Takin' Care of Business With the Boon Potty Bench

After our great experience with Boon's Animal Bag, we knew their Potty Bench was worth a look. They agreed to send one to a ZRecs guest reviewer in Seattle, Joshua McNichols, who also happens to be in the family. His toddler son G has used Boon's convertible potty seat and bathroom step stool to get into the potty-training groove.

When it comes to potty training, there are two basic routes you can take as far as hardware is concerned. You can make your toddler climb up onto an adult toilet using a combination of step stools and padded seats, which you must then find a place to store. Or you can place a toddler-sized potty on the floor, which you must then find a place to store.

Since the first option is cheaper, we tried that first - but our two-year-old son G (Z's cousin) didn't look comfortable up there, feet dangling and all. And we couldn't really leave him alone with a book in his lap to see what might happen, since he could fall off and break his head on the bathtub. There are some products that wrap around the toilet and eliminate the safety and discomfort issues, but they are huge, ugly and expensive.

In a small bathroom, finding a place for a stand-alone potty is daunting. Since we didn't want to be constantly pulling the potty in and out of storage all the time, a potty that converted to a step stool seemed like a good solution - it could stay at the sink all the time, allowing him to wash his hands on his own. Such a product might be called a "stand-alone potty/step stool," but that's a mouthful. Boon calls their product a Potty Bench, so we'll use that term from here on.

While there are a number of convertible products on the market, most of them have fatal flaws. I refuse, for example, to buy a potty that requires batteries. I think we can generate enough excitement about what transpires on the potty without hearing "a number of regal tunes."

Also, many of them require you to disassemble the potty to convert it into a stool. How inconvenient is that?

With Boon's potty bench, G can actually perform the transformation from potty to stool himself. Just close the lid, and boom, it's a stool. And how stable it looks! (Our sink is 36 inches tall rather than the standard 32 inches, making this a bit of a stretch for our toddler.)

Like many stand-alone potties, its receptacle is mounted in a removable drawer. There's a detachable "pee shield" for boys. Here's something clever Boon did - they made the shield out of a flexible rubber, just flexible enough that when you close the lid on it, it collapses down into the bowl. You don't need to pull it off every time to close the lid! And that means G can do it by himself. It took a couple minutes of flexing it to get it "bendy" enough to perform this function perfectly, but now it works fine. Also, it does not come out so easily that G is tempted to play with it, as he did with the pee shield on his padded seat.

G's sock monkey demonstrates correct use of the potty bench.

G's sock monkey demonstrates incorrect use of the potty bench.

The side storage compartments for storing toilet training materials are probably the weakest aspect of Boon's design. The drawers' sliding covers only function when the potty is open - practical enough. But G is constantly confused by the fact that you can't close them unless the potty is open. Even an adult may have difficulty closing them, as the plastic covers flex in a way that tends to block them from closing completely. But now I'm nitpicking on a minor design flaw, easily overcome by the adults in the family after a couple minutes of practice. For the most part, the covers stay open and G uses them to store his potty-time books.

As a space-saving toddler potty solution, the results are good but of course not unalloyed. Even as a stool, it's still a stool in the middle of a very small bathroom. When I brush my teeth at the sink, I'm either straddling it or standing on it (yes it can take an adult's weight). But the Boon Potty Bench asserts its right to exist even when not in use by just looking cool. Like something Eero Saarinen would have designed if he'd ever recognized the untapped potty seat market. So when I trip on it, I feel a little less self conscious.

In our opinion, Boon's potty bench is well worth the extra $5-10 you'll pay over its $25 competitors in the convertible potty seat/step stool market. Boon combines nice styling with good functional design in this excellent potty seat. It's not perfect, but it's the best we've seen.

You can read customer reviews of the Boon Potty Bench and buy it on Amazon.com, or purchase it and other Boon products on Boon's website.