty Training Travel Guide with all the potty training travel essentials. A foldable seat, travel potty, familiar wipes — keep in mind familiarity helps anxiety around using a new bathroom.

  
  

• Let your toddler choose where the travel potty goes in a new bathroom — giving your toddler some control helps their nervous system relax. And that’s one way to help your toddler use a new potty.

💬 5. When to Step In (and How to Tell It’s Withholding)

There’s a difference between early potty training nerves about using a flushing toilet or trying out another potty, and what we call withholding. When you’re seeing withholding drama, the distress is intense, and the child is often going into dramatic meltdowns or getting very clingy and needy when they need to pee or poop, and there’s not the preferred potty (or caregiver) around.

When you’re seeing escalating distress, that’s withholding.

It’s not just nerves if you see:

• Long holding all day at school or on outings

• Peeing and pooping only in nap/night diapers

• Meltdowns when there isn’t “their potty”

• Sudden regression only in outside settings

That is early withholding — and it does not resolve by waiting.

👉 New potties can feel strange and scary to toddlers. You do not have to guess your way through that — this is exactly what I work on with families inside my Withholding Plan.

Different bathrooms can feel “unsafe” to a toddler’s nervous system at first — that is normal.You fix it through patterned exposure, familiarity, and calm repetition — not waiting and never leaving your home. And not by pressuring your child.

If your toddler is already holding, distressed, or only using one “safe” potty — that’s the point to step in with support.