Im going to scream! I need help!

My older DD was not "easy" to train, but she got it and tried. and she was PT by 2 years 8 months. My twin DDs are smart and full of life and will be 3 in August, but I swear they are potty stupid!!!! Today, which is day number 2, one would pee on the floor in front of me as I am cleaning up the "accident" of the other one and talking about how we go on the potty. What is up with that?

I'm on the verge of seriously loosing my patience. I think it is because there are 2 of them....they fight for my attention ALL the time. I guess this is no different. I NEED HELP!

What worked for you? They have to be PT by August 15 - for school (they only go till 11:30, but no diapers allowed) Any words of wisdom or encouragement would be greatly appreciated.

Niki

 

So it's only day 2 of official potty training? In that case I don't think what you are experiencing is unusual. Though I understand your frustration. We started officially potty training 3 weeks ago, and while they no longer pee on the floor while I'm helping another one potty, they do have frequent accidents. So I'm constantly dealing with wet underwear, at least with one DS. I just implemented a reward system yesterday and hope that helps. Rewards could be a sticker chart, M&Ms, etc. This morning when I said "It's time to potty and remember you'll get M&Ms if you do." Instead of the usual "Nooo!" and whining and stomping around that happened most mornings last week, they said "Yeah!" and took off running to the bathroom.

 

I am really not a big one for pushing kids with potty training. I realize you have a deadline but I'm of the belief that when they are ready, potty training is fairly easy. And if it's extremely stressful, then maybe they aren't ready yet.

However, you are only on day 2!! Give it some time! They have to first figure out what the sensation of "i need to pee" feels like. Then they have to figure out which muscles contract to stop the pee from coming out. Then they have to connect that feeling to the knowledge of "I need to pee on the potty!". And then it all has to tie together for them to be able to feel it, stop it, and go running to the potty in time.

Up until now their body hasn't stopped it at all so this is an entirely new thing to them, and that takes time. Be patient. Clean up messes calmly. Encourage them to go on the potty every 30-60 minutes. Start a sticker reward chart. Actually, at first, I give them an m&m for trying to go on the potty even if they don't succeed. Once they start going consistently, it was an m&m for peeing and 2 for pooping. Once they got better, it was 1 sticker for peeing, 2 stickers for pooping. Once they got 10 stickers in a row they got a handful of m&m's. By the time the chart was full, my dd was fully potty trained. She can go by herself and even wipe her pee.

My son didn't quite get it, and by the end of a few weeks he was still consistently peeing in his undies. We put him back into pullups, he wasn't quite ready. I am just now trying him in undies again. He's still having a lot of accidents but he's trying much better this time and I'm hopeful this will be it!

 

We took PTing very very very slow, probably slower than daycare would have liked but like Danibell said, it doesn't help to push. We introduced them to the potty and let them sit on it and just sit there without expecting results. When results happened, we praised them. After they learned what to do on on the potty, we progressed to taking them to the potty every 2 hours (this is daycare's MO) and letting them sit. Once they got into that routine, we started a sticker chart. If you go on the potty you get a sticker, if you get 10 stickers, you get a popsicle (again, daycares MO). At home and on weekends we do the same thing except we do jelly beans because they are more stubborn at home. Right now, after 2 months of this, we've progressed to where they now ask to go to the potty. I figure in July, I will move them to underwear and see how it goes.

We don't argue with them about going other than to make them go sit every 2 hours and we praise them when they go. Right now, wet pull ups are fine because they are still learning. I'd suggest that if you are tired of messes, put them in pull ups and see if you can get them to be dry in pull ups before putting them in underwear.