Skip to content

Top Navigation

Parents Parents
  • GETTING PREGNANT
  • PREGNANCY
  • BABY NAMES
  • BABY
  • TODDLER
  • BIG KID
  • FUN
  • HEALTH
  • PARENTING
  • FOOD
  • HOLIDAY
  • News
  • THE STAY AT HOME GUIDE
  • SHOP
  • OUR MAGAZINES
  • MORE

Profile Menu

Your Account

Account

  • Join Now
  • Your Profile
  • Your Profile
  • Newsletters
  • Manage Your Subscription this link opens in a new tab
  • Give a Gift Subscription this link opens in a new tab
  • Cozi Family Organizer this link opens in a new tab
  • Help
  • Logout
Login
Subscribe
Pin FB

Explore Parents

Parents Parents
  • Explore

    Explore

    • 22 Chore Ideas for Every Type of Kid

      Find a chore your kid loves to do, and start a habit of wanting to help out that'll last a lifetime. Read More Next
    • Top 5 Mom Friend Problems—And How to Fix Them

      Parenting is so much easier with good pals. Learn to overcome friendship hurdles and bond with women who get you. Read More Next
    • How to Sleep Train Toddlers and Big Kids

      I’m a pediatric sleep specialist who has seen it all, and I’m here to tell you that it’s not too late to get your child to (happily) stay in his own bed all night long. Read More Next
  • GETTING PREGNANT

    GETTING PREGNANT

    See All GETTING PREGNANT

    Your Chances of Getting Pregnant Every Day of the Month

    When sex coincides with your most fertile ovulation days, you'll increase the chances of conceiving. Get to know each phase of your cycle to get pregnant faster.
    • Ovulation
    • Reproductive Age
    • Maximizing Your Fertility
    • Pre-Pregnancy Health
    • Trying to Conceive
    • Dealing With Infertility
    • Genetics
  • PREGNANCY

    PREGNANCY

    See All PREGNANCY

    Signs of Approaching Labor: How to Tell Your Baby is Coming Soon

    Anxiously awaiting your baby’s arrival? Learn to recognize the first signs of labor approaching, which signal that your little one might make an appearance soon.
    • Signs of Pregnancy
    • Pregnancy Week-by-Week
    • Giving Birth
    • Labor & Delivery
    • Pregnancy Symptoms
    • Due Date Calculator
    • Pregnancy Complications
    • Fetal Development
    • Gender Prediction
    • Baby Showers
  • BABY NAMES

    BABY NAMES

    See All BABY NAMES

    These Are the Most Popular Baby Names of 2020

    Curious which baby names stole the show this year? From new classics like Noah to tried-and-true faves like Ava, here are the top boy and girl names of the year so far, plus more naming trends to consider.
    • Baby Girl Names
    • Most Popular Names
    • Names by Origin
    • Twin Names
    • Baby Boy Names
    • Names by Religion
    • Celebrity Baby Names
    • Baby Name Quizzes
  • BABY

    BABY

    See All BABY

    How to Decode Your Baby's Cough

    Caring for a baby with a wet or dry cough? Listen for wheezing, hacking, or barking first, then read on to find out what's normal and when it's time to worry.
    • Newborn Care
    • Crying Baby
    • Health
    • Baby Development
    • Safety
    • Gear
    • Breastfeeding
    • Diapers
    • Sleep Issues
    • Feeding
    • Nursery
  • TODDLER

    TODDLER

    See All TODDLER
    • Preschool Activities
    • Behavior & Discipline
    • Toddler Development
    • Milestones
    • Potty Training
    • Starting School
    • Health
    • Safety
    • Childcare
  • BIG KID

    BIG KID

    See All BIG KID

    How to Deal With Bullies: A Guide for Parents

    Mean kids aren't just a middle-school problem. The trouble has trickled to the youngest grades. Learn how to spot it—and how to protect children of all ages from bullies at school.
    • Education
    • Health
    • Food & Nutrition
    • Bullying & School Problems
    • Child Development
    • Safety
    • Manners & Responsibility
  • FUN

