Help: Potty Training for 2 Boys

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Hello guys, I've reached the "it's TIME" stage with the boys and need some advice or suggestions, pretty much anything you might have to add...lol

I am trying to potty train my guys who are 2 1/2. So any advice or suggestions would be wonderfully appreciated (warning long)...

I started allowing them to sit on their small potties fully clothed to give them the idea of what it's like since every morning they wake up dry. Sometimes they will sit and pee into their diaper, which seems to eliminate the fear of the process, and other times they don't but I keep trying because I have noticed that by doing this they get excited about it when they see them and happily point to it and say "potty! pee pee" and without asking they will sit on it, briefly, with their clothes on. When I see them do that I always excitedly ask them if they would like to go potty or if they have to go pee pee and they'll shake their head no and ask for a diaper. Since I'm trying not to make it scary by forcing it I tend to give in and get the diaper. I have managed to get both boys to pee in the morning on the potty, sans diaper, on 2 separate days but the process takes almost an hour (they like to try and hold it in as long as possible and once it actually happens it's no longer a big deal).

Has incentive I've put a potty chart for both boys on the walls in the bathroom that they can put any sticker they want on the column for the day it is that they went pee pee. This is a super small incentive and while they LOVE stickers it doesn't seem to give them enough incentive to go. On the downside when only 1 of them goes potty and gets a sticker the other guy cries and throws a fit because he isn't getting one too. I am trying to explain, in as simple of a way that I can, by saying as cheerfully as possible "Your brother got a sticker for going pee pee in the potty and when you go pee pee in the potty, like your brother did, you can get a sticker too. Do you want to try to go pee pee in the potty and get a sticker?" to which the answer is a shake of the head no with continued pouting. I thought about just giving him a different kind of sticker but I feel like it would just totally destroy this incentive idea. I'm also thinking about offering hot wheels (they love cars) but again, what do I do if 1 pees and gets a car and the other won't pee doesn't get 1? It puts me in the same boat I'm in with the stickers.

In the evening before bath Alex will willingly sit on the real potty (with the training pad over it) completely naked and while he has yet to pee in it while his brother is getting his bath he sits there happily and on request which is a great sign. So they are showing a lot of signs they are ready and a lot of interest in the process.

Also a question about the type of potty. We have 2 small potties that look more like chairs than potties so I am wondering if we should invest in 2 of the training potties that actually look like toilets to help them fully realize what you do on a real potty. When they stand up from sitting on the little chair like potties (ours sort of look like frogs) they pretend to flush it and when they are on the big potty they LOVE flushing and hearing the sounds, etc and it makes them excited. Do you think it would be beneficial for us to change the type of small potties we are using?

With boys did you find it easier to train 1 first and then the other once the first little guy was fully trained and if you did was there any regression in the one being potty trained since he constantly saw his brother getting diapers? How long did it take?

For those of you who trained your boys at the same time how did you do it? How long did it take? If they both had to go at the same time did you put one on the real potty and one on the chair or both on the chairs? Also during the training process did you put them on the potties together at the same time and intervals throughout the day?

Finally, how did you determine when to put them on the potty in the beginning to help train them to tell you when they needed to go?

Thanks in advance, anything you guys have to add would be WONDERFUL! I feel like we are just sitting in the bathroom all day with me singing songs and telling stories that I make up about using the potty...lol

 

Here's my unprofessional - sometimes controversial laughing advice from my experiences of potty-training 3 boys:

WAIT! :lol: Wait until they are older.

I potty trained all of my boys at 3.5 and it was crazy easy with less than a handful of accidents between the 3 of them. No stress. No tears. No power struggles. No tiny toilets. Straight to the regular toilets with an insert to sit on when pooping. They were totally ready, they completely understood it, and they got 1 m&m for peeing and 2 m&m's for pooping. My oldest DS was terrified of pooping in the toilet, so he would ask for a pull-up to put on when he had to poop. That lasted a few months and then around 3yrs 9months or so, he started pooping in the toilet, too. The little guys went straight from their diapers to underwear at 3.5 and never looked back.

 

I think it really depends on your kids, but at 2.5 mine didn't understand the concept of reward chart, and heck even now if they just sit on the potty they ask for a sticker... and they're 4. I've been waiting and hoping they would miraculously 'get it' instead of pushing it, but now it's enough, going to just put the diapers away and switch to underwear in two weeks (spring break). It's what I'd try at this point, and if after 2 days it doesn't seem to click at all, I'd go back to diapers for a while.

