A portable ‘pee cup’ exists so your toddler can wee in the car

Car trips can become a cause for anxiety and how tricky it can sometimes be to control their bladder. 

That’s why one Amazon business decided to capitalise on our urine-y misfortune by inventing the ONEDONE Portable Baby Child Potty Urinal Emergency Toilet for Camping Car Travel and Kid Potty Pee Training. (Rolls off the tongue, right? We’ll stick with ‘pee cup’.)

It claims to be a “lifesaver for moms”, made of quality materials and designed with an anti-sliding design and strong seal that is safe from any leaks. 

According to their description, this portable urinal is good for use anywhere and everywhere, “whether in the supermarket, hospital, highway, park, department stores, car and other public places or restroom …”

Oh, and don’t think that boys get all the fun. They’ve made this handy design for girls, too: 

Just do not ask us to shed light on how the above girl model works … it all looks scary and precarious to us.

WTFlip Cup?

When a colleague shared the Amazon link to this portable potty on a work group chat – there was a lot of snorts and scoffing.

“WTF? Imagine if you forgot it was for wee!” wrote one.

“Did they have to give it a face? And a smiling one at that?!” questioned another. “And would you really put it in your handbag afterwards?!”

The absurdity that a parent would attempt to get a potty-training toddler to muster enough aim to avoid any pee-cup-fiasco was heightened by pictures of mums strolling nonchalantly along the beach, a pee cup hanging off their pram:

Despite all our laughs, the reviews are pretty good …

The product has had 484 reviews on Amazon … and a whopping 82 percent of purchasers gave it a stellar five stars.

“If you have little kids you need this,” one of many glowing comments reads. “This is by far the best purchase I have made in a long time. My son is 3 years old and there are times when he forgets to tell me in time that he has to go potty so he ends up having an accident. This portable potty is great. I can put it in his bag that we take with us and if the need for him to go potty comes and we don’t have a bathroom nearby we can use this.”

That’s not to say its anti-leak technology isn’t without flaws. 

“My boy has a small bladder, so this would fill up rather quickly and ever fill over (yuck). Because he would pee so much in this, when I would go to clean it, I always got pee on my hands …”

Were we wrong to laugh?

With so many positive reviews, were we wrong to laugh? Or should we all have been making our kids pee in cups on long car trips since way back?

Looking at the comments on a product post on Crafty Mommy Ideas, we found more fellow sceptics.

“Does nobody piss on the side of the road anymore? Asking for a friend.”

“Teaching kids to pee into cups. Dear god, no!”

Though, again, we now realise parents have been avoiding numerous road trip stops with a convenient pee bucket since way back.

As one reader recalled, “(Back in the day) we didn’t stop. Dad seemed to have tunnel vision when we were on the road. Mum always had a lidded bucket along just in case.”

Hmmm. Guess we can’t knock it till we try it?

This post was originally published on Kinderling Kids Radio. Download the Kinderling app for more great stories.