    FUN

    See All FUN

    17 Budget-Friendly Kids’ Birthday Party Ideas

    A fun celebration doesn’t need to cost a pretty penny. Throw a memorable bash with these clever cost-cutting kids’ birthday party ideas.
    • Birthdays
    • Indoor Activities
    • Outdoor Activities
    • Arts & Crafts
    • Printable Coloring Pages
    • Kids' Entertainment
    • Best Toys
    • Holidays
    • Family Vacation Ideas
  • HEALTH

    HEALTH

    See All HEALTH

    All About Coronavirus COVID-19: A Concerned Parent's Guide

    Here’s everything you need to know about the disease that originated in Wuhan, China.
    • ADD & ADHD
    • Allergies
    • Autism
    • Cold & Flu
    • Coronavirus and COVID-19
    • Cough
    • Down Syndrome
    • Emergency Aid
    • Fever
    • Medication & Vitamins
    • Obesity
    • Rashes
    • Stomach Aches
    • Vaccines
  • PARENTING

    PARENTING

    See All PARENTING

    The Stay at Home Guide for Parents

    Everything you need to thrive at home as a family.
    • Positive Parenting
    • Parenting Style
    • Celebrity Parents
    • Family Dynamics
    • Divorce
    • Home
    • Adoption
    • Just for Mom
    • Money
    • Toy Recalls
    • Stroller Recalls
  • FOOD

    FOOD

    See All FOOD
    • Family Recipes
    • Baby Food
    • Toddler Finger Food Recipes
    • Hints & Tips
    • Healthy Eating
    • Birthdays
    • Holiday Recipes
    • Quick & Easy Meals
    • Food For Pregnant Women
  • HOLIDAY

    HOLIDAY

    See All HOLIDAY

    44 Fun Valentine's Day Crafts for Kids

    Spend an afternoon making these Valentine's Day cards, decorations, and edible projects for kids. Bonus: These craft ideas are perfect for preschoolers and the ideal homemade gift for a few special someones!
    • Christmas
    • New Year's
    • Valentine's Day
    • Easter
    • Mother's Day
    • Memorial Day
    • Father's Day
    • 4th of July
    • Halloween
    • Thanksgiving
    • Hanukkah
  • News
  • THE STAY AT HOME GUIDE
  • SHOP
  • OUR MAGAZINES

    OUR MAGAZINES

    See All OUR MAGAZINES
    • Parents
    • Parents Latina
    • Ser Padres
  • MORE

    MORE

    • Newsletters
    • Contests
    • ParentsIRL
    • Adulting
    • First Year Playbook
    • Celebrate Your Way

Profile Menu

Subscribe this link opens in a new tab
Your Account

Account

  • Join Now
  • Your Profile
  • Your Profile
  • Newsletters
  • Manage Your Subscription this link opens in a new tab
  • Give a Gift Subscription this link opens in a new tab
  • Cozi Family Organizer this link opens in a new tab
  • Help
  • Logout
Login
Sweepstakes

Follow Us

  1. Home
  2. Parenting
  3. Celebrity Parents
  4. Celebrity Moms & Dads
  5. They Do It, Too! 10 Celebrity Parents Talk Potty Training

They Do It, Too! 10 Celebrity Parents Talk Potty Training

By Serena Kappes
March 25, 2016
Skip gallery slides
Save Pin
Credit: Tinseltown/Shutterstock
From very costly mishaps to creative methods (M&M's as a reward, anyone?), find out what these star parents had to say about their potty training methods—and how keeping a sense of humor is key.
Start Slideshow

1 of 11

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Jimmy Kimmel

Credit: Helga Esteb/Shutterstock

It seems Jimmy Kimmel’s 2-year-old daughter Jane takes after her famous father in that, well, she’s a little weird. But those aren’t our words! “She’ll only go to the potty on the trampoline, which is insane,” the funny man recently told People magazine, adding, “But that’s her. She’s a weird kid.” Kimmel joked maybe Jane’s odd potty preference is “some kind of karmic punishment” for his time on The Man Show, which featured a segment in which women jump on trampolines in slow-mo. But in truth, potty training is all about doing what suits your kid best, a lesson Kimmel and his wife Molly McNearney clearly understand. The Emmys host also told Ellen DeGeneres, “We have this Elmo potty — it’s like pooping on a slot machine. All sorts of noises are happening.” Hey, whatever works!