I know my kids are not the norm though, but yeah, even at 4 DD doesn't care if she's sitting in poop for hours. Sigh.

 

What if they are interested now? I know they don't understand it but I thought that with repetition they would learn and latch on to the idea quickly like they do with other things they learn. It's not so hard to get them on the potty, it's keeping them on it without fussing until they actually go.

Was it a choice to wait until 3 or a gradual process of introducing and reintroducing until they just got the idea and understood all on their own? Believe me, I'd love to keep them in diapers, minus the costs of course, for as long as I can because this potty training issues, especially when not home, with 2 at once and just me most of the time having to do it with them is VERY stressful and frustrating...lol

Thanks for this tip!

 

There is a huge difference between being ready and being excited to sit on the potty. My kids started sitting on the potty at 2.5 too... and they still don't care about actually doing anything on it.

There are kids that totally get it at 2.5 though, so it's worth a shot. I just didn't want to deal with it so I went the 'until they got the idea and understood all on their own' thing... I really don't want to deal with two kids needing to potty when we go out either. But yeah now it's time we did it, lol.

 

I agree with her! And I've trained 2 kids and am in the process of training 2 more

My oldest was nearly 3, I tried a couple of times to train him earlier and he wasn't getting it. I decided to wait until he decided he was ready, and training was a piece of cake. He decided he wanted to go in the potty like daddy one morning, and that was it.

My daughter was 3.5, same type of thing, i tried a few times and she wasn't getting it, but one morning I suggested she try her tinkerbell undies, and it was a breeze.

My twins turned 3 in feb, and I just started this week pt'ing them. I haven't even tried before this. I know from past experience that when they are older, it's far easier. Already, my dd is only having 1 accident a day, and is telling me several times a day she needs to go. My son isn't quite as good, he's still having several accidents, but he's stopping himself very quickly so he's only got damp undies, and finishing his pee in the potty. We're doing sticker charts for each, with 5 m&m's after they get 10 stickers in a row.

In my opinion, having to constantly remind them, or take them to the potty on a schedule, isn't potty trained. Potty trained is when they can tell me when they have to go and have the presence of mind to run to the potty. And in my opinion that usually happens closer to age 3-4 rather than age 2

 

I didn't think so either and that's why if they walk by the bathroom during the day and talk about it but when asked if they want to use it and say no I don't force them. So far I'm only putting them on the potty, myself, first thing in the morning and if it becomes a huge fuss for them I don't do it at all. So it's very inconsistent. I've heard so much about this 3 day potty training method where they have you take your child(ren) to the bathroom every 15 minutes for 3 days and then, as if by magic, they are 100% trained. I don't know about you but I don't have the time to take both kids to the bathroom every 15 minutes...I'd be in there with them all day long! lol

I guess I sort of feel like I'm falling behind. My MIL keeps asking DH and I about potty training, telling us it's time, trying to buy them underwear all the time, etc. and other Mom's that I know have boasted that their boys were trained before turning 3. It must be that ole Mommy inferiority complex kicking in.

Thanks ladies.

 

I agree with Jori and others. Wait! My boys were 34 months when I trained them, and it was easy. Part of it was they were ready, and I was ready. Sure they sat on the potty at 18 months when we got the toilets, etc. But that meant nothing if it became a struggle to do so!

Oh and I have a lovely mother in law who would mention a certain someone was 22 months old when he was potty trained. Mind you, he was the ONLY child she had! I also had an infant at the time! And she showed up with a Costco sized box of pullups. AND-opened them! And guess what-my boys never once used a pull up. Lesson learned for her!

Do it when you are ready-and they are ready. Don't let others dictate for you the who, what, when, where, and why. You are their mother, and mother always knows best!

 

Thanks for the support and encouragement to wait.
Call me lazy but I'm in no hurry at all!

 

Oh you have no idea how much my mom is pestering me about it... but I need a full 3-4 days at home, and it hasn't happened in forever, at least I can get it done in 2 weeks. I'm still not even sure they are ready sadly, but I have a week to push it...

 

There's a wide range of when kids are ready. And some kids are ready at age 2-2.5...and that's great it never hurts to try!! They might just get it.

