toilet safety

[cara1]

I know, I know, I should just keep DS out of the bathroom altogether. I blame DH for this one. But, needless to say, DS loves to play in the bathroom when we're in there. The problem is that he has found those little knobby things on the sides of the base of the toilet. You know, the things that loosely cover the screws. He loves to pull them off. Any ideas to protect these things, other than banning him from the bathroom (which I can't convince DH we should do anyway)? TIA.

[kalaheo13]

We're having the same problem with our 1 year old. I thought about caulking them in place. Any ideas to keep babies from flushing the toilet all day long?

[brubeck]

I say flushing the toilet is a good thing. You will be happy that they are so interested in it when you begin potty training. Some Moms can't get their kid near the potty because they are afraid they will be sucked down on the flush!

Try to keep flushing for special occasions and only let him do it once (such as after you've used the toilet). I actually let my daughter start doing this at about 14 months because she was interested in what I was doing on the potty. I showed her how I made a pee pee and wiped, then let her flush and we washed our hands together. Transitioning to hand-washing limited the flushing time.

Generally though you should keep the bathroom doors closed when they are unoccupied. We use the doorknob covers.

[cara1]

Well, to update...I ended up removing those knobby things altogether. No more problem! DS isn't attracted to the bare screws at all.