Potty Training Twins

As you might’ve guessed by the title of this blog, life in our house has been a bit chaotic this month.

The twins are now two-and-a-half (seriously, where has the time gone?!) so we figured it was worth a shot to give this potty training thing a go.

I decided on the 3 day potty training technique because really, the quicker the better when it comes to your house being covered in pee.

I took the girls to the store to purchase their big girl underpants, talked up “no more diapers” all week, hid the diapers (even though the guide says to throw them out, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it… which as you’ll read later in this blog, turned out to be a good decision), got the potties and toilet insert ready, smarties and stickers on hand and lots of old rags for cleanup and then it was ‘go time.’

The only exception I made to the method was to use ‘sleepy time underpants’ (pull ups) for naps and nighttime. I didn’t want the girls to associate them to diapers so I got the pull up kind and have never once called them diapers or let them see me throw them out the next day.

So how did the 3 day method go?…

Day one was a DISASTER! Pee everywhere, tears (mainly from the girls but some from me) and what seemed like the longest day ever. I went to bed that night with my head spinning. I honestly didn’t know if I could keep it up; staying positive and praising the accomplishments and not addressing the accidents. And what was I supposed to do if they got some pee in the potty but most of it on the floor trying to GET to the potty? Did that constitute a smartie and a sticker? Talk about confusing.

Maybe they weren’t ready? But the guide says that any child over 22 months is ready… were mine the exception?

Then it was day two and guess what? One of the girls got it! It’s like it just ‘clicked’ for her like the guide said! My husband even went upstairs to find her sitting unannounced on the toilet having a poop! I was in shock and awe and so happy and proud!

Side note: Another transition that happened totally unplanned during this whole process was the girls no longer having milk in their sippy cups in the morning and at night. There was just so much going on that it was forgotten altogether. They still have milk in their cereal and other dairy throughout the day but they haven’t missed it…at least not yet.

And while one of our girls had nailed potty training, the other just wasn’t having it.

I figure it could’ve gone one of two ways; it could become a competition between the twins to see who could get more smarties and stickers, or one twin would rebel and want to do something entirely different than her sister.

For us, it ended up being the latter of the two.

She would try sitting on the potty and say “no” (as if to indicate it wasn’t ready to come out yet) and then after the fourth or fifth time of doing this she would stand there and pee herself and announce as it was happening. She wouldn’t allow us to sit her on the potty (or run her to it mid-accident as indicated in the guide), it had to be on her terms or she would throw a fit.

The smarties weren’t working, neither were the stickers and she got into the habit of thinking it was a fun game to need a new pair of big girl underpants if she wet the pair she was wearing.

We kept at it for a week straight. She would poop on the potty almost every time but when it came to pee, more was ending up on the floor than in the potty.

I had a girls night planned months in advance that fell on day six of potty training. Hubby stepped up to the plate and tackled it all on his own. As I drove away for the night I was hoping and praying that it would just ‘click’ on daddy’s watch. Sadly it didn’t, and she just started to show signs of anxiety and frustration with the whole potty training issue.

I returned the next day and we decided (after she stood on the kitchen table and peed) that we needed to step back and regroup. It obviously wasn’t working for her or for us so we pulled the diapers back out and explained to her that when she’s ready to put pee pee in the potty then we will put the diapers away.

Within a day she had adjusted back to her old, happy, confident self. She tells us as she’s peeing in her diaper and is starting to show signs of wanting to use the potty.

We kept our other daughter in big girl underpants and continued on with the process, hoping that her sister will eventually want to join in on the potty training fun. Power of suggestion I suppose.

The only issue really is that I feel like somewhat of a pack mule on outings; having to bring not only a diaper bag but a potty and extra ‘just in case’ clothes.

We aren’t going to rush her though, I’m confident that she will be out diapers in her own time. After all, I don’t know of many who wear diapers in University.