But if your kiddo's are telling you no, are sitting on the potty for upwards of 15 mins and not going, or are not interested in wearing undies at all, they just aren't ready. Now, my twosome are SO excited to wear real undies all day, when they sit on the potty they are peeing almost immediately, and my dd is even telling me when she has to go. It's not perfect, and I sure wouldn't go grocery shopping with them in undies yet, but it's all part of the process and they are progressing just fine.

Personally, we rarely rarely have a 3-4 day period where we don't have to leave the house, so the 3 day method would never work for me. And even so, the 3 day method doesn't gaurantee they'll be pt'd in 3 days, it just helps them understand the feelings of "i gotta pee!" and gets you set on the path to pt'ing.

Just ignore MIL, I'm sure she walked to school, uphill both ways, in the winter, with bare feet, pulling a sled

 

Kristine, you've gotten a lot of great advice in this thread.

I have b/g twins and I thought that I would be able to train them at the same time and the same way. Boy, was I WRONG.
I won't focus on DD only to say that she was ready before my son was and much easier to train.
My son, we tried at the same time as her and he was someone who actually held his pee and poo for over 12 hours, so he would wait to pee and poo while he was asleep He was not ready.
I tried again when he was 2 years and 9 months and did the 3 day PT program. He was not trained in 3 days but by day 4 he was primarily using the potty and then stayed dry for nap and eventually night time.
It went much easier at this time because he was ready. I always say that you can try and if you find that they are not ready, you can always try again later. Like Danielle said, kids are ready at all different times and don't let anyone put pressure on you to PT them by a certain age. They will be PT-ed! Good luck!
PS: With my son, I used a little potty when we started because we have a high toilet. Even at 4, he still has to use a stepstool to stand on and reach the potty. If the potty was shorter, I would have went right to the toilet with a potty ring.

 

I waited with my boys too. My DD literally trained herself and my oldest son was trained mostly by his babysitter who kept kids at her home and was old-fashioned, no pull-up grandma. My boys were the first ones that I had to actively "train" and they sat on the potty and peed on it often starting at 2.5. We quickly found that this meant absolutely nothing since they were never consistent with it. At 3.5, it took 3 days. Literally, without the whole 3 day training method and what not. I did them separately because I had a stubborn one. But they were both waking dry and had nice stretches of dryness during the day so we tried it. The went from diapers to potty, standing up and everything. Day one, i put them on every 2 hours, day 2 I did the same but asked, "do you need to go potty?" and by day they were telling me they had to go. There are benefits to getting it done early if that works, but doing it late also has it's pros.

 

I would just try it and see. I started with the potties out around 2, maybe sooner and we never made much progress with them. I decided around 2.5 just to try to step it up a little, but not put pressure on them. Neither of them showed signs of being ready - I wasn't even sure what the signs were. If anything, I thought maybe my daughter was ready and my son was not. I decided to just work on it in the mornings after breakfast. I did naked training. I let them play in the kitchen (no carpet!), brought some toys out they weren't used to seeing and I put the potty nearby. I was armed with paper towels and lysol wipes. I explained what the potty was for, but didn't expect them to really understand. When they started peeing I ran them to the potty. I admit it was stressful on me at first, but it did pay off. I only lasted an hour our two the first day. Then I put their clothes back on and the rest of the day was our usual. I tried it again the next day, and it went a little better. By the third day I decided to give up with my daughter - it was too much chaos and my son was doing better with it. After the morning, he was doing so well I let him go the rest of the day. By the end of the week he was trained. By the end of the next week he was poop trained (all it took was me catching him once that he had to go, and ran him over to the potty) and he night trained himself at that same time. I'd like to take the credit, but he was just so easy and he knew what to do. I guess he really was just ready, even though I had no idea.

I wasn't sure when I'd start with my daughter again, but within a week or so of my son being trained, she was running and trying to go on her own (I had her in pullups at this time). She was much harder though. There were so many times I thought she was done, and then a month later she'd regress and couldn't care less about it. She'd go for months with an occasional accident, and then all the sudden she'd just give up on it and had accidents all the time. I think she was 3 by the time she was officially done. She still isn't night trained. She never wakes up to go and wakes up dry maybe 5% of the time. So I guess that's an example of training when they're not really ready and having it be a headache. I still preferred it over diapers full time though.