1 of 11

Advertisement
Advertisement

2 of 11

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitt

Credit: Northfoto/Shutterstock

Sure, she's a world-famous celebrity, but Angelina Jolie says parenting and the potty trips that come along with it are a surefire way not to lose touch with reality. ''The great thing about having a bunch of kids is they just remind you that you're the person who takes them to go poop!'' the mom of six with hubby Brad Pitt told Total Film magazine.

2 of 11

3 of 11

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Reese Witherspoon

Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

On the red carpet of the 2015 Golden Globes, Reese Witherspoon had more than the awards on her mind. "As we speak, there's potty training going on," she told Entertainment Tonight about son Tennessee. "Today we're winning—yesterday we weren't." In fact, the day before, the Oscar-winning actress Instagrammed a picture of Tennessee's potty with the book Everyone Poops by its side and the message, "More inside scoop into the wild world of #GoldenGlobe prep? One day to go...and we're potty training... #GGPrep#Wishusluck#toddlerlove."

3 of 11

Advertisement

4 of 11

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Alicia Silverstone

Credit: Jerod Harris/Getty Images

When her son Bear was only six months old, actress Alicia Silverstone first started working with him on elimination communication. "Just like your baby tells you it needs to eat or it's tired, they tell you when they need to go to the bathroom," Silverstone (who's also the author of The Kind Mama) told People. "If you pay attention, they actually have a pause button and will give you enough time to get to a place that makes it comfortable for them to go. It's amazing. It's the most natural, primal thing."

4 of 11

5 of 11

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Jennifer Lopez & Marc Anthony

Credit: Gregg DeGuire/Getty Images

Mishaps are bound to happen during potty training, but for Jennifer Lopez and then-husband Marc Anthony, a swimming excursion for then-3-year-old twins Max and Emme turned into a very costly oopsie. "He had an accident in the pool. It got into the filtration system and they charged me $6,000 to clean it. That was expensive," Anthony said during an appearance on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno. "He took a $6,000 dump in the pool!"

5 of 11

6 of 11

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Anna Faris & Chris Pratt

Credit: Jason LaVeris/Getty Images

You need to have a sense of humor when it comes to potty training. Actress Anna Faris tweeted a picture at husband Chris Pratt of their 3-year-old son Jack wearing swim trunks with a visible puddle below him: "Potty training is going so great! I'm a natural!" she wrote. Pratt, who was on location at the time filming a movie, responded hilariously. "Those are swim shorts," he tweeted. "Put him in the pool and that's perfectly acceptable behavior. I'm proud of both of you."

6 of 11

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

7 of 11

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Alyson Hannigan

Credit: Michael Bezjian/Getty Images

One day while potty training daughter Satyana, Alyson Hannigan took her to a grocery-store bathroom—but the automatic toilet wasn't exactly a welcome sight for the toddler. "She said, 'I don't want to use that potty.' I think it's because those automatic toilets sometimes flush while you're on them, and they can be a little scary," Hannigan explained to The Bump. "I was holding her on my hip and talking to her about why she didn't want to go, and then—she peed all over both of us! I was standing there staring at this potty, soaking wet!"

7 of 11

8 of 11

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Mayim Bialik

Credit: Helga Esteb/Shutterstock

Mom of two and author of attachment-parenting book Beyond the Sling Mayim Bialik says her oldest son Frederick learned to signal when he needed to go to the bathroom by the age of 10 months. "Before he could crawl, walk, or talk, he signed reliably when he had to use the potty," the actress (who's a proponent of elimination communication) wrote on Today Parents about her first son. "By 12 months of age, he stopped peeing in his cloth diaper," she continued. "By 17 months he was wearing tiny underwear and, now almost 6, he has no conscious memory of ever pooping in a diaper or of wearing diapers at all." Also astonishing: Bialik started EC with Frederick's little brother Miles on the second day of his life!

8 of 11

9 of 11

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Britney Spears

Credit: Barry King/Getty Images

For Britney Spears, the most difficult adjustment to motherhood was "teaching my boys potty training," she told Cosmopolitan. If the mom of Jayden and Sean thought getting them to use the potty was tough, at least she knows there are more challenges ahead. When asked in the same interview to fill in the blank, "I'm dreading the moment when my sons ask me..." she responded, "how babies are made." Good luck with that one, Brit!

