Potty Training Time

We are showing signs of readiness and would like to start working with the twins - they are 2 today! HAPPY BIRTHDAY ETHAN AND ABBY!!!!!!!
Anyway, I am interested in what approach others have taken at the beginning. I was this to be a stressfree as possible. I don't know if I should casually work with them or REALLY work with them. What did you do? THANKS FOR SHARING.

 

QUOTE(Momto1now3 @ Jun 13 2007, 10:55 AM) [snapback]290296[/snapback]
We are showing signs of readiness and would like to start working with the twins - they are 2 today! HAPPY BIRTHDAY ETHAN AND ABBY!!!!!!!
Anyway, I am interested in what approach others have taken at the beginning. I was this to be a stressfree as possible. I don't know if I should casually work with them or REALLY work with them. What did you do? THANKS FOR SHARING.



I put them in Gerber trainer pants with rubber pants and then set a timer. Every 20 min or so the "pee-pee timer" would go off and we would all yell and clap. They'd run to the potty and try to go. If they were dry they got 2 mini M&Ms and if they peed they got a star on a sticker chat. DD LOVED Ariel at the time so if she got 10 stickers we watched Little Mermaid and DS got a Mathbox Car when he got 10 stickers.

Took about a week with pee and a couple with poop. Then we worked on going independently.

Tracy

 

I got a lot of good advice from this forum, and I think it all helped me. I implemented several different people's suggestions. Our girls showed some signs of readiness just after 2nd birthday, and I placed a potty seat in the family room and in both other bathrooms, and got toilet rings for the other toilets in the house. I found that having the capability to let both girls use a potty simultaneously was extremely helpful (each bathroom had a potty seat and then a toilet ring; just one potty in the family room, tho).

Their interest didn't pan out in the first months after their 2nd birthday though (again, for us; I know each child is different). I tried 2 separate "2 day events" where I put them only in underwear. But they weren't ready - they couldn't control things. The word fiasco comes to mind. I backed off completely, bought pull-ups. The potty seats stayed where they were though. 5 months later, at 2 and 1/2, we tried again and this time had some limited success with my "2 day events". They really started to recognize things and draw some cause/effect conclusions. I did use m&m candies for a while because they were getting upset with the "bodily functions" and I wanted to make the whole elimination thing more of a happy occassion: they got 1 m&m after using the potty. I didn't want to use rewards, but for us it really helped.

At this point they wore pull-ups all the time except when I did the "2 day events", which I would do about once a week or so. I had them sit on the potty at various points during the day when I thought they might be "successful". They would happily use the potty and always had some sort of elimination. But - they still couldn't anticipate needing to go.

Oh - I should say that at night they always wore pull-ups even during my 2 day events.

A lot of advice I got at this point was to stop using the pull-ups and they would figure it out faster. And I think I agree with this advice, but I was unwilling to stay home all day long. I think I could have "bucked up" and had them wear the plastic pants over their underwear when we went out, but they didn't like them (yes, I did buy them - they are a bit bulky, I can't blame them for not liking them) and I didn't want to introduce a negative.

So, for another 4 months we used the pull-ups and happily used the potty too. Suddenly, 3 months before turning 3, one daughter gets the hang of anticipating and starts saying "I need to go potty"! She started wearing underwear every day, had at least one "accident" a day, but at the end of 2 weeks, the accidents were almost gone. My other daughter still didn't have the hang of anticipating, so she still wore pull-ups (happily - luckily there was no competition or anything like that). Just after 3 years old, I put the other daughter in underwear for a while thinking she must be just about ready; but she wasn't and we went back to pull-ups (completely - we didn't even do the "2 day events" for a while because she was showing absolutely no interest). About 2 months later she started saying "I need to go potty" and she changed to underwear. Her accident period was longer than her sister's however - it took about 1 month for her to stop having an accident every day.

They will be 3 and 1/2 late in July and they are both good now at knowing when to go. We stopped using pull-ups at night several months ago - but we must watch fluid intake after 6pm or there will be a wet bed.

 

QUOTE(Tracy623 @ Jun 13 2007, 09:33 AM) [snapback]290479[/snapback]
I put them in Gerber trainer pants with rubber pants and then set a timer. Every 20 min or so the "pee-pee timer" would go off and we would all yell and clap. They'd run to the potty and try to go. If they were dry they got 2 mini M&Ms and if they peed they got a star on a sticker chat. DD LOVED Ariel at the time so if she got 10 stickers we watched Little Mermaid and DS got a Mathbox Car when he got 10 stickers.

Took about a week with pee and a couple with poop. Then we worked on going independently.

Tracy


Tracy...
This is an awesome approach. The rubber pants? Are they as same as the Vinyl ones Ive seen?

I have underware for them...and also did you use seats??

 

This is my experience potty training a single girl:

I always let her watch me in the washroom. I showed her how I could start and stop my pee and made it kind of a game of stop and go. I told her she was too young to use the toilet and had to go in her diaper still but someday when she was ready she could use the potty. I read two books at bedtime, one potty book and one story book.

When she started showing signs of readiness like unhappiness with dirty diaper, I made a big event of telling her that I thought she was ready. We made a big thing about buying underwear. We bought lots (I knew there would be lots of accidents) and we bought a potty with a soft removeable seat that we could put on a big potty and take with us. I got the 'Once upon a potty' video and watched it together. She was naked on the bottom and I put the potty in front of the tv. She loved the movie and song and we watched it over and over again.

We still wore diapers not pull ups at night but in the morning it was back into underwear. Yes, there were many accidents. We went places and there were accidents in the car seat, in stores, everywhere but she learned. I reminded her about the stop and start thing and eventually there were more successes than set backs. Sometimes she would start to pee them stop and run to me or the potty. It helped to carry the potty around the house whereever we went. when we went on a long car ride we took the potty and pulled over if she said she had to go.

I had special stickers and tattoos for successes and a no big deal, here's a change of clothes for accidents. Only took a few days of cold turkey for her to start to get it.

Emily seemed to be getting better and better slowly so I kept at it but if for some reason she had seemed to regress or become not ready I would have stopped. For us though it didn't take long.

I will say this though. Potty training isn't, okay they're trained, we'll never have an accident again. You can go months without an accident and then when you least expect it, it happens. Emily didn't have an accident for over a year then at the beginning of first grade she had one. Was I ever shocked!

I am a firm believer in cold turkey. It's free and they can really tell they are going. I hope it works with my twins and with a boy, I have one this time.

I can't think of anything else we did. I hope this helps someone.