As far as reward charts, that part is fuzzy in my mind. We did charts, but I don't remember how effective it was. I think the most effective was m&m's. I think I gave a set amount for pee (1) and more for poo (3). I may have been a softie and given one to the non-peer, if I remember correctly. Actually, I think the problem was that my daughter spent so long training and we kept bringing the rewards out again, that my son wanted a reward too even though he'd been trained for awhile. I didn't know how to handle that. I think I went back to giving him rewards. But I soon learned the rewards weren't an incentive for my daughter and they were just confusing my son. So yeah, I guess moral of the story is when they're ready they're ready. And when they're not, incentives don't really mean much. So I'd keep it as simple as possible.

As for potties, I'd just work with what you have. I don't see it making that much difference, once they get the concept of it.

 

My kids like the big potty best, unfortunately I can never tell if they actually went or not... so it's pretty annoying.

 

^agree with the above. My 2 were trained "early" at 2 years 2 months. It took about 5 weeks and it wasn't really that hard except the first few days. I will say the only signs on readiness that I will certainly look for in Hannah as well is when we sat them on the potties for "fun" we asked them if they could pee in it and once they could force a few drops out I figured they were ready (the daycare also said they seemed really interested). They were also constantly dropping their pants and taking their diapers off and it was driving me BONKERS!!! I guess I think if they can force a little out they can have enough control to hold it in...they might just need the nudge to practice it.

As for some of your other questions, I did my 2 together but they were both at the same level. We got 2 of the Fisher Price froggy potties and then graduated to the potty ring after they were trained for about a month and now we have the toilet seats that you can lift up from a toddler seat to adult seat (worth the money to me).

 

Your boys sound similar to mine. They seemed very interested a couple of weeks ago. They asked a few times to sit on the potty, and each went on the potty two times or so in a couple of days. Now whenever I ask them if they want to take off their diapers and sit on the potty, they say "no". So we're going to wait another month or two and see where we are then. I'm definitely not forcing it, and like you, I'm not in a huge hurry.

 

Just wanted to thank you to everyone for your wonderful advice and suggestions!!

 

It is more frustrating when they are not ready, even if you are. When my twins were two years old, my husband came home and asked me, "Shouldn't they be potty trained by now?" He was serious! I guess he was talking to guys at work and apparently all their kids had been potty trained at that time (not likely). My dd could say potty and would sit on the potty at 22 months. She didn't train until she was 3y1m. She just was not ready at 2. Good luck and listen to your gut, not extended family... unless they're willing to put in the time & effort.

 

I'm not pushing it on them. We go in the morning when they want to and before bath but I'm not asking them all day long if they want to go in the potty and I'm not randomly just putting them on the potty with no indication that they need to go. Right now I'm spending my time on eliminating the fear and encouraging excitement.

 

I didn't have time to read everyone else's responses, but my general guideline is when they are ready they are ready, and when they are not they are not! My oldest who is now 8 was fully trained a little after she turned 3. We started trying to train her when she was 2 and it was a long year of coercing, reminding, bribing, false starts, etc. etc. and then when she was "really" ready it just clicked and she was done! My second child who is now 7, pretty much trained herself totally by the time she was about 22 months old...I mean totally trained by 2 and I can't really take any credit, because for some reason she was just ready and it just happened! Now for my 3 year old twins. One started training about 4-5 months ago and she was pretty inconsistent, partly because we were pretty lazy with it and would put diapers on her whenever we went out for convenience. Her twin sister wanted nothing to do with it. So we didn't push it. Then all of a sudden a month ago, she just decided to do it and she was totally trained in about 2 weeks! So, we just ditched the diapers for the 2 of them altogether and said, "There's no turning back now!" They just wear them to bed. Occasionally Rachael will have an accident but hardly ever.

So my point is with 4 different kids I had 4 different potty training experiences. M & M rewards only worked slightly for us...it really didn't motivate them if they just weren't ready. But once they were completely able to go on the potty all the time, they started getting fixated on the M&Ms and would try to go even when they didn't have to just so they could get more M&Ms!! ha! ha! So then we had to wean them off of those!

So I would give it a try and see how it goes. If it just doesn't seem to be clicking after a few weeks then...I would give it a rest and try again in a few months. For some reason, (in my non-expert opinion) I feel like there's an early window-(like before age 2) and then a later window (after age 3) that seem to be prime times for readiness....it seems to me like between age 2 is harder because they get more freaked out by it and it's a control thing. I'm not sure on that ....just what I've observed in my family and my extended family too.

Good luck! Someday you will be diaper free!! I'm enjoying it right now for the first time in 8 years!!

Shannon