They are potty trained and I am thrilled

Hi all you bleary eyed twin parents, I LOVE LOVE LOVE this site and have benefited many times from lots of great tips and stories so I would love to add my own re: PT since it
gave me a great deal of stress.
So my twin girls are 35 months but I still 'correct' for their prematurity (mainly to make myself feel better re: development-a lot can happen in three months). So they are
actually 32 months corrected. They are starting preschool next month and I was having major anxiety about having them trained which is a requirement.

So long story short about my first DD: Totally disinterested in the potty and wouldn't even sit on it clothed. However, she's a real thinker and I guess she was observing everything her twin sister was doing, since her sister was more enthusiastic initially. Anyway, about a month or so ago I brought out the potty, had her run around in underwear a bit, and she basically caught on in 24 hours, and I'm not kidding. I can count on one hand the accidents she has had since. She stopped wearing pull ups at night and during her nap after the third day. She will go in the potty, regular toilet, public washrooms, whatever. I am amazed.

My second DD: Introduced the potty early, like around 14 months, and semi interested but not really. When she was 24 months I pushed a little harder and she started gradually
sitting more and even using it. Around 28 months she was doing great, then really regressed and had many accidents all day. I was expected our third little guy so I gave up and left it. After my DD #1 (see above) trained herself, DD #2 was more intersted but not really. I was more firm with her at this point because I knew she could do it from before. So I reintroduced her and it's been about five days or so and she is essentially trained. She is happy to go, goes on her own, asks to go, and has no issues. I still put a pullup on at night just in case and she is still wet in the morning, but no rush with that.

So these are the practical things I have realized may have helped:
1. Trying and retrying and being patient with them-they just weren't ready before and forcing them like I tried to because we had a third baby coming didn't result in any success!
2. Constant talking about it, be it reading books, having discussions, role modeling, etc. I really stress how yucky it is to 'go' in your diaper, and how preschool doesn't allow diapers. I also told my second DD that the store ran out of diapers and there was only underwear this week.
3. Buying nice underwear-works for girls any age I guess!
4. Tailoring my attempts with them according to their personalities-as I said my second is very strong willed and also very sensitive, and for her she would feel bad about accidents, or wouldn't use the potty in front of certain people, things like that. My first treats the potty like a total non issue so I do too, and with my second I give her more praise, time, privacy.
5. Two smarties every time they had success! Also learned their colours this way because they had to tell me what colours they were choosing!
6. I also relinquished control-I finally put the potties out in their main playing environment on our main floor and let them run around nude-which I was totally against before. Before, they would have to run to me to tell me, then I would whisk them to the bathroom, and of course it was too late. They BOTH did way better way faster when I gave them complete control and let them go to the potty themselves.

Hope this helps someone in some way! I don't like the expression, 'they'll be PT'd by Kindegarten, don't worry!' I certainly didn't want them in diapers until then! So anyway, I can now confidently tell you it will happen, and you might have to just get creative with your twins. Best wishes!

 

Congrats!

 

:woo:

I trained my boys a year ago, at 34 months! It feels so good doesn't it!?!? And they were SOOOOO easy(I did 3 day training method, and Nicholas had accidents the first day-and that was it. Anthony did for the first two days and that was it for him). Annabella is 25 months, and I am in no way eager to start potty training her! :laughing:

 

:yahoo: Congratulations!!!

 

:clapping: :clapping: congrats!!

 

That's great! We will be looking at PT'ing a bit more seriously in the next month or so. They seem more ready and go now if we can catch them in time.

Thanks for sharing your story, it helps!!

rebecca