9 of 11

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement

10 of 11

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Rebecca Romijn and Jerry O'Connell

Credit: Jason Merritt/Getty Images

"I'm doing something that I shouldn't be doing, which is bribing them with M&M's," Rebecca Romijn joked on The Talk about potty training her then two-and-half-year-old twins Dolly and Charlie with husband Jerry O'Connell. "But it's do or die at this point! I'm like, 'If you go pee pee on the potty, you get an M&M,' and they keep going, 'On a plate?' So every time they go I get the biggest plate I can find [and] put one M&M in the middle of it."

10 of 11

11 of 11

Save Pin
Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Melissa Joan Hart

Credit: Helga Esteb/Shutterstock

Mom of three Melissa Joan Hart had an unusual way of getting her first son through the potty training process. "I did end up cutting a hole in Mason's diaper to try to get him to go #2 on the potty, and when it fell out of his diaper, he ran around the bathroom, yelling and stepping in it," she told Parent Dish. "It was traumatic, but it worked."

11 of 11

Replay gallery

Share the Gallery

Pinterest Facebook

Up Next

Share the Gallery

Pinterest Facebook
Trending Videos
Advertisement
Skip slide summaries

Everything in This Slideshow

Advertisement

View All

1 of 11 Jimmy Kimmel
2 of 11 Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitt
3 of 11 Reese Witherspoon
4 of 11 Alicia Silverstone
5 of 11 Jennifer Lopez & Marc Anthony
6 of 11 Anna Faris & Chris Pratt
7 of 11 Alyson Hannigan
8 of 11 Mayim Bialik
9 of 11 Britney Spears
10 of 11 Rebecca Romijn and Jerry O'Connell
11 of 11 Melissa Joan Hart

Share options

Facebook Tweet Mail Email iphone Send Text Message

Login

Parents

Magazines & More

Learn More

  • About Us
  • Subscribe this link opens in a new tab
  • Customer Service this link opens in a new tab
  • Cozi Family Organizer this link opens in a new tab
  • Advertise this link opens in a new tab
  • Content Licensing this link opens in a new tab
  • From Our Sponsors this link opens in a new tab
  • Affiliate Program this link opens in a new tab
  • Sitemap

Connect

Follow Us
Subscribe to Our Newsletter
Other Meredith Sites

Other Meredith Sites

  • 4 Your Health this link opens in a new tab
  • Allrecipes this link opens in a new tab
  • All People Quilt this link opens in a new tab
  • Better Homes & Gardens this link opens in a new tab
  • Bizrate Insights this link opens in a new tab
  • Bizrate Surveys this link opens in a new tab
  • Cooking Light this link opens in a new tab
  • Daily Paws this link opens in a new tab
  • EatingWell this link opens in a new tab
  • Eat This, Not That this link opens in a new tab
  • Entertainment Weekly this link opens in a new tab
  • Food & Wine this link opens in a new tab
  • Health this link opens in a new tab
  • Hello Giggles this link opens in a new tab
  • Instyle this link opens in a new tab
  • Martha Stewart this link opens in a new tab
  • Midwest Living this link opens in a new tab
  • More this link opens in a new tab
  • MyRecipes this link opens in a new tab
  • MyWedding this link opens in a new tab
  • My Food and Family this link opens in a new tab
  • MyLife this link opens in a new tab
  • Parenting this link opens in a new tab
  • People this link opens in a new tab
  • People en Español this link opens in a new tab
  • Rachael Ray Magazine this link opens in a new tab
  • Real Simple this link opens in a new tab
  • Ser Padres this link opens in a new tab
  • Shape this link opens in a new tab
  • Siempre Mujer this link opens in a new tab
  • Southern Living this link opens in a new tab
  • SwearBy this link opens in a new tab
  • Travel & Leisure this link opens in a new tab
Parents.com is part of the Parents Network. © Copyright 2021 Meredith Corporation. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Policythis link opens in a new tab Terms of Servicethis link opens in a new tab Ad Choicesthis link opens in a new tab California Do Not Sellthis link opens a modal window Web Accessibilitythis link opens in a new tab
© Copyright . All rights reserved. Printed from https://www.parents.com

View image

They Do It, Too! 10 Celebrity Parents Talk Potty Training
this link is to an external site that may or may not meet accessibility guidelines.